BOUND BY DEBT

Delphine's POV "Sign here, Miss Reyes." My hands won't stop shaking, and I hate that I can see it. I put my hands on my thighs. Still the same. My legs start shaking too. What is wrong with me. I've cried in front of people before, argued in boardrooms, stood my ground when clients doubted a twenty-five-year-old could run a firm. But nothing prepared me for this kind of fear, quiet, cold, sitting in my chest like a stone I can't swallow. The lawyer's office is quiet and cold, adding to the tension. There's a paper in front of me with a black pen, and what's written boldly across the top is: Marriage agreement between Delphine Reyes and Luke Greenwood. I keep my eyes on the paper so I don't have to look at anyone, counting the seconds between breaths just to have something to focus on. If I look up, I'll cry. If I cry, I'll lose whatever's left of the composure my father spent years teaching me to hold onto. Three years. One marriage. My father's debt, gone. I try to remind myself why I'm doing this. Isabel's face. The firm's dark windows. My father's name reduced to a line item in someone else's ledger. It should be enough. It should make this easier. It doesn't. Across the table, Luke isn't looking at the contract at all. He's watching me sign it, and there's something in his expression I can't quite place, not triumph, not exactly. Something closer to calculation, like he's already three moves ahead of whatever happens in this room. His eyes flick, just once, to a folder sitting near his elbow, one he hasn't opened, one with my father's company logo printed faintly on the corner. I don't know why that detail catches in my chest the way it does. I file it away with everything else I don't have room to think about right now. I finish signing and stand, offering the lawyer and Luke a handshake. Shaking the lawyer's hand is easy. He didn't do anything to me, he's just here to finalize the paperwork. But when it comes to Luke Greenwood, it isn't as easy as I thought it would be. My hand curls into a fist before it ever reaches his. I force my fingers open, force my mouth into something close to a smile. It feels like lying with my whole body. "Congratulations," he says, low enough that only I hear it. "You've just made the smartest decision of your father's life. Even if he isn't here to see it." Something in me cracks, quietly, privately, where no one else can see. He doesn't get to talk about my father like that. Not today. Not ever. It isn't cruel, exactly. It isn't kind either. It sits somewhere I don't have a name for yet, like he knows something about my father that I don't, and enjoys knowing it. Before I can respond, before I can even decide what my face is supposed to do, he says the rest of it, loud enough for the room. "Mrs. Greenwood." The second I hear it, I release his hand like it burned me. Others of his family standing nearby see it happen, surprise flashing across their faces. Luke only smiles, like causing the whole scene cost him nothing at all, like my humiliation is simply part of the paperwork too. I grab my bag and leave before anyone else takes their leave. I don't wait for an announcement, don't wait to hear anything else about the marriage. I've heard enough. My whole body wants to run, and for once, I let it. I rush toward the elevator. It can't come fast enough. My chest is tight, my throat burning, holding back everything I refuse to let them see in that room. I press the button again and again, like urgency alone could bend the laws of machinery. Mrs. Greenwood. You've just made the smartest decision of your father's life. Both lines repeat in my head, tangled together, and I can't tell which one unsettles me more. Maybe it's not supposed to be separate. Maybe he meant for both to sit in me at once. The doors finally open, and I step out alone. The second they close behind me, I let my back hit the wall. I wipe my face clean, straighten my jacket, force my shoulders back the way my father taught me. Reyes women don't fall apart in public. I used to think that was strength. Right now it just feels like another debt I'm paying. My legs feel weak now that no one is watching. I hurry to my car, checking the rearview mirror twice before I even start the engine. My key misses the ignition on the first try. My hands still haven't stopped shaking. Why would Luke say that about my father. What does he know that I don't. Sitting in the driver's seat, I press the heel of my hand against my eyes until I see spots, like that could push the whole day back out of my head. It doesn't work. Nothing about today is that simple. Three years, I remind myself. Just three years, and then I get my life back. I don't fully believe it, not the way I need to. I pull my phone from my purse before I lose my nerve and call Sofia. She picks up on the fourth ring, right as I'm about to give up. "Hey, how did the meeting go?" My voice cracks the moment I try to answer. Through tears, I explain everything, the contract, the debt, the name I never agreed to take on, and the strange thing Luke said about my father right before he said it. There's a long silence on the other end. Too long. "Delphine," Sofia says carefully. "What exactly did he say?" "That I made the smartest decision of my father's life. Like he knew him." My voice sounds small even to me, small in a way I'm not used to hearing from myself. Sofia doesn't answer right away, and when she finally does, her voice has changed completely, careful, hesitant, like she's choosing every word before she lets it out. "Delphine, I need you to come here. Tonight, if you can." "Why? You're scaring me." "Because I found something in your dad's files today. Before Luke ever said a word to you, before any of this, your father already knew the name Greenwood. He wrote about it. Years before any of this happened." I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles ache, my whole body suddenly cold despite the warm car. "What did he write?" Sofia's voice drops lower, softer, like she's bracing me for something she already knows will hurt. "That he owed them something. Something bigger than money."