I called Nathan the next morning. Nine a.m. Early enough that he'd still be in bed, groggy, easier to manage.

"Hey," I said. Soft voice. A little tired around the edges. "Can we talk?"

He hesitated. I could hear him sitting up. "Yeah. Yeah, of course."

"I've been thinking," I said. "About everything. The office. The wedding. Us."

Silence on his end. Waiting.

"I don't want to fight," I continued. "I just want to work through this. Like adults."

The relief in his exhale was audible. "Babe. Thank you. I knew you'd come around."

I let the pause sit there. Just long enough.

"I need to understand what happened," I said. "With the renovation. Walk me through it. I want to know."

"It's not complicated," he said. His voice had that easy confidence back. The one he used when he thought he'd already won. "Capri needed the space. You weren't using it. I called a guy. He came in, took down the wall, built out the studio setup. Two weeks, start to finish."

"Which wall exactly?"

"The one between your office and the hallway. It was in the way."

"And he said it was safe to remove?"

"Yeah. He said it was fine. Just drywall."

I wrote that down. Not that I needed to. But the act of writing steadied my hand.

"Who was the contractor?"

"Some guy Capri found. I don't remember his name. Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't," I said. "I'm just trying to picture it."

"You're overthinking this," he said. But he was smiling. I could hear it. "It's done. It looks amazing. Capri's already getting sponsorship interest."

"That's good," I said. "I'm happy for her."

I wasn't. But he believed me.

"I'll come by tomorrow," I added. "We can talk about the deed thing. Your mom was right. We should do it properly."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

He laughed. A real one. "I knew you'd get there. I told Capri you just needed time."

I hung up and stared at my notes.

*He called a guy. Took down the wall. Just drywall.*

Every word was a brick I'd use later.

---

Over the next three days, I played the part. I asked questions. I listened. I let Nathan talk.

He told me about the pink LED strips he'd ordered himself. The ring light Capri picked out. The way he'd surprised her with the neon sign. He was proud. He wanted credit.

I gave it to him.

"That was thoughtful," I said.

"She cried when she saw it," he said. "Happy tears."

I smiled into the phone. "I bet."

At night, I compiled everything. His admissions. The timeline. The contractor he couldn't name because Capri had hired someone off Craigslist who didn't pull permits. The wall he'd called "just drywall" without checking the plans.

I had enough.

---

I ran into Reece on Thursday evening. I was coming back from a client meeting downtown. He was leaving early for a shift, still in his scrubs, a travel mug in one hand.

"Delaney."

"Hey."

He paused at his door. Looked at me a beat longer than usual. "How are you sleeping?"

The question surprised me. Not because it was invasive. Because it wasn't.

"Better," I said.

It was almost true. I'd been sleeping in blocks. Three hours. Four. Dreamless.

"Good," he said. He didn't ask why it had been bad before. He just nodded. "That's good."

He went inside. I stood in the hallway a moment longer than I needed to.

Then I went into my apartment and called Margaret Huang.

---

We met at her office Friday afternoon. Victor Solis was already there, sitting in one of the client chairs with a clipboard on his knee.

Margaret gestured to the seat beside him. "Walk us through it."

I spread the floor plans across her desk. Original drawings. Annotated. I pointed to the wall Nathan had removed.

"This is a partition," I said. "Two-by-four framing. Non-structural. It holds nothing."

Victor leaned forward. "But it looks structural."

"To someone who doesn't know what they're looking at, yes."

Margaret tapped her pen against her notepad. "And the mortgage recall?"

"Fabricated," I said. "The bank isn't calling anything. But he won't know that. He's never read a mortgage agreement in his life."

"He'll panic," Victor said.

"He'll panic," I agreed.

Margaret flipped through the documents I'd brought. The deed. The joint account statements. The Venmo trail to Capri. Gloria's retirement account transfers.

"This is clean," she said. "Cleaner than most cases I see."

"I'm an architect," I said. "I document."

She smiled. It wasn't warm. It was sharp. "He's going to sign."

"I know."

Victor looked at the floor plan again. "When do you want me there?"

"Tomorrow. Nine forty-five. Nathan's coming at ten."

"I'll be early," Victor said.

Margaret closed the file. "Once he signs the relinquishment agreement, the debt transfers to him. Legally. He can't walk it back."

"Good," I said.

She looked at me. Really looked. "You're sure about this?"

I thought about Nathan's hand on my stomach. The way he'd said *you're not going anywhere now* like he'd bought me. The way Capri had smirked from my chair in my gutted office. The way Gloria had touched my arm and called me *sweetheart* while asking me to sign away what I'd built alone.

"I'm sure," I said.

Margaret nodded. "Then let's take him apart."