Elena sat across from me with the encrypted drive on her knee.
She did not speak.
She did not look at me.
The city lights slid over the silver lines under the skin of her right hand and kept moving.
My wolf wanted to rip the drive out of her lap.
I kept my hands still.
Tonight I signed, or she took the accident mirror external and walked out of my range in seventy-two hours.
That was not a bluff.
Not anymore.
The lawyer’s conference room was plain glass and pale wood.
No Blackwood crest.
No Pack seal on the wall.
A video notary window stayed open on one screen.
Paper stacks sat in three labeled folders on the table.
The lawyer did not waste time.
“Three documents,” she said.
“The settlement fixes your terms. The court package goes through joint escrow within seven days and can still be paused before delivery. The property transfer becomes irreversible when you sign.”
Elena pulled her chair closer.
“Every page. Every attachment. Every release node,” she said.
“I want a tracking number on all of them.”
I let her track it.
Fighting only made her push harder.
“Give her the tracking numbers,” I said.
Seven days left one opening.
I checked the escrow partner’s name against the roster and turned the phone face down.
I picked up the pen and signed from page one.
Settlement.
Court package.
Property transfer.
My signature went where the lawyer pointed.
No speeches.
No promises.
Only ink.
When I finished, Elena took the pen in her left hand and signed.
Then she set her right palm on the biometric film.
Silver scars cut across the pads of her fingers.
The first capture broke halfway through.
The machine flashed red.
The lawyer reached for the wrist support.
“We can use the alternate witness procedure if this hurts.”
She seated her wrist in the support the lawyer brought over.
The second capture turned green.
Night-bloom and blood slipped through her control.
My hand moved across the table.
She pulled hers back before I reached it and asked the lawyer for a tissue.
The video notary stamped.
Three evidence bags closed, and the escrow tracking numbers appeared.
The lawyer pressed the last seal flat.
“Custody chain starts now.”
Elena photographed every number before she looked at the seals.
She still did not look at me.
“From this second,” she said, “any pause, any address change, any withdrawal leaves a trail.”
I watched her check the bags again.
“You finally trust a piece of paper?”
Her eyes finally lifted to mine after we left the kitchen.
“I trust the trail,” Elena said.
“Not you.”
She checked all three seals before returning the pen.
I checked the partner’s name once more.
Near dawn, both terminals chimed.
The property transfer was locked.
The court package had seven days to reach its destination.
Elena checked the tracking once, then set T-7 as her lock screen.
Outside the safe house, Felix Thorne stood under the awning with his hands in his pockets.
His familiar salt-and-stone scent reached the car before his voice did.
His wolf was awake, measuring every vehicle and exit, but he stayed beyond Elena’s reach.
Her shoulders lowered one fraction when she saw him.
Mine locked.
No hug.
No claim.
He looked at her brace, then her face.
“Can I take the bag?”
She handed it to him.
“It’s signed. Seven days to delivery.”
Felix nodded once.
“Your lawyer sent the tracking. I’ll keep a second copy.”
She gave him access to the tracker, then stopped under the awning.
“I may sleep through coffee.”
“I can move it.”
“Don’t cancel it.”
He looked up from her bag.
“I won’t.”
She went inside.
I stayed behind the window with my phone in my hand.
I opened the escrow roster again.
The same partner’s name.
I dialed.
He answered on the second ring, voice already careful.
“Release is not due yet.”
“Before release,” I said, “report to me every hour.”
A pause.
“Without legal cause, we cannot touch the seals.”
“I am not telling you to touch them,” I said.
“I only want to know, before anyone else, when cause appears.”
“Cause for what?”
“Any fluctuation on the Blackwood family medical side. Matriarch’s side. Anything that moves.”
He went quiet long enough that I heard his office clock tick through the line.
“Understood,” he said at last.
“Hourly status. No action without written cause.”
I ended the call.
On the system screen, the seal icon sat still and bright.
SEALED — NOT YET RELEASED TO COURT.
Seven days.
Thorne had a coffee appointment.
I still had the sealed package and a man who answered my calls.
I turned the volume up for the next status alert.
“Every hour.”
***
Elena’s POV
Five days later, I pulled my coat on and checked the lock screen one more time.
Court-delivery deadline: T-2.
Felix had moved our coffee to the afternoon after the signing.
I slept through the original time.
When I finally reached the cafe, he was at a window table with no documents in front of him.
“No floor plan?” I asked.
“I looked at the exits on the way in.”
“Of course you did.”
He asked what I had wanted to study before nerve regeneration.
No one had asked me that in years.
I told him about the school microscope I had broken, and he laughed before I got to the part where I blamed the teacher.
We stayed after the cups were empty.
When he asked if I wanted another, I said yes.
Now his message waited above the countdown: Same table when you’re ready.