“How much is that?” Daniel demanded, his voice sharp with anger. “That is my money.”

“It is the court-ordered settlement from your prenuptial carve-out, Daniel,” Clara said. “It is forty-two million dollars.”

Daniel lunged toward the desk, but his foot caught the rug again, and he had to catch himself on the back of a chair.

“Forty-two million?” he gasped. “That is the liquidity I need to satisfy the margin call on Monday.”

He looked at me, his eyes bloodshot.

“Emily, please,” he said. “If you take that money, you ruin me. I will go to prison.”

“You made those choices, Daniel,” I said.

I walked over to the desk, ignoring him, and picked up the heavy silver pen that sat in its marble holder.

It was the pen he had used to sign the contracts that bought our first house, the pen he used to sign away my gallery contract ten years ago.

I turned to the signature page of the divorce papers.

My hand did not shake.

I signed my name: *Emily Carter*.

I did not write his name.