Chapter 7 - Drawing the Line
They hired Marcus Reed. Marcus was not a society lawyer; he was a former federal prosecutor who despised the city’s elite and had built a terrifying reputation for dismantling corrupt dynasties. When Ryan and Maya walked into his sterile, glass-walled office later that afternoon, Marcus didn't offer polite pleasantries.
“I reviewed the police report and the custody petition your mother drafted,” Marcus said, leaning back in his leather chair. “It’s a classic, aggressive play. She creates a crisis, gaslights the mother, and swoops in as the wealthy, stable savior. If she had succeeded, Maya would be in a psychiatric facility right now, and Evelyn would have full guardianship of Oliver.”
Maya shivered, the reality of the near-miss chilling her to the bone. “She told everyone I was unstable. She told my own friends I was cracking under the pressure.”
“Isolation is step one,” Marcus noted, writing on a legal pad. “But you have the nursery footage, correct?”
Ryan placed a small, silver encrypted flash drive on the desk. “High definition. With audio. You can clearly see Evelyn take the inhaler from the nightstand, put it in her designer bag, and then stand there watching my son turn blue while telling Maya she is overreacting.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow, a predatory gleam in his eyes. He plugged the drive into his laptop. For the next ten minutes, the office was dead silent, save for the horrifying, ragged sound of Oliver wheezing through the computer speakers. Maya closed her eyes, unable to watch the screen, but Ryan forced himself to stare at it. He forced himself to watch his mother’s face—calm, calculating, completely devoid of empathy as his son suffered.
When the video ended, Marcus closed the laptop with a sharp snap.
“Well,” Marcus said softly. “This isn't just child endangerment. This is attempted manslaughter. And the custody petition proves premeditation.”
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“Evelyn’s lawyer threatened to smear Maya in the press,” Ryan said.
Marcus smiled, a terrifying expression that put Maya entirely at ease. “Let them try. If they leak a single word about your wife, I will release this video to every major news network in the country. By tomorrow morning, Evelyn Whitmore will be a pariah. We aren't just going to beat her in court, Ryan. We are going to burn her empire to the ground.”
