Her expression turned to stone. Before I could even process what was happening, she lunged into my personal space and struck me across the face. The sound of the slap was unnaturally loud in the quiet courtroom, sending my head whipping to the side. Immediately, a metallic tang of blood filled my mouth as a sharp throb radiated across my cheek. For a heartbeat, time seemed to stop.
Then, the room erupted into a flurry of hushed voices. Marcus made no move to intervene or apologize. He didn’t even look surprised; instead, he wore a faint, amused smirk, as if he found the violence entertaining. “Perhaps now you’ll understand your place,” he whispered.
I stood there trembling, my hand moving to shield my stomach by instinct. Tears of frustration and pain burned in my eyes, and I looked around the room for any kind of help or authority. But my lawyer wasn’t there, the bailiff was occupied near the entrance, and the bench was still empty.
“Go ahead and cry louder,” Elara sneered, her perfume cloying as she leaned in. “Maybe if you’re lucky, the judge will feel some pity for you.”
It was at that moment that I looked up toward the bench, finally ready to scream the truths I had been hiding for years. I was ready to beg for safety and finally admit to the world that the man I had married was a danger to me.
And the man sitting on the bench looked back at me as if the world had just stopped spinning.
Judge Samuel Rowan.
He was a man known for his unshakable composure and his rigid adherence to the law. He had dark hair with a touch of gray at the temples and eyes that were the exact same shade as mine—eyes that had looked out for me my entire life, even when I had pushed everyone away in a misguided attempt at independence. His hands gripped the edge of his desk so hard his knuckles turned white, his jaw tightening as he stared at me. In that split second, four years of silence vanished.
He was my brother.
I hadn’t seen him in nearly half a decade. Marcus had been very careful in how he isolated me, mocking my family, manufacturing conflicts, and convincing me that I was a burden to them until I eventually stopped reaching out. Sam had become a ghost I lived with in my memory.