Chapter 3

We found Ethan still outside, his protest sign drooping in his hand, looking exhausted but resolute.

My father, who rarely showed emotion, walked right up to him. He put a hand on the boy' s shoulder.

"Son," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "What they did to your mother is a disgrace. Don' t let them break you."

Ethan looked up, startled, his tough exterior cracking for just a moment. I saw the vulnerable fifteen-year-old underneath.

I stepped forward and pulled out my phone. "Give me your number," I said. It wasn' t a question. "I have resources. I can help you get justice for your mother."

He hesitated, then slowly recited the digits. His hand was trembling slightly as he handed me his cheap flip phone to type my number in.

"Why would you help me?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"Because what they' re doing is wrong," I said simply. "And because no one should have to fight a battle like this alone."

My father gave him a final, encouraging nod. "Kid, in this world, you don' t get what you deserve. You get what you take. Remember that."

The next day, I put my private investigator on it. It didn' t take long. The PI confirmed my worst suspicions: the Lesters had paid a fixer to have Ethan' s mother buried in an unmarked grave in a potter' s field on the outskirts of the city. Cheap. Anonymous. Erased.

The fury that filled me was white-hot. This wasn' t just neglect; it was a deliberate act of cruelty, meant to silence a woman even in death.

Ryan called me that afternoon, his voice oozing with his usual fake charm. "Maddy, about last night... my grandmother can be a bit much. Don' t listen to her."

"I' m busy, Ryan," I said, my voice ice.

"But I wanted to tell you about my D.C. internship! It was amazing, I met-"

I hung up.

Then I called my father' s top lawyer. Within a week, we had Ethan' s mother' s body exhumed. I paid for the finest cherrywood casket, a beautiful plot in a private cemetery overlooking a lake, and a marble headstone engraved with her name and a tribute: "A loving mother, remembered always."

I ignored every one of Ryan' s twenty-seven calls that week. I was done with him. My focus was now on the boy with the fiery eyes, the boy who deserved so much more than the scraps his father' s family had thrown him. He was like a stray dog, kicked and abandoned, and all I wanted to do was take him in and show him he was worthy of a home.