Chapter 4

Mark leaned over the railing, his voice a low, mocking whisper that was for my ears only.

"You really think you can win this, David? You' re a mess. Look at you."

I just stared at him, my heart pounding with a hatred so pure it felt like a physical force.

"You have no idea what you' re up against," he continued, enjoying my silent fury. "Sarah... she' s very persuasive. She' ll sign whatever I ask her to. She always does."

"She would never," I growled, though a cold dread was already seeping into my bones.

He chuckled, a nasty, grating sound. "Wouldn' t she?"

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it with a theatrical flourish and held it up for me to see. It was a settlement agreement. It stated that Lily' s surviving parent, Sarah Jenkins, agreed to accept a paltry sum of twenty thousand dollars and waive any and all further legal action, civil or criminal, against Mark Thompson.

At the bottom of the page, in her neat, confident handwriting, was her signature.

The paper swam before my eyes. The air left my body in a rush. A strangled, animalistic sound tore from my throat as I lunged forward again, trying to rip the paper from his hand, trying to rip his smug face apart.

"NO!"

Bailiffs swarmed me, pinning my arms, their grips like iron bands. I thrashed and screamed, a man utterly broken, my last shred of hope snatched away and torn to pieces before my eyes.

Mark leaned in close, his breath hot on my ear as the bailiffs held me fast.

"It was just an accident, David," he whispered, his voice laced with venomous pleasure. "A happy accident, for some of us. Now she' s not a burden anymore."

The world went red.

When the judge returned, it was over in less than five minutes. The settlement, signed by the victim' s mother, was presented. The case was dismissed. Just like that. The justice system I had naively believed in had been bought and paid for with a signature from my treacherous wife.

I don' t remember leaving the courthouse. The next thing I knew, I was standing in my mother' s living room, trying to explain the unexplainable.

When I told her what Sarah had done, she didn't cry or scream. She just sat down in her worn armchair, the one where she used to read stories to Lily, and a terrible emptiness came over her face. The light in her eyes just... went out.

I couldn't leave her like that. I packed a bag for her and brought her to my house, determined to take care of her, to shield her from any more pain. We were all each other had left. For a few days, we existed in a silent house of grief, moving like ghosts, the loss of Lily a constant, suffocating presence. My mother barely ate, barely spoke. She would just sit by the window for hours, staring at nothing.

One afternoon, I came home from a necessary trip to the grocery store. The house was too quiet.

"Mom?" I called out, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach. "Mom, I' m home."

Silence.

I ran upstairs. Her bedroom door was closed. I pushed it open.

She was there, on the floor, an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the nightstand beside a note.

My legs buckled. I crawled to her, my hands shaking too much to even check for a pulse I knew I wouldn' t find. The note was just a few lines, her handwriting shaky and faint.

"I can' t live in a world where a mother could do that to her own child. Tell Sarah she has finally killed me, too. I' m going to be with my Lily."

The sirens, the police, the paramedics... it was all a nightmarish echo of the day I lost Lily. I had lost everyone. My daughter. My mother. My entire world had been burned to the ground by two people. I was alone, adrift in an ocean of grief so vast it was drowning me.

As I sat on the living room couch, wrapped in a coarse blanket by a police officer, my body numb and my mind a hollow cavern of pain, my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again. Finally, I reached for it, expecting a call from a concerned relative.

It was a text message. From an unknown number.

"David, Lily's death wasn't what it seemed. It was no accident. I have proof. Be careful who you trust."

A single, tiny spark ignited in the darkness. Hope. Or maybe something else entirely. Maybe it was a fuse.