Chapter 1

The judge' s voice was a low drone, a meaningless sound in the vast, polished courtroom. I didn' t hear the legal words he used. I only heard the final two.

"Not guilty."

The air rushed out of my lungs. My world, which had already shattered once, broke into even smaller, sharper pieces. Across the room, Chloe Davis, the woman who had mowed down my five-year-old daughter Lily in her sports car and left her to die on the pavement, let out a delicate, relieved sob.

Her hand, manicured and steady, reached out. Not for her family, but for her lawyer. My husband.

David Chen, my estranged husband and Lily' s father, took her hand. He didn' t just shake it. He pulled her from her chair, and right there, in front of the judge, the jury, and me, he wrapped his arms around her. He held her close, whispering something in her ear that made her smile. A genuine, radiant smile.

The sight was a physical blow. I stumbled to my feet, my chair scraping loudly against the floor.

"David!"

He turned, his face a mask of annoyance, as if I were a stranger interrupting a private moment.

Outside, the courthouse steps were a chaotic swirl of reporters and flashing cameras. I pushed through them, my only focus on the man I had once loved. I grabbed his arm, the expensive fabric of his suit feeling alien under my trembling fingers.

"How could you?" I demanded, my voice cracking. "How could you defend her?"

He shook my hand off, his grip surprisingly rough. He shoved me back a step.

"It's over, Sarah," he said, his voice cold, devoid of any emotion. "It was a tragic accident. The court agrees. You need to accept it and move on."

"Move on?" I repeated, the words tasting like poison. "She killed our daughter, David. Our Lily."

"And what would her going to jail accomplish?" he shot back, his voice rising. "It won't bring Lily back. It will only ruin another life."

A soft, musical laugh cut through the tension. Chloe Davis had glided up beside him, her arm looping possessively through his. She looked at me, her eyes filled with a triumphant pity.

"He's right, you know," she said, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. "You really should try to let go of all this anger."

I stared at them, standing together, a perfect, powerful couple framed by their team of lawyers and security guards. They were an impenetrable wall of money and influence. I was just a grieving mother in a worn-out dress, my grief a weapon too small and dull to ever pierce their armor. I was nothing. I was powerless.

A cold, hard resolve began to form in the pit of my stomach. They thought the system had saved them. But the system was made of people. And I knew someone who still believed in justice. The memory of my father, his stern face, his police uniform, his Medal of Valor, flashed in my mind.

I took a deep breath, the city air thick with exhaust fumes.

"This isn't justice," I screamed, my voice raw and loud, cutting through the noise of the crowd. "And this is not over!"

David' s face twisted in fury. He stepped toward me, his finger jabbing the air.

"You're making a scene, Sarah. You're embarrassing yourself."

"I'm embarrassing myself?" My laugh was a broken, hysterical sound.

"This is your fault, you know," he said, his voice dropping to a vicious whisper. The reporters leaned in, their cameras like hungry eyes. "If you had been watching her more closely, if you weren't so distracted, Lily would still be alive. This never would have happened."

The world went silent. His words hit me harder than any physical blow. He didn't just defend her killer. He blamed me.

He took Chloe's hand and turned away, leaving me alone on the steps, the weight of his accusation crushing me into the cold, hard stone.