The fire could no longer be smothered. It was an inferno.
I stopped crying. I wiped the tears from my face with a bloodstained hand.
I looked at David. He stood there, hands on hips, radiating arrogance.
“Listen to me,” David sneered, crouching beside me so our faces were level.
I’m a lawyer. One of the best. I know every judge in this county. I play golf with the Sheriff. If you try to tell anyone, I’ll destroy you.
He jabbed me in the chest.
It’s your word against ours. My mother will testify you slipped. Mark… Mark didn’t see anything, did he, Mark?
Mark, standing in the doorway, looked terrified. “I… I didn’t see anything.”
“See?” David asked with a cruel smile, like a shark’s. “No witnesses. I’ll have you committed, Anna. I’ll say you’re mentally unstable. Postpartum psychosis before birth.
I’ll lock you in a ward where no one will hear you scream. You’ll never beat me. I know the statutes. I know the loopholes.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. I saw the cheap suit. The desperate ambition. The smallness of his soul.
“You’re right, David,” I said. My voice was calm, but it didn’t tremble. “You know the statutes.”
I pushed myself up until I was sitting, leaning against the cabinets.
“But you don’t know who wrote them.”
David frowned. “What are you talking about? Is the blood loss making you delirious?”
“Give me your phone,” I said.
“What?”
“Give me your phone,” I repeated. “Call my father.”
David laughed. It was a frantic, disbelieving sound. He stood and looked at his mother. “Did you hear that? She wants to call her daddy. The retired clerk from Florida. What’s he going to do? Write me a stern letter?”
“Call him,” I said. “Put it on speaker.”
David shook his head, pulling his new iPhone 15 Pro from his pocket. “Fine. Let’s call him. Let’s tell him his daughter is a clumsy hysteric who can’t even keep a pregnancy.”
He unlocked the phone. “What’s the number?”
I recited it from memory. It wasn’t a Florida area code. It was a Washington, D.C. area code. A specific prefix used only by high-ranking government officials.
David paused as he typed it. “202? That’s D.C.”
“Just dial, David.”
He pressed call. He put it on speaker, holding it out mockingly.
The phone rang once. Twice.
Chapter 4: “This is the Chief Justice”
The phone didn’t go to voicemail. It didn’t go to any secretary.
It clicked open.
“Identify yourself,” boomed a powerful, authoritative voice.
It wasn’t a casual greeting. It was an order. The voice was deep, gravelly, and carried the weight of absolute, unquestionable authority.
David blinked. “Uh… hello? Is this Mr. Thorne?”
“I said identify yourself,” the voice repeated, colder this time. “You’ve dialed a restricted federal line. Who is this?”
David’s arrogance faltered slightly. “This is David Miller. I’m Anna’s husband. Look, your daughter is causing a big scene here, and…”
“Anna?” The voice changed instantly. The official tone cracked, revealing the terrified father beneath. “Where is my daughter? Put her on the phone.”
“She’s right here,” David said, rolling his eyes. “Crying on the floor because she slipped.”
He shoved the phone toward my face.
“Dad?” I whispered.
“Anna?” My father’s voice sharpened. “Anna, why are you calling this number? Why are you crying?”
“Dad…” A sob broke my composure. “They hurt me. David and his mother. Sylvia pushed me. I fell… I’m bleeding, Dad. There’s so much blood. I think… I think the baby’s gone.”
The silence on the other end was absolute. It was a void.
David looked at me, confused. “Why are you telling him that? He can’t help you.”
Then the voice returned. But it was no longer a father’s voice. It was God’s voice.
“David Miller,” my father said.
David jumped. “Yes?”
“This is William Thorne, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.”
David froze. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He stared at the phone as if it had turned into a grenade.
Every lawyer in America knew the name William Thorne. He was the lion of the Court. The man who terrified senators. The man whose opinions shaped the essence of the nation.
“Justice… Thorne?” David squeaked. “But… Anna said…”
“You have touched my daughter,” my father continued, low and vibrating with rage so potent it seemed it could travel through the wire and strangle David. “You have harmed my grandchild.”
“It was an accident!” David shouted, panicking. “She fell! I’m a lawyer, I know—”
“You are nothing!” my father roared. “You are a speck of dust on my shoe! Listen carefully, you son of a bitch. Do not move. Do not touch her again. Do not even breathe too hard.”
“I… I…”
“I have activated the U.S. Marshals Emergency Response Team,” my father said. “They are two minutes from your location. They have orders to secure the asset. That asset is my daughter.”
“Marshals?” David looked out the window. “They can’t do that! It’s a domestic dispute!”
“This is an assault on the family of a Protected Federal Official,” my father said.
Pray to whatever god you believe in, David. Pray she’s alive when they arrive. Because if not, I will skin you myself.
The line went dead.
David dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor beside me with a metallic clink.
He looked at me with pure terror. He looked at Sylvia, who was pale as a sheet.
“Your father… is the Chief Justice?” David whispered.
I smiled. My teeth were stained with blood from biting my lip.
“I told you, David,” I whispered. “You don’t know who wrote the laws.”
