The kitchen grew so quiet that the dripping of the turkey fat into the roasting pan sounded like a ticking clock.
David smirked, leaning his hip against the counter where my blood was beginning to stain the hem of my apron. He held his phone out like a trophy, confident that the voice on the other end belonged to a ghost, an old man from a broken past I had lied about to save face.
“Who is this?” David asked, his tone dripping with the condescending arrogance he usually reserved for junior associates. “This is David Vance. I’m Anna’s husband. She’s having a bit of a… hysterical episode at dinner, and she insisted I call you. Though I must say, old man, your greeting is a little dramatic, isn’t it?”
There was a three-second pause on the line. A heavy, suffocating silence. When the voice spoke again, the smooth, casual mockery on David’s face didn’t just fade—it froze.
“David Vance,” the voice said. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It possessed the kind of absolute, terrifying weight that could only belong to a man who had spent three decades deciding the fate of nations. “You are speaking to Chief Justice Arthur Sterling. And you have exactly sixty seconds to tell me why my daughter is crying, or I will ensure the United States government dismantles your life piece by piece.”
Sylvia’s smirk vanished. She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her manicured nails clicking against her teeth.
David’s phone nearly slipped from his fingers. The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse under the harsh kitchen fluorescent lights. His mind, trained for rapid legal defense, completely stalled. Every lawyer in the country knew that voice. They watched his televised hearings. They studied his landmark Supreme Court rulings.
“C-Chief Justice?” David stammered, his smooth lawyer voice cracking into a pathetic whine. “Anna’s… Anna’s father is dead. She grew up in the state system—”
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