“Supervised visits with my own son?”
“Better than nothing.”
I gripped the car seat. “If you try to take him from me, I will destroy you.”
She smiled. “We’ll see.”
Running
I didn’t go home. Evan had access. I drove straight to my lawyer.
“You need to leave now,” she said. “File for emergency custody before they do.”
That night, I hid in a roadside motel, my baby sleeping against my chest, fear humming in every shadow.
The next morning, my lawyer called.
“He filed first.”
“They’re calling me unstable.”
Without proof, the odds were stacked against me.
“There’s only one person who might help,” I said.
The Truth
Evan’s cousin Jenna answered immediately.
“You’re not the first,” she said. “Marilyn did this before. She took my brother.”
She sent me a recording—Marilyn’s own voice bragging about buying judges and crushing mothers who stood in her way.
I forwarded it to my lawyer.
“This changes everything,” she said.
The Reckoning
I went straight to Marilyn’s house and played the recording.
The color drained from her face.
Thomas shouted. Evan stared at his mother in horror.
