CHAPTER
ONE
Tanner
"Sole custody will be awarded to Mrs. Qincet…"
The words haunted me as I walked down the courthouse steps, each one echoing in my skull. My client, Mr. Qincet, had stormed out of the room the minute the verdict was spoken, his face a mask of devastation I knew I'd see in my nightmares. He'd told me before all this began that he wouldn't be able to watch his ex-wife gloat if she won.
And then she had.
While not always perfect in the courtroom, I was considered one of the better family lawyers in the area. My success rate was high, and I often ensured the child's safety above all else. I'd worked hard to achieve the praise.
Bled for it, really.
Endless nights in the office, my eyes burning under fluorescent lights. Researching anything and everything involved in the cases until the words blurred together. Building damn near impenetrable evidence, brick by careful brick.
None of it mattered this time.
Mr. Qincet had come to me months ago explaining he believed his ex-wife was purposefully turning his children against him. He also believed there was some type of abuse happening, though he could never prove it. The desperation in his voice that day had lodged itself somewhere deep in my chest, like a splinter I couldn't remove.
I'd not been able to find anything to agree with his suspicion; however, after meeting the kids, I could see how they'd been made to believe their father was the bad guy. Their words were something an adult would say, not a child.
They were rehearsed… careful… wrong.
Worst of all, their gazes always fell as they said anything. It was as if they didn't want to throw their father under the bus, yet they didn't know any other way to respond. The way they'd looked at me, those small faces trying so hard to be brave.
God, it gutted me.
This case should have been simple. The goal was primary custody for Mr. Qincet and supervised visitations for his ex. It was a lot to ask, but again, it felt best for the kids. For those scared little souls who deserved better than what either of us could give them now.
I unlocked my car with shaking hands, toppling inside and slamming myself in. The door shut with a finality that felt like sealing a tomb. My forehead fell to the steering wheel as I let out every emotion I'd been keeping bottled up.
All the fear and rage and bone-deep exhaustion I'd held at bay while wearing my professional mask ripped from me.
Tears poured down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable, as the stench of failure surrounded me. It was a cloud, suffocating me in the loss of a case and the fear that those kids were going to be subjected to even worse treatment now that they couldn't see their father at all.
"What the fuck happened?" I muttered to myself, my voice cracking on the words.
Since I was alone, there was no answer. That didn't stop my mind from going over everything again and again, picking at the wounds like I could somehow bleed out a different outcome.
I couldn't move until I'd picked every piece of my argument apart, examined every failure under a microscope of self-recrimination. My mother’s voice echoed in my mind, telling me to get over it and get back to work.
“You don’t make money being a whiny baby. It’s pointless to cry over a case. You got paid, didn’t you?”
Her words, and the cold agreement my father would give, were a vile reminder of the life I grew up in. A life I’d worked hard to leave behind so I could do good work for others. It meant more to help others in an unconditional manner than to fit into the greedy, vain mode my parents believed in – yet another reason why we rarely spoke these days.
I never wanted to feel like this again. Never wanted this hollow ache, this sense of having failed people who trusted me.
I never wanted to feel this… loss.
Time moved by as I thought it all through, the sun shifting across my windshield, the heat building until sweat prickled along my collar. The heat of the day eventually got to me, so I started the engine to get some air flowing. I still didn't drive away though. And I didn't dare raise my head in case someone might see me.
They might see the red eyes, the tear tracks, the complete dissolution of Tanner Hayes, Esquire.
Eye contact with anyone right then would have sent me spinning further into the abyss.
It took my stomach rumbling—a sharp, insistent cramp—for the spell to break. I blinked a few times, my vision adjusting to the brightness, then carefully pulled myself into an uprightposition. My shoulders and back screamed, muscles seized from being locked in place for too long. The ache from my crouched position would linger for hours.
