The CEO laughed when his mistress punched his pregnant wife, completely unaware her District Attorney father was stepping off the elevator.

The holding cell smelled of floor bleach, damp wool, and stale sweat.

Grant Whitmore sat on a cold concrete bench, his two-thousand-dollar bespoke Italian wool slacks already wrinkled and stained at the cuffs. Across from him, separated by a heavy iron grate in the adjacent holding pen, sat Brooke Keating. Her designer mascara was smudged down her cheeks, her expensive silk blouse torn at the shoulder from when she had resisted the arresting deputies in the lobby.

"Grant, do something!" Brooke sobbed, clutching the steel bars. "My father actually hung up on me! The deputy told me the line went dead after three words! You promised me Avery would be the one crying tonight! You promised me we’d take the penthouse, the trust, everything!"

"Shut up, Brooke," Grant hissed through his teeth, pacing the three steps his cell allowed. "Just shut your mouth. Marcus is coming. He’s the best criminal defense lawyer in the state. We’ll be out before breakfast, and I’ll buy the hospital’s silence before noon."

"He's her father, Grant!" Brooke shrieked, hysterical. "Patrick Vance is the District Attorney! He's not a city councilman you can bribe with a campaign luncheon! He looked right through me!"

Before Grant could snap back, the heavy steel security door at the end of the corridor buzzed loudly.

Marcus Kane stepped through the threshold, followed by two uniformed guards. The veteran attorney carried a thick leather briefcase, but his face was completely pale, his forehead beaded with sweat beneath his thinning gray hair.

"Marcus," Grant exhaled, rushing to the bars. "Took you long enough. Get this door open. Tell the watch commander that this is a civil misunderstanding. I want Brooke out too, and get an emergency injunction against the hospital from releasing any security tapes to the press."

Marcus Kane did not open his briefcase. He stood three feet away from Grant’s cell, looking at the young CEO as if he were already a ghost.

"Grant," Marcus said, his voice flat and strained. "Step back from the bars. We have a catastrophic problem."

Grant frowned, his arrogance flaring. "What problem? I pay your firm four hundred thousand dollars a year on retainer. Fix it."

"I can't represent you," Marcus said.

The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.

"What did you just say?" Grant demanded, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"At midnight, the District Attorney’s office served a sealed conflict-of-interest subpoena on our firm," Marcus explained, wiping his brow with a trembling handkerchief. "It turns out the corporate trust that pays our retainer is legally co-owned by Avery Whitmore through her maternal grandfather’s estate. Avery signed an emergency revocation of corporate legal funds thirty minutes ago. You cannot use company assets to pay for your criminal defense."

Grant’s face turned bright red. "She can't do that! That trust is managed under Whitmore Logistics!"

"She can, Grant, because her father drew up the charter six years ago before you ever set foot in her life," Marcus said bluntly. "And it gets worse. Vance didn't just file state assault charges. He referred your communications with Brooke to the State Attorney General’s special investigative unit. They have audio recordings from your personal iCloud. You backed up your text threads to the company server, you idiot."

Grant’s stomach dropped through the floor. A cold, nauseating panic began to crawl up his throat. "What audio?"

"The voice memo you sent Brooke at four this afternoon," Marcus said quietly. "The one where you told her, quote: *'Hit her hard enough to make her swing back. When she does, my private security will tackle her. We'll have her committed to Shady Grove psychiatric ward under an emergency hold, and the baby will be ours by Friday.'*"

Behind them, Brooke let out a strangled wail and dropped to her knees on the filthy concrete.

Grant leaned his head against the cold steel bars, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the iron. "That was private."

"It's on federal evidentiary servers now," Marcus said, taking a step back toward the exit. "You're facing pre-meditated felony assault, conspiracy, deprivation of civil rights, and witness tampering. I'm stepping down as your counsel. If I stay on this case, Patrick Vance will have the State Bar audit every tax filing my firm has made in the last decade."

"Marcus! You can't leave me here!" Grant roared, rattling the bars with both hands. "Marcus!"