Spence became my shield, my convenient scapegoat. If she thought my distance had a name, she wouldn't imagine it was me gathering evidence and building a case. She wouldn't dig deeper, and as long as she didn't dig deeper, I could keep maneuvering in the shadows.
But Mira was unpredictable, like a storm I could never fully track. Sometimes her jealousy turned into interrogation, sometimes into sudden, explosive violence. There were nights she threw things across the room just to watch me flinch, nights she pressed her forehead against mine, her breath hot with rage as she dared me—dared me—to raise a hand back.
I stayed long enough to calculate her moods like weather patterns—when to brace, when to bend, when to feign warmth so she didn't combust. Survival demanded it. Gathering proof demanded it, and every time her rage cooled into that fragile imitation of affection, every time she touched me like she hadn't just tried to destroy me, I hated myself everytime she touched me.
But beneath the shame, beneath the fear, was something sharper. Determination. Mira thought she had me trapped, thought my silence was weakness. But she was wrong. I was done being her victim. Survival had a cost, and this time, the cost wasn't going to be me.
Mel set up the meeting withJanuary Harding, a lawyer she swore could help.
The first thing I noticed wasn't her office. It was her.
When January walked into the room, the atmosphere shifted. Conversations in the outer hall snapped shut like doors slamming; younger associates suddenly found the floor fascinating. No one dared meet her eyes. She had that kind of presence—like if she decided to dismantle you, it wouldn't be with raised voices or chaos, but with precision, clean and surgical, leaving nothing standing.
Her clothes mirrored that authority: a sharply tailored black suit, silk blouse the color of fresh bone, heels that clicked against the marble with the certainty of a gavel. No jewelry beyond a slim platinum watch that probably cost more than my car. She radiated restraint and money, but not in a showy way—it was weaponized, controlled, designed to remind you she belonged in rooms where power was currency.
Her office was the same. Dark wood paneling, glass shelves holding rows of legal volumes that looked untouched but pristine. A sleek desk, bare except for a Montblanc pen, a leather-bound planner, and a single, symmetrical stack of case files. A piece of modern art in grayscale hung on the wall, deliberately chosen to intimidate rather than soothe. Even the air felt curated—expensive perfume faintly mixed with the undertone of paper and ink.
She sat down across from me, folding her hands on the desk like a judge, her expression unreadable. For a second, I wasn't sure if she was here to protect me or to take me apart herself.
"I'm December's friend," January said at last. Her tone was steady, cold as steel, but I could feel the fire beneath it. "And let me make something perfectly clear before we proceed, I am furious with you. Furious that you pulled her into this. Furious that you lied to her. Furious that you let her stand in the shadow of a danger she never should have been anywhere near. She deserved truth and safety."
The words hit me harder than a fist. Shame bloomed hot under my skin, but before I could form an answer, she raised a hand commanding me to stop.
"You don't speak until I finish." Her eyes narrowed, sharp as glass, her voice cutting the room clean in half. "I have two reasons for accepting you as a client. Only two. The first is Mel. I owe her a favor, ahugeone, and she cashed in that debt. That's the only leverage that got you through my door."
She paused then, just long enough that for the first time she looked less like an executioner in silk and more like a humanbeing. Her posture softened a fraction, her voice dipped an octave.
"The second is this—I know what abuse does to people. I've seen it. I've seen how it rewires the mind, twists survival into silence, makes judgment collapse under fear. What looks like weakness from the outside is, on the inside, just staying alive. So no—I don't blame you for being abused, Ryder. You're a victim. That part I understand."
Then she leaned in, her words sharp enough to leave a mark. "But you're also a man who put someone I care about in harm's way, and that, I won't forgive."
I swallowed hard, forcing the word out. "Okay."
"No," her voice cut the air between us like a blade. "Notokay. Understand me. I will represent you. I will fight to bring Mira down. But I will never—never—discuss December with you. I won't tell her anything either. She is my friend. You are my client, and those roles do not mix. If you try to pull her into this office, or even into your excuses, I will walk out, case or no case. Do we understand each other?"
The silence in the room was suffocating. I forced myself to meet her gaze, though everything in me wanted to look away. "Yes. We understand."
"Good." She opened the file with deliberate precision, sliding the first piece of evidence across the polished desk without a flicker of emotion. "Then let's begin."
Screenshots of texts. Hospital records. Photographs I had taken in secret, shaky and grainy—bruises mottled across my arms, ribs, jaw. Each page she turned was another layer of skin peeledback, another raw nerve exposed. Her brow tightened as she flipped through them, but she said nothing. The silence was worse than words, a silence that forced me to sit in the weight of what I had endured and what I had allowed to fester.
And then came the videos.
I knew they existed and I copied them to a separate file. Watching them again nearly made me sick. Mira's voice filled the small office, shrill and cutting, as she tried to force intimacy I didn't want. Sometimes she would laugh when I refused, spinning it as "romantic" that I was waiting until after the election.
Most of the time, she didn't stop at words. I'd watch her face shift without warning, as if a switch had been flipped—sweetness gone, replaced by a storm so violent it stole the oxygen from the room. Suddenly, objects were flying across the room. Glasses. Books. Anything within reach. The crash of them shattering against walls became a soundtrack I braced myself for.
She shoved me more times than I can count, palms flat against my chest, against my shoulders, until my spine jarred against the wall hard enough to ache for days. The slaps always came fast, a stinging rhythm across my face before I could even raise a hand to protect myself. Sometimes it was her fists, knuckles colliding with ribs, or the heel of her hand catching my jaw so hard I saw sparks.
There were recordings with her face inches from mine, breath hot with fury, every word dripping with venom. She looked so deceptively harmless—petite, delicate, the kind of woman strangers described as sweet or angelic. People saw her big eyesand soft features and thought she couldn't hurt a fly. That was her armor. That was her disguise.
But in those moments, when her mask slipped, she was a monster wrapped in silk.
I towered over her—broad, muscled, the product of hours in the gym. To anyone else, I was the one built for damage, the one people would expect to throw the first punch. She knew that too. She twisted it like a knife. Her voice, sharp and mocking, cut through the silence of the room as she shoved me in the chest, daring me to react.
"Hit me. Go on. I dare you. Who's going to side with you? The buff, veiny gym-bro with fists twice the size of my face—or me, the tiny, helpless daughter of a respectable senator?"
But I didn't move. Not an inch. My fists stayed unclenched, my jaw locked, my chest rising and falling as I stared down at her. The camera recorded every second—her rage, her threats, her hands striking me again and again.
