CHAPTER 1

I was shaking.

I don’t mean a little nervous tremble. I mean my knees were knocking together so hard I thought the sound would echo off the marble floors of the Charleston Superior Court.

I gripped the wooden railing in front of me until my knuckles turned white. I felt small. I felt poor. I felt like a bug about to be crushed by a boot that cost more than my rent for an entire year.

To my left sat Martin Caldwell.

He was the Director of St. Patrick Academy, the most prestigious private school in the city. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit that was perfectly tailored, looking bored, checking his Rolex. He didn’t even look at me. To him, I was just “Sarah the Cook.” I was the help. I was the nuisance he had fired three months ago because I refused to serve expired meat to children.

But to my right?

To my right sat Emily.

My daughter is eight years old. She’s tiny for her age, with messy brown curls she refuses to brush and a gap between her front teeth.

Today, she wasn’t wearing her favorite dinosaur t-shirt. She was wearing a navy blue blazer she had borrowed from our neighbor, Mrs. Carter. It was three sizes too big. The sleeves were rolled up in thick cuffs just so her hands could poke out. She looked ridiculous. She looked heartbreaking.

And she looked absolutely terrifying.

The courtroom was packed. Caldwell’s legal team took up two whole tables. Four men in expensive suits, tapping on laptops, whispering, shuffling stacks of crisp legal documents.

On our side? Just me. And Emily. And a cardboard folder decorated with hand-drawn hearts and glitter glue.

Judge William Harper cleared his throat. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room. He peered over his reading glasses, his face stern. He looked at the empty chair beside me.

“Ms. Bennett,” the Judge boomed. His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “I see you have filed a petition for wrongful termination and gross negligence against St. Patrick Academy.”

I tried to speak, but my throat was closed shut. “Y-yes, Your Honor,” I squeaked.

“And,” the Judge continued, looking at Caldwell’s army of lawyers and then back to my lonely table. “Where is your legal counsel? You cannot proceed in a Superior Court against a corporation of this magnitude without representation. Do you have a lawyer?”

Caldwell snickered. I heard it. It was a low, cruel sound. One of his lawyers leaned over and whispered something that made them both smirk.

They knew I didn’t have a lawyer. They knew I couldn’t afford one. They knew I was a single mom who had been out of work for three months because Caldwell had blacklisted me from every kitchen in town. This was their plan. They were going to bury me in paperwork and procedure until I gave up and went away.

Tears pricked my eyes. I was about to stand up and beg for a continuance. I was about to apologize for wasting the court’s time. I was about to give up.

But then, the chair beside me scraped against the floor.

Emily stood up.

She had to stand on her tiptoes just to see over the defense table. She adjusted the oversized collar of Mrs. Carter’s blazer. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at the crowd. She looked straight at Judge Harper.

The room went dead silent.

“Excuse me, Your Honor,” Emily said.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was clear. It was the voice she used when she told me she wasn’t going to eat her broccoli.

The Judge blinked. He looked down at the tiny girl in the giant jacket. “Young lady, you need to sit down. This is a court of law, not a playground.”

“I know,” Emily said, clutching her cardboard folder to her chest. “That’s why I’m standing.”

Caldwell’s lead attorney stood up, sighing loudly. “Your Honor, this is a farce. The plaintiff is clearly using her child as a prop to garner sympathy. We move to dismiss immediately.”

“Sit down, counselor,” the Judge snapped, though he still looked confused. He turned his attention back to my daughter. “Child, who are you?”

Emily took a deep breath. She placed the glittery folder on the table with a surprisingly heavy thud. She opened it. Inside weren’t drawings. Inside were photos. Stacks of handwritten notes. A USB drive taped to the cardboard.

She looked up, her chin high.

“I am Emily Bennett,” she declared. “And I am my mother’s lawyer.”

A gasp rippled through the courtroom. I heard someone in the back row whisper, “What did she say?”

The Judge paused. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “You… are her lawyer?”

“Technically,” Emily said, pulling a piece of paper from her folder, “according to Article 6, Section B of the State Civil Code regarding self-representation assistance, a plaintiff may designate a ‘spokesperson of trust’ if they cannot afford counsel, provided that person has intimate knowledge of the facts. I have the facts, Your Honor.”

The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet. It was heavy.

Caldwell stopped checking his Rolex. He slowly turned his head to look at Emily. For the first time, the smirk was gone.

“I have the facts,” Emily repeated, her voice getting stronger. “And I have the pictures of the rats.”

Caldwell’s lawyer jumped up. “Objection! Irregular! This is—”

“Overruled!” The Judge slammed his gavel down, leaning forward, intrigued. “I want to hear what the ‘counsel’ has to say.”

Emily turned to me and gave me a tiny, secret wink. Then she turned back to the most powerful men in Charleston and prepared to burn their world to the ground.

But we had no idea—no idea at all—how dangerous this was about to get.