Chapter 4: The Legal Wolf Arrives

Her name was Saurin Park.

She was forty-three years old, wore a $4,000 tailored pantsuit, and possessed the specific, economical ruthlessness of an attorney who had spent two decades destroying men in family court.

Roman had called her from the elevator. She arrived at Callaway Tower at exactly 8:00 AM on Friday.

Saurin sat across from Isla at the glass dining table on the ninth floor. She pulled out a yellow legal pad and placed a hot coffee down. She didn’t offer a sympathetic smile. She didn’t ask how Isla was feeling. Empathy wasted time, and they didn’t have time.

“Walk me through the timeline before the pregnancy,” Saurin demanded, clicking her pen.

Isla sat straight-backed. She answered every rapid-fire question with a dead, controlled flatness. She treated her trauma like raw data.

“I left rural Tennessee at eighteen,” Isla explained. “My father believed women had one specific subservient role. I disagreed. I came to Chicago with four hundred dollars and a GED.”

“And you built a life?” Saurin asked, writing frantically.

“I did. I worked my way up to a logistics coordinator at a shipping firm. I had a studio apartment. It was small, but it was mine.” Isla paused, looking down at Noah sleeping in a bassinet. “Then I met Callum.”

Saurin didn’t look up. “Tell me about Callum.”

“He was kind at first. The kind of kind that has an agenda. He convinced me to move in to save money. Then he convinced me to quit my job because his schedule was so demanding. He framed it as a partnership.”

Isla’s jaw tightened. The memories were flooding the room like toxic gas.

“By the time I realized it was a trap, I was two years in. No job history. No independent savings. And pregnant. He isolated me perfectly.”

“When did he change his mind about the baby?” Saurin probed.

“Four months ago. He started coming home late. Smelling like someone else. I found out he had been sleeping with a real estate broker for six months. I told him we needed counseling for the baby’s sake.”

Saurin stopped writing. She looked up, her dark eyes locking onto Isla.

“He wasn’t thinking about counseling, Isla. He was planning the eviction order.”

Isla nodded slowly, a single tear finally escaping and cutting a track down her pale cheek. “I know. I just didn’t want to see it.”

Roman had been standing in the doorway of the kitchen for ten minutes. Neither woman had noticed his arrival.

He listened to this brilliant, resilient twenty-six-year-old woman describe the methodical architecture of domestic imprisonment. Callum hadn’t just broken her heart; he had systematically dismantled her independence so she would be mathematically unable to fight back.

Roman stepped fully into the kitchen.

“Saurin,” Roman interrupted. “What do we need to destroy him?”

Saurin flipped her legal pad closed. She looked at her billionaire client with a predatory smirk.

“The eviction was processed through Councilman Voss’s connections. That’s corruption. But challenging it takes months in housing court. We need a counter-filing today. We need the timestamped hospital bracelet proving she was in labor when the eviction was signed.”

Saurin stood up, grabbing her briefcase.

“I need Isla’s text messages. I need the neighbor’s sworn statement. And Roman?” Saurin raised an eyebrow. “Someone needs to walk into Councilman Carl Voss’s office and gently explain that he has kicked the wrong hornet’s nest.”

Roman adjusted his cufflinks. “I’ll handle the Councilman.”

Saurin nodded. She knew exactly what “I’ll handle it” meant when Roman Callaway said it. It meant careers were about to end.

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