Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. I was trapped in the driver’s seat of my own car, parked under the buzzing halogen light of a defunct pharmacy, my knees pulled toward my chest as another contraction ripped through my abdomen. It felt as if my pelvic bones were physically splintering apart.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Andrew screamed the moment I put the phone to my ear. I could hear Evelyn shouting in the background, her voice shrill with panic. "Delete that post right now, Rachel! Do you have any idea what you've done? My boss saw it! I’m being suspended from the firm pending an 'internal review of my character'!"

"Good," I said coldly. "Your character deserves a review."

"You bitter, selfish bitch!" Andrew spat. "You're trying to ruin my life because of a misunderstanding! I told you, I thought it was Braxton Hicks! You've always been oversensitive!"

"I delivered our son on a dirty floor mat, Andrew. There was nothing 'oversensitive' about the blood I had to scrub out of my car's upholstery."

"Listen to me," Andrew hissed, his voice dropping to a low, menacing whisper that made the hair on my arms stand up. "If you don't take that post down and issue a public retraction saying you were suffering from postpartum psychosis, I will make your life a living hell. My father has the best lawyers in the state. We will drag you through the mud. We will paint you as an unstable, unfit mother. I will take Leo, and you will never see him again. Do you hear me? Never."

My heart hammered against my ribs, but I forced my voice to remain steady. "Are you threatening me, Andrew?"

"I'm promising you," he snarled. "You have twenty-four hours to fix this."

The line clicked dead.

I sat in the dim light of Clara's living room, my hands shaking. The threat of losing Leo was a knife to my throat. I knew the Monroe family had money. Richard Monroe was a retired judge with deep pockets and even deeper connections in the local county court system. If they wanted to play dirty, they could easily buy the narrative in a closed courtroom.

"He threatened to take Leo," I told Clara, who had walked into the room after hearing me whisper.

Clara’s face darkened. "He said that? On the phone?"

"Yes."

"Did you record it?"

I froze. "No. I didn't think to..."

Clara cursed under her breath. "In this state, we need consent to record phone calls anyway, so it wouldn't have been admissible in criminal court, but it would have helped in family court. No matter. We need to go on the offensive. If they want to play the 'unfit mother' card, we need to show the world exactly who Andrew Monroe is."

The next morning, the war escalated.

A knock came at Clara's door. It was a process server.

I was officially being sued by Andrew Monroe for defamation, and he had filed an emergency motion for temporary custody of Leo, citing my "unstable emotional state and public harassment campaign" as a danger to the child.

The court date was set for five days later.

I looked at the paperwork, my vision blurring. They were trying to rip my five-day-old baby from my arms. Evelyn's fingerprints were all over this; she wanted the child to save face, to raise him as her own, to prove she had 'won.'

"We need a miracle, Rachel," Clara said, staring at the custody motion. "Judge Harris is presiding over the emergency hearing. He’s an old colleague of Richard Monroe's. They play golf together."

I felt a cold dread settle deep in my stomach. The system was rigged. The truth wasn't going to be enough.