Bred for Betrayal 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 71 - 챕터 80

POV: Nora It started over something small. Aria's second supervised visit with Marcus had been scheduled through family services for the following week and I had confirmed it without mentioning it to Elias first, not because I was hiding it but because I had stopped asking permission for things that were within my rights to decide. He found out when the family services coordinator called the penthouse landline by mistake and left a confirmation message. He waited until Aria was in bed. "You scheduled another visit," he said. "Yes." I was at the kitchen table going through the foundation paperwork Marcus's lawyers had sent. "The court order allows for monthly supervised visits pending the full custody determination. I scheduled it within those parameters." "Without telling me." "I told you last time that I don't need your approval for decisions within my legal rights." "I'm her father," he said. "Her biological father. I have a right to be informed about contact between her and

POV: Nora Vincent's message had been about surveillance footage. Elias's lawyers had pulled security camera recordings from the co-parenting period showing me leaving the penthouse late on three separate occasions without informing Elias of my destination. Two of those occasions had been meetings with Marsh. One had been the bar where I had run into Marcus. His lawyers intended to present all three as evidence of deceptive behavior and poor judgment. That was the evidence. Not as damaging as I had feared. More damaging than I had hoped. The hearing started at nine on a Tuesday. Same courthouse, different courtroom, different judge. This one was a man in his fifties named Judge Calloway who had a reputation for patience and a low tolerance for theatrics, which Marsh's associate had said was good for us because Elias's legal team had a reputation for exactly that. Elias was at the respondent's table with two lawyers I hadn't seen before. He was in a dark suit and his face was the

POV: Nora The unknown number called three times and left no message and I didn't answer any of them. I had learned over the past year that unknown numbers carrying urgent things eventually identified themselves, and unknown numbers that didn't were either wrong numbers or the kind of contact that required me to be in a safer position before engaging. I was standing in a courthouse corridor after three days of testimony and I was not in a safer position. I went home to Aria and the number didn't call again that night. Day four was Elias on the stand. His lawyers had advised against it. Marsh's associate had told me that, through the information channels that existed between legal teams in family proceedings, which were more porous than either side pretended. His lawyers had wanted to rest on the submitted evidence and the expert testimony they had lined up about his therapy progress and his financial stability and his legitimate business transformation. Elias had overruled them.

POV: Nora The design firm was called Ashford Studio. Sera had suggested keeping my father's name in it and I had resisted for about a week before understanding that she was right. Not as a memorial, not as sentiment, but because the name was mine too and I had spent long enough letting other people define what it meant. Putting it on a studio door was a small act of reclamation that turned out to feel significant every time I unlocked that door in the morning. We had four clients in the first month. Eleven by the third. By the time a year had passed from the custody determination we had a team of six and a waiting list and a reputation for the kind of work that came from someone who actually looked at what a client needed rather than what was easiest to produce. I was good at it. I had always been good at it. The difference now was that I knew I was good at it and built accordingly. Aria was two years and three months old. She had opinions about everything and expressed them wit

POV: Nora The woman on the phone said he had withdrawn it that morning without explanation. I sat with that for a moment. Then I asked if visitor registration was still possible for a standard visit on the hearing date, separate from the parole process. She checked and said yes, standard visits were still being processed for that day. I registered. I spent the next three days trying to understand why he had withdrawn it and arriving at the same answer each time. He had asked me to come to the facility and I had called to register and somehow that information had reached him before I intended it to, probably through the facility's processing system, probably through his lawyer who would have been notified of any visitor registration connected to his case. He had understood that I was going to come and he had withdrawn the application because he didn't want the visit to be about the parole. He had said in the letter he wasn't asking me to support his release. Withdrawing the applica