Chapter 3: One Last Sacrifice for Miles

A month earlier, I had been falsely accused of involvement in a murder and thrown in a holding cell while the police investigated.

Frantic, I called my mother, a judge, hoping she could clear my name and prove my innocence.

She brushed me off. "Let the police handle the truth. What good would it do to call me?"

In the month I waited for the trial, she never once came to visit.

Then, the night before the hearing, a guard told me she had come to see me. I was thrilled, thinking she had finally started to care.

When I saw her, she was holding a container of food she had made just for me. "Scott, you've had it rough in here, haven't you? Look how thin you've gotten."

I had not expected to ever taste her cooking again, and I could not help but cry.

Her expression turned strange. After a long hesitation, she said carefully, "Scott, the lawyer representing the plaintiff this time is your brother."

I froze. "Mom, what are you trying to say?"

She lowered her voice, looking uneasy. "Miles's still an intern. If he can win this case, he'll finally have a real foothold in the profession.

"And I've already looked into it. You'd only be charged as an accessory. It wouldn't be a long sentence."

My fork froze in midair, my mouth still full of the food she had brought. The silence that followed was suffocating.

She dropped her gaze, looking a little guilty. "Just do this for your brother, as a favor to me. Can you do that?"

I could not understand it. She had spent her whole career upholding the law, clearing wrongful convictions for strangers, yet here she was, ready to throw the law out the window the moment it was her own son on trial.

I usually went along with whatever she wanted, no matter what. But this was my innocence on the line, and I was not willing to bend on that.

I clenched the hem of my shirt. "Mom, is Miles the only son you've ever cared about? Are you really willing to sacrifice me for him? You have the power to prove I'm innocent. This is my whole future we're talking about."

Her patience vanished. "What innocence? You did this. All I'm asking is for you to confess and help your brother out while you're at it. If you won't, then forget it."

She snatched the bowl and fork out of my hands. "I'm the judge presiding over tomorrow's hearing. I came here to tell you how it's going to be, not to ask your permission. This isn't up for discussion."

Then she turned and walked out, leaving me sitting there alone, not knowing what to do.

I had never once talked back to her, not since I was a child. If she told me to go east, I never dared go west.

Maybe in her world, that was simply how things worked. Sacrificing myself for Miles was just something I was supposed to do. The one time I refused was the one time I became the problem.

She could never have imagined that her decision would not just cost me my innocence. It would cost me my life.