Prologue!
219 Words
Melbourne, 2026
Ismene Sankare had learned, over time, that strength was rarely loud. It was not the raised voice across a courtroom or the slam of a gavel, but the steady breath taken after a loss, the quiet decision to keep moving when the world demanded she stop.
She carried that strength into every case, into every client who trusted her with the fragile pieces of their lives. But the irony was not lost on her: the woman who defended strangers with unwavering clarity had not seen the cracks forming in her own marriage until it was too late.
Six years earlier, when she first met Jared Morgan, the world had felt different. He had walked into her life with the kind of confidence that made promises seem unbreakable. In those early days, she mistook his certainty for devotion, his ambition for stability. Together they had woven a life between two continents, chasing the illusion of permanence.
Now, standing in the quiet of her home, the silence pressed heavier than any courtroom. The same hands that once steadied others now trembled slightly as she gathered herself. Ismene knew the storm was coming—the hearings, the arguments, the scrutiny. She knew she would have to fight harder than she ever had before.
And this time, the client was herself.
- Writer
