The wail of sirens tore through the darkness of the dock like a scalpel slicing through the layers of the night’s deceit, exposing a truth no one was ready to confront. In America—where justice often performs on a stage dictated by race and class—the arrival of the police could mean salvation, or the beginning of something far worse. It depended on the color of your skin, the weight of your wallet, and the reach of your influence. Michael, a man born on the wrong side of everything, knew all too well that the law was a double-edged sword. And tonight, he had no idea which side of that blade he was standing on.
The rising shriek of sirens cracked open the tension hanging in the humid night air like a storm waiting to burst. Eleanor Davis, once seething and cornered, now wore a look of surp
