The silence of the house in the dead of night was deafening. Sarah sat on the edge of Chloe’s bed, watching her daughter’s chest rise and fall in a heavy, exhausted sleep.

Evelyn was arrested on the spot for felony forgery, grand larceny attempt, and child endangerment. The photos of her being led out of the Grand Regency Hotel in handcuffs hit the front pages of the local news the next morning.

However, the battle was far from over.

Two days after her arrest, Evelyn was released on a heavy bail funded by her shady loan shark contacts, who were growing desperate to retrieve their money. Cornered and facing decades in prison, Evelyn launched a nuclear option: she retained a ruthless family law attorney and filed an emergency petition in court for sole legal custody of Chloe and Lily, claiming Sarah was an "unstable, abusive mother who staged the entire injury to frame her."

Evelyn’s lawyer submitted falsified affidavits from three distant relatives who had attended the birthday party, claiming they saw Chloe injure her hand by accident while playing with a hot kettle, and that Sarah was neglectful.

When Sarah received the court summons, she felt a cold pit of terror in her stomach. Property fraud was one thing—but losing her children was a nightmare she could not survive.

"She’s desperate, Sarah," Marcus warned her in his office. "She knows if she gets custody of the girls, she can claim court-ordered control over your home and financial assets as their legal guardian. It’s a despicable tactic, but judges take emergency custody petitions very seriously."