PART 1: THE SACRIFICE IN ROOM 302
The courtroom in Marion County had gone so quiet that the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead sounded like insects trapped against glass.
Penelope Albright stood beside her attorney with one hand resting on her swollen stomach while her tired eyes scanned the polished wooden floor. Eight months pregnant and pale from nights that had long stopped resembling sleep, she looked nothing like the woman who had walked into this same courthouse seven years earlier to obtain a marriage license with Gabriel Albright. That young woman had been wearing a yellow sundress and laughing at something Gabriel whispered in the elevator before they stepped inside. She had genuinely believed, as people so often do at the beginning of things, that she truly understood who she was marrying.
Across the aisle, Gabriel sat with his jaw tight and his navy suit smooth while his wedding ring was already missing from his left finger. Beside him sat Bianca Shepherd, thirty-one, polished, her dark hair falling in perfect waves as she smiled the way people smile when they have already decided they have won. Every few seconds she leaned toward Gabriel and whispered something soft into his ear that made the corner of his mouth twitch with amusement.
