“Good,” Rebecca’s recorded voice said, sounding chillingly calm. “Now remember, that is exactly what we say to the nice lady in the courtroom. Or else.”
The video ended. The silence that followed was suffocating.
I could not breathe. My chest heaved as I stared at the dark screen of the tablet, the recorded echoes of my daughter’s engineered terror still ringing in my ears. I looked at Lily, who had covered her face with her small hands, bracing herself for the fallout.
Rebecca was completely pale. The polished, grieving mother facade had shattered into a million jagged pieces. She leaped to her feet, her chair scraping violently against the polished wooden floor.
“Your Honor, that is taken entirely out of context!” Rebecca stammered, her voice shrill and desperate. “Nathan must have manipulated her tablet! He hacked it! This is deepfake technology!”
Even Rebecca’s own attorney leaned away from her, staring at his client with a mixture of disgust and professional panic. He slowly closed his file folder and remained seated, refusing to defend the indefensible.
Judge Whitman did not raise her voice. She did not have to. The quiet fury radiating from the bench was enough to freeze the entire room.
“Bailiff,” Judge Whitman said, her tone like absolute zero. “If Mrs. Hale speaks another word out of turn, remove her from my courtroom.”
The bailiff took two heavy steps toward Rebecca. She snapped her mouth shut, trembling, her eyes darting around the room for a lifeline that was not there.
The judge turned her attention to the child advocate, who looked visibly shaken. “Was this tablet in the child’s possession the entire time?”
