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Michael Lambert’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as he pulled into the parking lot of his son’s school. Eight-year-old Ethan would be waiting by the oak tree near the playground, just like every Tuesday and Thursday. Michael had fought hard for this custody arrangement after Lorie’s death two years ago—two days a week during the school year, alternating holidays, and most of the summer. It wasn’t enough time with his boy, but it was something.
He spotted Ethan’s sandy-brown hair before the kid noticed him. His son sat alone on a bench, shoulders hunched, staring at his shoes. Michael’s chest tightened. That wasn’t the posture of a happy eight-year-old on a day he’d get to spend with his dad.
“Hey, champ,” Michael called out as he approached.
Ethan looked up, and Michael saw it immediately—the redness around his eyes, the way his lip trembled before he bit down on it.
“Dad.”
Ethan ran to him, arms wrapping around Michael’s waist with surprising force. The boy was shaking. Michael knelt down, hands on his son’s shoulders.
“What happened?”
“Grandpa Reginald came to school today.” Ethan’s voice was barely a whisper. “He talked to Principal Anderson. He said… he said, ‘Next week might be my last visit with you.’”
The words hit Michael like a freight train, but he kept his face calm. Reginald Allison—Lorie’s father. The man who’d made the last two years of Michael’s life a carefully orchestrated hell. Always with a smile on his face and lawyers on speed dial.
“Did he say anything else?”
Ethan nodded, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “He made me give you this.”
Michael unfolded the legal notice. His vision blurred at the edges as he read: Petition for full custody. Emergency hearing scheduled. The Allisons were claiming Michael was an unfit parent. Claims of neglect, substance abuse, emotional instability. All lies—lies backed by Reginald Allison’s considerable wealth and connections.
“Dad,” Ethan said, voice pulling him back. “Are they going to take me away?”
Michael pulled his son close. “No. I promise you that’s not going to happen.”
But as he said the words, he wondered if he could keep that promise.
Michael’s apartment was modest—a two-bedroom in a quiet neighborhood forty minutes from the Allison estate. He bought it after Lorie’s funeral, when living in the house they’d shared became unbearable. Reginald had offered to let him stay in the guest house on the Allison property to make co-parenting easier, but Michael had seen that trap from a mile away.
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