CHAPTER 9: The Elevator Opens for an Old Judge

The private elevator chimed.
Adrian's mother was expected from the penthouse level. Instead, Judge Eleanor Voss walked out wearing a navy coat and the kind of calm that frightened guilty people more than anger.
She had retired from the bench two years earlier, but the room still adjusted itself around her.
'Mara,' she said. 'Boys.'
Eli lifted Captain Bear. 'Hi, Judge El.'
The old woman smiled at him, then faced Adrian. 'Your wife asked me not to interfere until she was ready. Today she is ready.'
Serena's voice sharpened. 'This is outrageous.'
Judge Voss looked at her as if studying a badly worded motion. 'Outrageous is filing a false incapacity petition against a pregnant woman while blocking access to her husband.'
Adrian heard pregnant woman and felt three years of excuses collapse into something ugly and precise.
He had not been abandoned. He had been managed. Worse, he had allowed himself to be easy to manage.