Chapter 155 —I'm here, locked up.

Narrator:

Night had fallen over the city with a deceptive calm. It was drizzling. One of those fine, persistent rains that don't clean anything, just soak the soul, sticking hair to the skin and turning the streets into broken mirrors of artificial light.

On the top floor of a somewhat dilapidated building, Miranda Adler poured herself a glass of red wine with slow movements. The clock read 9:40 p.m. The bottle was half empty. The apartment smelled of dampness, confinement, old documents. A soft song played from the phone, forgotten on the counter: something melancholic, perhaps French, floating just above the constant hum of the refrigerator.

She had worked all afternoon on the trial papers and rehearsed each of her words with precision, the ones she would declare in court in a few days. The custody suit for Sasha was underway, and her lawyer had promised her a quick resolution. She could already see herself winning. She could already imagine that mom