Chapter 8 - The Law Strikes Back
"Where to?" Sloane asked, her knuckles white on the steering wheel as she darted glances at the rearview mirror.
"To the police station," Avery said, her voice dropping into a chilling, absolute resolve. "Then straight to my family attorney's office."
Within two hours, Avery sat inside the sterile conference room of the municipal precinct alongside Detective Martinez and her formidable family law attorney, Claire. The fraudulent guardianship petition Ethan had filed through an online legal service was pulled up on Claire’s high-resolution tablet. Displayed clearly on the co-parent authorization line was a crude, digital vector trace of Avery’s signature—lifted directly from a health insurance card Avery had left unattended on their kitchen counter.
"This isn't just legally invalid, Mrs. Vance," Claire said, adjusting her glasses as she examined the digital metadata. "This is second-degree felony forgery and attempted custodial interference. They didn't just cross a civil boundary; they waded straight into a severe criminal indictment."
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By 5:00 PM, while Brenda's lavish baby shower was disintegrating into neighborhood gossip and police scanners, two county squad cars rolled up the long gravel driveway of Brenda’s suburban manor.
The officers didn't bother knocking politely. They served Brenda and Ethan with immediate, emergency orders of protection, barring both of them from coming within five hundred feet of Avery or Theo. When Ethan tried to wave his phone around, shouting about his parental rights, the senior officer informed him crisply that a formal warrant for forgery and custodial fraud had already been transmitted to the district attorney's office.
