Chapter 37
Emily Windsor's POV
Jade sensed something was off, too. She pulled out her phone to search for that retired worker's interview online, but her expression darkened with every swipe.
"Emily, look at this..." She handed me her phone.
Every negative article about Kingsley Chemical's illegal dumping had vanished overnight—scrubbed clean from the internet.
What remained was a flood of whitewashed PR pieces.
I clicked on one. The photo showed several community representatives grinning as they accepted an oversized check from Kingsley Chemical executives.
Those representatives? The same plaintiffs who'd screamed at me in the detention center yesterday.
It hit me like ice water. Kingsley Chemical had moved faster and more ruthlessly than I'd anticipated.
They'd used police to crush the loudest dissenters. Then bought off the rest with bribes. And now they were rewriting the narrative entirely.
This wasn't the work of a chemical company alone.
There was a bigger power behind the curtain.
The string of dead ends left Jade and me physically and emotionally drained. By evening, we trudged through Rust Belt Community's muddy streets, the weight of failure pressing down on us.
Then a piercing wail cut through the air.
We exchanged a glance and hurried toward the sound. The door of a shipping container home stood open. Inside, a thin woman knelt on the floor, clutching a child on a filthy mattress, sobbing as if the world were ending.
The boy looked no older than five or six. His face was waxen, lips bloodless, chest barely rising.
"My baby... somebody help my baby..." The woman's voice cracked with desperation.
Neighbors clustered in the doorway—sympathy on their faces, but mostly numbness. An older woman sighed. "Sarah, crying won't help. Get him to a hospital."
"Hospital? With what money?" Sarah lifted her tear-streaked face, her voice hollow with despair. "The doctors said it's leukemia. He needs a bone marrow transplant. We sold everything we had, and it's not even enough for one round of treatment..."
My heart clenched so hard I couldn't breathe.
Leukemia.
Sarah seemed to notice us then. She crawled toward me on her knees, grabbing my pants leg, looking up through streaming tears.
"You're a lawyer, aren't you? I heard—you came from New York. Please. Please sue them. Sue Kingsley! They did this to my son! He was healthy when he was born—it was only after we came here, after he drank the water, that he got sick. Please. Get us justice."
Her nails dug into my skin. I didn't feel the pain.
All I could see was her. And behind her, that little boy whose life was slipping away.
Justice?
If justice was just a payout from Kingsley, how did that measure a child's stolen life?
Why had I become a lawyer?
Not to recite statutes in polished courtrooms.
I became a lawyer for this. To wield the law like a blade and cut down the hands that crushed the powerless. To give people like Sarah the dignity to survive.
I crouched down slowly and helped the trembling mother to her feet. I looked her in the eye.
"I promise you," I said, my voice shaking but clear. "I will get you justice. No matter what it costs."
I wasn't just lifting a desperate mother off the cold ground.
I was lifting my own wavering conviction.
Back at the shabby motel, Jade and I spent the night in silence.
Sarah's sobs. That boy's pale face. Burned into my mind.
Rage. Helplessness. And something sharper—a cornered determination.
The next morning, I forced myself to think clearly.
If human testimony was dead, I'd have to go after Kingsley Chemical itself.
I spread out all the corporate records the firm had provided across the table. Kingsley was a multinational conglomerate with tangled ownership and offshore investors.
"Jade, I need your help." I handed her a thick list of investor names. "Run background checks on these overseas entities. Look for anything suspicious."
"Got it." She took the file without hesitation.
She knew we were out of options.
The work was tedious. Jade typed company names into search engines, frowning, sighing. I pored over Kingsley's financial statements, hunting for cracks.
The motel air was stifling. Only the clatter of keys and rustle of paper broke the silence.
Then Jade gasped sharply.
"Emily..." Her voice was shaking.
I looked up. She stared at the screen, face ghost-white.
"What is it?"
She pointed at a name on the monitor, lips trembling. "This company—Everprosper Global Capital. I've seen it before."
My stomach dropped. "Where?"
"On David's laptop!" Her eyes filled with tears, voice quaking. "I saw a chat log by accident. Someone told him to track this company's stock movements. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I remember the name—because the contact was saved as Mr. Lowe."
The Lowe Family.
Every thread snapped into place.
That's why Kingsley's PR machine was so powerful. Why the police crackdown came so fast. Why witnesses flipped overnight.
This wasn't a straightforward public interest lawsuit.
I wasn't just fighting a greedy chemical company.
I was up against the invisible hand behind it—the Lowe Family.
They'd used the stolen report from David to blackmail Kingsley. Then became investors. Now they were working together to silence every voice of resistance.
A bone-deep chill spread through me.
I thought I was fighting corporate greed.
Instead, I'd stumbled headfirst into the mob's web again.
Should I tell Luke?
The thought surfaced—and I crushed it immediately.
I couldn't rely on him for everything.