Chapter 7 - The Trial of the Titled
The St. Jude Home for Children was a grim, gray stone building in downtown Chicago. Ethan sat in a small observation room, refusing to eat or speak, his eyes fixed on the door.
In the county courthouse three blocks away, an emergency custody hearing was convened under a cloud of secrecy. Don Falcone’s high-priced lawyers presented an hours-long presentation detailing Dante’s alleged criminal history, painting the Lake Forest estate as a den of vipers.
When it was Grace’s turn to take the stand, she walked up with absolute composure. She wasn't wearing a waitress uniform, nor was she wearing the luxury clothes Dante had bought her. She wore a simple, professional dark suit she had purchased with her own savings before the diner shootout.
"Miss Miller," Falcone’s lawyer sneered, looking at his notes. "You are a twenty-four-year-old college student with no biological connection to this child. Why are you residing in the home of a known syndicate leader?"
"I am there because I am the only person who stood between that six-year-old boy and a hail of automatic gunfire while your client's hitmen turned an innocent diner into a slaughterhouse," Grace’s voice resonated through the courtroom like a brass bell.
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She turned to face the judge directly. "Your Honor, I am a certified early childhood educator. I have spent the last six months documenting Ethan Salvatichi’s developmental progress. He is not a pawn in a gang war; he is a grieving child who has finally found stability. If you remove him from his father, you aren't protecting him from the mafia—you are finishing the job the assassins started."
Eleanor Sterling, the high-profile attorney Dante had hired on Grace's recommendation, stood up, dropping a heavy folder onto the judge's desk. "We also submit into evidence the complete financial and digital records linking the petitioner's legal representation to offshore accounts owned by the Falcone family. This isn't a welfare check, Your Honor. This is an attempted kidnapping via the legal system."
