At precisely 2:10 a.m., the phone vibrated again. This time, the caller ID displayed a name I recognized: Richard Montgomery. He was the silver-haired, impeccably tailored senior managing partner at the corporate law firm where Spencer was a rising star. I had crossed paths with Richard at various judicial charity galas. He was the prototype of a man who loudly championed “family values” on Sunday while billing exorbitant hours for extreme moral flexibility on Monday.
I accepted the call.
“Katherine, my dear,” Richard’s voice oozed through the speaker, as smooth and toxic as an oil spill. “I was just awakened by some deeply concerning news. Spencer contacted me. He claims there was a highly emotional misunderstanding at dinner, exacerbated by grief.”
I stared at my daughter, her face resting against a plastic-wrapped ice pack, her lip split open.
“A misunderstanding backhanded my daughter three times hard enough to drop her to the floor, Richard.”
A calculated pause on the line. “Katherine, please. I am certainly not defending violence. Heaven forbid. But you and I both know how these… domestic disputes can become legally complicated and unnecessarily public.”
There it was. The opening salvo of corporate reputation management. The invisible machinery of powerful men moving to protect their own.
I sat up straight, my spine rigid. “Richard, listen to me very carefully, because I will only articulate this once. If your firm attempts to deploy private investigators to intimidate my daughter, if you pressure her to withdraw her statement, if you attempt to contact witnesses, bury evidence, or frame this felony assault as a ‘private marital squabble’ to protect your firm’s stock price, I will unleash hell. I will file immediate ethics complaints with the State Bar, I will depose you, and I will leak every detail to every Pulitzer-hungry journalist who has ever kept my number on speed dial for quotes on domestic violence reform.”
