The courthouse steps smelled like cheap bleach, nervous sweat, and blood in the water.

A gauntlet of reporters lined the path, microphones thrust forward like weapons, camera flashes strobing against Eva’s vision, leaving ghostly afterimages.

“Alessandro Bianchi! Do you deny ties to organized crime?”

“Eva Ivanova! Are you Sophia Ricci’s kidnapper or her guardian?”

“Who has custody of the Ricci child?!”

Eva kept her head down, Sophia’s blanket-draped carrier clutched so tight ...