Picture it.

An eighteen-year-old girl, pregnant, frightened, sitting across a vast desk from one of the most powerful men in the state, in his territory, behind his locked door, while he calmly lays out exactly how thoroughly he can destroy her and everyone she loves, and then slides a small fortune across the desk to make her and her child vanish.

There is no one who would have blamed her for taking the money.

She was a teenager with no power, no lawyer, no options, facing a man who could crush her without effort.