“I see you’re lifting that arm a lot higher than before,” she noted as we walked together.

“It’s a combination of physical therapy and pure spite,” I joked.

She laughed, gave me a gentle hug, and we talked over the progress of the program we’d built together.

Using the recovered funds, I’d founded the Ember Project to support victims whose injuries had been disguised as accidents by their abusers.

We provided forensic examinations, emergency housing, secure evidence storage, and legal representation to people who’d lost everything.

Within a year, forty-one major hospitals had joined the network.

My first client was a young woman named Hannah, whose husband had claimed she’d fallen onto a hot stove.