The courtroom was enveloped in a thick, expectant silence, as if the very walls were waiting for another family tragedy to unfold. Everyone present seemed to anticipate the same familiar scene: a woman entering, defeated, already crushed by the weight of a world that had decided her fate long before she took her seat.
At 9:30, the gallery was packed with silent observers of the public downfall, while a weary clerk shuffled files among untidy piles. Two law students, in the back, whispered over a legal notepad, their faces illuminated by the empty emotion of those who had never truly felt the sting of real consequences.
A woman in a stiff blazer sat with her arms tightly crossed, scanning the room with the sharp, judgmental eyes of someone who treated the suffering of others as a personal pastime. Near the front row, two reporters waited with practiced indifference, their phones turned upside down and pens tucked away, preparing to document a scandal the city would devour with its morning toast.
