“Well, I'd rather go with my dad.”

That answer came as a surprise even to Judge Adams. So much so that she had to ask again for confirmation.

“Alice, when you say you want to go with your dad, do you mean Nick or Samuel?” she asked.

“Samuel, Samuel Baxter, my biological father. I want to go with him.”

Valeria and Nick looked at each other with incredulity, and Connor sighed with concern. The judge looked at them all and returned to the questioning.

“Alice, do you love your dad, Samuel, very much?”

The girl looked up at him and shivered.

“No,” she answered honestly. “I don't like him one bit. He's always been mean to me, and he calls me mean things, like ‘stupid’.”

The silence in the room was absolute as Baxter turned red with rage.

“Then why do you say you want to go with him, honey?” Judge Adams asked, wrinkling her forehead.

“Because he told me that if I didn't say that, he was going to hurt my sister—”

“That's a lie!” Samuel shouted, standing up, but several bangs from th