“Sorry, everyone,” I tell the defense team. “Can we take five?”

“Sure,” the older lawyer says while throwing a side look at his partner.

With a quick step, I lead Aaron outside, closing the office door behind me. Then, I cross my arms and whisper-hiss, “What the hell are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” he says sternly.

“Don’t play coy with me. What was that in there? You want to ruin this deal?”

“What deal?” he answers, anger building in his voice. “The one where they’re offering us something that is pennies to them instead of giving us actual justice? You know this isn’t what we want, Wren.”

“I am getting you justice. This is a good deal. I wouldn’t have accepted to come here today if I thought they would offer us something unfair. And I’ll negotiate it so that—”

He steps back. “So you knew they were going to try to settle?”

“I expected it, yes.”

“And you still brought us here? When you know we want a real trial?”

I pinch my lips. It’s not his fault. I would be acting just like him if I were in his situation. I did everything I could to get the best care possible for my mother years ago, even when the state gave us barely enough services for her to live with a remaining sense of dignity. I still need to go to war for her sometimes, and I do, gladly.

Keeping my voice calm and soft, I say, “I know you want a trial, but you don’t realize that a trial could go both ways. Your father had a strange presentation for a stroke. I told you that could play against us because it makes it more understandable that it wasn’t caught early enough.”

“Understandable?” he explodes.

I lift a hand. “Please let me finish.”

His mouth closes.

“It’s hard to prove that any good doctor would’ve acted differently in his situation, and since it’s so rare to present like this, there’s no way to prove that Dennis wouldn’t have developed aphasia even if his stroke had been detected right away.”

Aaron’s lips twist to the side as his eyes alternate between both of mine. “And you think my parents will agree with that?”

“They already did.”

Shaking his head, his gaze gets lost. “It’s not enough. They ruined my dad’s life. They forced Callie to grow up with a mother who’s busy being a nurse and a dad who can’t play with her like he used to. They made me lose a job I love to keep my family’s legacy alive. They made my mother age ten years in four months.” He looks back at me. “They think five hundred grand is enough to compensate for that? Because it’s not. It’s fucking not.”