Chapter 14 - The Cell Block Visit

The concrete visitor room at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility was freezing, smelling of industrial floor wax and stale coffee.

I sat on the hard metal stool behind the reinforced partition.

The heavy iron door on the other side clicked open, and Victoria was escorted in by two armed corrections officers. She sat down heavily, her orange jumpsuit faded from repeated industrial washing. Her hair was limp, cut short to prison regulations, and without her high-end skincare and makeup, she looked every bit of her true, bitter forty years.

She picked up the plastic telephone receiver on her side of the glass.

I picked up mine.

"Have you come to gloat, Nathan?" Victoria asked, her voice raspy, devoid of the aristocratic charm she had spent a lifetime projecting. "To tell me how happy your little suburban family is while I rot in this concrete box?"

"No," I said calmly. "I came to deliver a message from Carter and your mother."

Victoria flinched at Eleanor’s name, her eyes darting away for a split second. "My mother is insane. She destroyed our family's legacy."

"Your mother is currently sitting on the board of directors of the Hayes-Vance Pediatric Research Foundation," I told her, my voice level and cold. "The foundation that was funded entirely by the liquidated assets of Marcus's offshore shell companies. Every single dollar Marcus tried to steal to build his empire is now funding free gene therapies for low-income children suffering from rare blood disorders."

Victoria let out a bitter, strangled scoff, her hands trembling against the glass. "You think you're so righteous, don't you? You think you won some moral victory."

"Marcus took a plea deal yesterday, Victoria," I said.

Victoria froze, her breath catching in her throat. "What kind of deal?"

"Thirty years at ADX Florence," I said. "No parole. In exchange for the prosecutors dropping the death penalty on his international smuggling charges, he testified fully against all co-conspirators. Including you."

Victoria’s face drained of what little color it had left. "He... he wouldn't. He's my father."

"Marcus Vance cares about Marcus Vance," I said. "You were just a tool he used to get his hands on my grandfather's trust. Your trial next month is a formality. The prosecutors are asking for twenty-five years without the possibility of early release."

Victoria stared at me through the glass, the reality of her new life finally crashing down on her like a slab of stone. Her lip trembled, her eyes welling with furious, helpless tears.

"Nathan... please," she stammered, her voice cracking into that old manipulative whine, pressing her palm against the glass. "You know I loved you once. Before all the pressure from Marcus... I was your wife. You can talk to the judge. You can tell them I was confused—"

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"I was never your husband, Victoria," I said, rising from the metal stool. "I was just the signature on the check you couldn't cash."

I hung up the receiver, turned my back on her screams as the guards pulled her away from the partition, and walked through the heavy steel security gates into the bright, open afternoon air.