Chapter 12 - Behind Iron Bars
In the windowless, fluorescent-lit interview room of the county detention facility, Vanessa Vance sat in an orange jumpsuit, her hands cuffed to the steel table.
Her makeup was completely gone, revealing the hollow, exhausted lines of her face. Her styled hair was tangled in a greasy knot. For the past twelve hours, she had refused to eat the jail food, screaming at the guards that she was a Vance and a Croft, demanding a private cell and immediate bail.
The heavy steel door buzzed and clicked open.
Vanessa looked up with a flash of eager anticipation, expecting her father with a signed bail release order.
Instead, Adrian walked into the room alone.
He wore an unbuttoned dress shirt and dark trousers, looking completely composed, calm, and untouchable. He pulled back the metal chair opposite her and sat down.
“Adrian!” Vanessa gasped, leaning forward as far as her chains would allow. “You came to your senses! You have to tell the prosecutor to drop this! It was all a terrible misunderstanding. I was having a mental breakdown, Adrian! We can go to counseling. We can fix this!”
Adrian looked at her with the cold detachment of a scientist observing an insect under glass. “There is nothing to fix, Vanessa.”
“My father will ruin you!” she hissed, her desperation instantly mutating into venomous spite. “When he gets Marcus Sterling in front of a judge, you’ll be the laughingstock of Wall Street!”
“Your father was arrested fifteen minutes ago outside this very building,” Adrian said quietly.
Vanessa froze. Her eyes went completely wide. “What… what did you say?”
“Federal charges. Wire fraud, securities manipulation, and tax evasion,” Adrian explained, his tone conversational. “The FBI seized Croft Enterprises’ assets under the RICO statute. Your family is bankrupt, Vanessa. There is no bail coming. There is no high-priced defense attorney. You will be assigned a public defender by this afternoon.”
Vanessa’s breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. Her hands rattled against the steel table as violent tremors wracked her frame. The reality of her total, absolute ruin finally crashed through her delusions of grandeur.
“Why?” she sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Why would you destroy everything over a stupid lock on a shed?”
Adrian leaned forward across the table, his eyes burning into hers.
“Because you laid your hands on my children,” Adrian said, his voice a low, terrifying growl. “You thought they were weak. You thought they had no voice. You thought you could lock them in the dark and make them disappear.”
Adrian stood up and pushed the chair back.
“My children are the light of my life,” Adrian said, walking toward the exit door. “And you are going to spend the next seven to ten years in a state penitentiary living in the dark.”
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“Adrian! Don’t leave me here! Adrian!” Vanessa screamed, throwing herself forward until the chains violently yanked her back against the chair.
Adrian knocked on the heavy metal door. The buzzer sounded, the bolt retracted, and he walked out into the corridor without looking back a single time.
