Chapter 6 - The Pawn in Red
Inside the cold, fluorescent-lit visitor room at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island, Khloe Adams looked unrecognizable.
Her red designer gown had been replaced by a coarse, oversized orange jumpsuit. Her elaborate makeup was smeared, her hair tangled, and her manicured acrylic nails broken.
When Luke sat down on the other side of the glass partition, wearing a wrinkled suit he had slept in, Khloe slammed her palms against the plexiglass.
“You bastard!” she screamed, her voice cracking through the intercom. “You told me those bonds were clean! You told me they were a gift from your private bonus! The police think I’m an accomplice to corporate embezzlement!”
Luke picked up the phone receiver with his trembling left hand. “Khloe, keep your voice down! The guards are watching!”
“I don't care about the guards!” she sobbed hysterically. “Bail me out! The judge set bail at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Pay it, Luke! Pay it right now!”
Luke closed his eyes, a dry sob catching in his throat. “I can't.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Khloe blinked, her tears pausing mid-cheek. “What do you mean, you can't? You’re a billionaire. You own VanceTech.”
“I don't own VanceTech,” Luke whispered, his voice trembling with shame. “I don't own the car. I don't own the house in Greenwich. I don't even own this suit. Samantha took everything. Every single dollar.”
Khloe’s expression twisted from panic into sheer, unadulterated venom.
“You pathetic, worthless fraud,” she hissed into the receiver. “You told me she was a dog! You told me she was a penniless orphan who begged you for scraps! You let me pour wine on the daughter of Arthur Sterling!”
“I didn't know!” Luke pleaded. “She hid it from me! She lied to me, Khloe! We can fight this! If we stick together, if you testify that she coerced me—”
“Testify for you?” Khloe laughed, a wild, deranged laugh that turned the heads of two corrections officers. “I just spent three hours with the District Attorney, Luke. I gave them every text message. Every email where you told me how to bypass the board’s financial oversight. I signed a plea deal twenty minutes ago.”
Luke froze, the receiver slipping an inch in his fingers. “You... what?”
“I’m looking at six months of probation and community service,” Khloe whispered, leaning close to the glass, her eyes burning with pure malice. “You, Luke Vance? You’re looking at twenty years in federal prison for securities fraud and aggravated domestic assault. Goodbye, Luke. Have fun eating cafeteria slop.”
Khloe slammed the receiver down, stood up, and signaled the guard to take her away.
May you like
Luke sat alone in the booth, the dead dial tone humming in his ear, realizing that every single person he had chosen over Samantha had discarded him the moment the gold wore off.
***
