Chapter 8 - THE GLASS ROOM
I requested to see him one last time before the formal indictment was unsealed.
The visiting room at the county jail was cold, sterile, and smelled of industrial floor cleaner. A thick pane of bulletproof glass separated two plastic chairs, with a small black intercom grill set into the metal frame.
When the heavy steel door opened, an officer led Daniel into the room.
He looked unrecognizably broken. The crisp wool coats, the styled hair, the arrogant posture—all gone. He was wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit, his hands handcuffed to a heavy chain around his waist, his face pale and sunken.
He sat down awkwardly, staring at me through the glass. He didn't look like a master manipulator anymore. He looked like a trapped rat.
I picked up the black telephone receiver. He did the same with trembling hands.
"Elena..." Daniel croaked, his voice thin and hollow. "Elena, please... you have to tell them to drop the trust fraud charges. Margaret is blaming everything on me. She told her new lawyer that I forced her to sign those trust papers!"
I listened to him turn on my mother without a single flicker of emotion. The two predators who had spent years conspiring against me were now tearing each other apart to save their own skins.
"Ava remembers everything, Daniel," I said softly into the phone.
Daniel flinched, pulling his head back. "Elena, I... I lost my temper. I was stressed about the audit. I swear I never meant to hurt her—"
"You shaved her head," I interrupted, my voice dropping into an icy register that made him stop talking mid-sentence. "You held an eight-year-old girl down, chopped her hair off, and wrote LIAR on her scalp because she found your bank statements."
"I was trying to protect our future!" he stammered, tears springing to his bloodshot eyes. "If the trust was exposed, Margaret would have cut us off! We would have lost the house!"
"It wasn't your future, Daniel," I said clearly. "It was my father's money. My daughter's money. And you stole every cent of it while making me feel like a beggar in my own home."
Daniel pressed his forehead against the cold glass, weeping quietly. "What's going to happen to me?"
"The prosecutor is filing fifteen felony counts against you and Margaret," I informed him smoothly. "Grand larceny, forgery, tax evasion, child abuse, and witness intimidation. You're looking at twelve to fifteen years in state prison, Daniel."
He looked up at me, his face contorted in pure, pathetic terror. "Please... Elena... I'm Ava's father! You can't let her grow up with a father in prison!"
I stood up from the chair, holding my handbag, looking down at him through the glass.
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"Ava doesn't have a father anymore, Daniel," I said softly. "She has a mother who protects her. And that is more than enough."
I hung up the plastic receiver, turned my back on him, and walked out of the visiting room without looking back.
