Chapter 6 - THE CELL BLOCK VISITOR
Two weeks after the indictments were handed down, I stepped into the visitor facility of the county high-security detention center.
The room smelled of floor wax, stale coffee, and cold iron. I sat down behind the thick bulletproof glass partition, setting my designer leather briefcase on the steel ledge.
A minute later, the heavy metal door on the inmate side opened.
Adrian was led in by two armed guards, his ankles chained together, his hands cuffed at the waist. He was wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit. His hair was messy, his face pale and sunken, and the arrogant smirk he had worn for four years was entirely gone.
He sat down heavily on the metal stool, staring at me through the glass. He picked up the plastic telephone receiver with trembling hands.
I picked up mine.
"You came," Adrian whispered, his voice raspy. "Maya... thank God you came. You have to help me. The people in here... they know who my father-in-law is. They’re treating me like trash."
"You are trash, Adrian," I said calmly, my tone as level as a frozen lake. "I didn't come here to help you. I came to deliver paperwork."
I pulled a crisp set of legal documents from my briefcase and pressed them against the glass window.
"These are the final divorce decrees and asset forfeiture orders," I explained. "The court has officially annulled our marriage on the grounds of fraud and physical endangerment. Every asset you owned—including the house where you tried to humiliate me—has been seized by the state and sold."
Adrian’s breath hitched. "My... my house? My Porsche?"
"Sold," I repeated smoothly. "The proceeds—roughly four million dollars—were transferred this morning to Saint Anne’s Children’s Home. They are building a new wing for orphaned girls. They’re naming it after my real mother."
Adrian slammed his cuffed hands against the ledge, the metal chains rattling loudly against the glass. "You can't do this! That money was mine! I worked four years for that regional director promotion!"
"You didn't work for anything, Adrian," I replied, leaning closer to the glass. "You stole from Halcyon. You stole from me. You even stole the credit for the financial audits I wrote for you late at night while you were out at bars with other women."
Adrian slumped back on his stool, tears of rage and desperation leaking from his eyes. "What about my mother? Have you talked to her?"
"Celeste turned state’s evidence against you thirty minutes ago," I revealed, watching his face collapse. "She accepted a plea bargain. She agreed to testify that you were the one who ordered the thallium poison online using your crypto wallet. She’s giving you forty years to save herself ten."
Adrian went dead silent. The betrayal by his own mother—the woman who had orchestrated his entire life—seemed to break whatever was left of his spirit.
"Why are you doing this to me, Mara?" he sobbed, reverting back to my old name. "I gave you a life! I took you out of that miserable accounting office!"
"You didn't give me a life, Adrian," I said, standing up and smoothing down the front of my tailored suit jacket. "You built a cage around me because you were terrified of what would happen if I ever realized how smart I was. But you forgot one thing about cages."
He looked up at me through the glass, his eyes hollow. "What?"
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"If you put a tiger in a cage," I whispered, "you’d better make sure the lock never breaks."
I hung up the phone receiver, turned my back on him, and walked out of the visitor room, leaving him screaming my name against the bulletproof glass until the heavy steel doors slammed shut behind me.
