Chapter 5 - The Confrontation at Riker's
Z
The visitation room at Riker's Island was a dismal, windowless box that smelled of industrial bleach and damp wool. Across the scratched plexiglass divider, Mark sat slumped in an orange jumpsuit. His usual arrogance was gone; his hair was unwashed, his eyes bloodshot and swollen from lack of sleep, and his hands trembled as he held the black plastic telephone receiver.
I sat down on the other side and picked up the phone.
"David... man, you gotta get me out of here," Mark blubbered instantly, his voice crackling through the receiver. "It's a nightmare in here! They put me in a cell with three guys facing armed robbery charges! I don't belong here, man! It was all a misunderstanding! I'll pay you back every cent! I swear on my life!"
"You don't have any money to pay me back, Mark," I said coldly. "Because Ethan Vance just cleaned out the Nassau account and blocked your phone number."
Mark’s face drained of what little color it had left. He pressed his face closer to the glass. "What... what are you talking about? Ethan is wiring the bail money to Chloe right now. Five hundred thousand dollars. He promised!"
"Ethan isn't wiring anything," I said, leaning back. "Julian checked the Nassau logs two hours ago. As soon as the DA froze Vanguard's domestic accounts, Ethan transferred the remaining three hundred grand into a private crypto wallet and bought a one-way ticket to Dubai for tomorrow morning. He’s leaving, Mark. And he’s taking Chloe and Oliver with him."
"No... no, you're lying!" Mark screamed, pounding his fist against the plexiglass. A guard stepped forward, resting a hand on his holster, and Mark immediately recoiled, trembling. "Chloe wouldn't do that! Oliver is my son!"
I pulled out a printed copy of the Swiss clinic records and pressed it against the glass.
"Oliver isn't your son, Mark. He never was. Ethan Vance has been paying you a fifty-thousand-dollar annual cut to act as a decoy husband so I wouldn't suspect Ethan was still in New York. You were never a partner in this. You were just a hired idiot, a disposable scapegoat meant to take the prison time when the fraud blew up."
Mark stared at the Swiss documents, his eyes scanning the names, dates, and DNA markers. Tears of pure rage and humiliation began to spill down his hollow cheeks. His breathing became erratic, his chest heaving under the bright orange fabric.
"They... they treated me like trash," Mark whispered, his voice cracking into a sob. "Your mother... Chloe... they always talked down to me. They told me I was useless unless I helped them get your money. They said you were a selfish bastard who didn't deserve your wealth."
"They lied to you, Mark. Just like they lied to me," I said, keeping my tone razor-sharp. "Right now, you are facing twenty years for grand larceny, scheme to defraud, and identity theft. You will do at least twelve years in maximum security. By the time you get out, Ethan will have raised that boy in a non-extradition country with the money stolen from my firm."
"What do I do?" Mark wept openly now, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Please, David. Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything."
"You sign a full confession," I said, sliding a pen and a prepared legal document under the slot in the partition. "You name Ethan Vance as the mastermind. You detail every single transaction, every wire transfer, and every meeting. You give the DA the full recorded phone calls you saved on your cloud drive—because I know a paranoid snake like you recorded every conversation with Ethan."
Mark looked at the papers, then looked up at me with raw desperation. "If I do this... will you drop the charges for what happened at the apartment? The baby formula... Maya's stuff?"
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I stared into his eyes, my expression hardened into stone. "I will tell the prosecutor that you cooperated. But you are still going to prison for what you did to my wife, Mark. You don't get a free pass for almost killing Maya. You just get to make sure Ethan Vance sits in the cell right next to you."
Mark hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, snatching the pen with shaking fingers, he began signing every page of the confession.
