Chapter 6 - A Mother's Vengeance
Z
The visitation room at the Metropolitan Detention Center was a stark, depressing box of poured concrete and scuffed linoleum. A thick sheet of bulletproof glass separated the visitor side from the inmate side, illuminated by a single, buzzing overhead fluorescent tube.
I sat down on the hard stool, wearing a sleek black blazer and tailored pants, looking pristine, immaculate, and utterly unbothered by the heavy atmosphere of the prison. On the other side of the glass, the heavy steel door clicked open, and two corrections officers led Julian Vance into the room.
He looked unrecognizable. The arrogant, handsome prince of Manhattan high society was gone. In his place sat a hollow, broken man with sunken eyes, pale skin, and stubble covering his jaw. He was wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed to a heavy chain wrapped tightly around his waist.
When he saw me sitting on the other side of the glass, his eyes widened with a mixture of shock, shame, and a sickening, desperate hope. He sank onto the metal stool, pulling the landline phone receiver from the wall hook with trembling, cuffed hands.
I slowly picked up my receiver and placed it to my ear.
“Clara…” Julian’s voice cracked through the small speaker, weak and raspy. “Clara, oh my god… you came. I couldn't believe it when the guard told me you were here.”
“I’m not here for you, Julian,” I said, my tone as flat and cold as ice. “I’m here to tell you how this ends.”
Julian squeezed his eyes shut, a tear slipping down his cheek. “Clara, please… you have to listen to me. Everything that happened at the house… it wasn't me! It was my father! He was pressure-cooking me for months! He told me that if I didn't get rid of you, he would disinherit me! He brought Chloe into the picture, he orchestrated the whole thing!”
“Stop lying,” I cut in sharply, cutting his hysterical rant short with surgical precision. “Arthur didn't force you to parade another woman into our home, Julian. Arthur didn't force you to call me a charity case with a damaged womb. And Arthur didn't put his hands on my chest and shove me into that table.”
Julian flinched as if I had struck him across the face. He swallowed hard, his hands shaking so violently against the metal shelf that the chain around his waist rattled loud enough to echo through the small room.
“I was stupid, Clara! I was an idiot!” he wept, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. “I was terrified of losing the company! I was terrified of him! I didn't mean to hurt you or the baby! I swear to God, I didn't know you were going to fall like that!”
“You didn't care if I fell,” I said softly, my eyes locking onto his with terrifying intensity. “You only care now because you’re sleeping on a thin mattress in a six-by-eight cell, eating prison food, and facing twenty years in federal penitentiary.”
Julian looked up, his face contorted with pathetic, ugly desperation. “Clara… please. Talk to the prosecutor. Tell them you accept my plea deal. I’ll testify against Dad! I’ll give them the offshore account passwords he kept hidden in his Swiss safe! I’ll give them everything! Just… just help me get out of here. I can’t survive in this place!”
I looked at him—this man I had spent six years trying to love, this man whose shirts I had ironed, whose lies I had covered up, whose cruel family I had endured—and felt absolutely nothing. No anger, no hatred, no lingering sadness. Just complete, absolute contempt.
“You want me to help you?” I asked, leaning closer to the glass. “Let me tell you what is going to happen, Julian. You are not getting a plea deal. My legal team and the U.S. Attorney’s office just signed the formal rejection of your offer five minutes ago in the warden's office.”
Julian’s face drained of what little color it had left. “What?! No… no! You can’t do that!”
“I can, and I did,” I said smoothly. “You are going to trial alongside your father and your mother. You will sit at that defense table in front of twelve jurors while they play the audio of you laughing at me while I lay bleeding on the floor. They will watch the security footage of you standing over me while your mistress giggled.”
“Clara, please! I’m the father of your baby!” he shrieked, pressing his hands against the glass, leaving greasy smudges on the surface. “You can’t take his father away from him!”
A cold, lethal smile spread across my face—the exact same smile I had given him when my watch struck 1:59 PM on the day of the raid.
“You are not his father, Julian,” I whispered into the receiver, each word dropping like a heavy iron weight. “You are just a genetic donor who proved that wealth cannot buy honor, strength, or manhood. His father is going to be the memory of a family you destroyed. His last name isn't going to be Vance. I filed the legal paperwork this morning to change his surname to mine.”
Julian began to weep openly, heavy, wracking sobs that shook his entire body. “Clara… don't do this… don't leave me in the dark…”
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“You chose the dark the second you turned your back on me,” I said. I slowly hung up the phone receiver, placing it back on its wall cradle.
I stood up, adjusted my blazer, and looked down at the weeping, broken heir to the Vance empire through the glass. I didn't look back as I pressed the door release button and walked out into the corridor, leaving Julian Vance behind in the cold, unyielding shadows of his self-made prison.
