Chapter 8 - The Prison Visitor's Glass
Three months later.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Manhattan was a place constructed of cold reinforced concrete, bulletproof glass, and heavy steel doors that slammed shut with thunderous finality.
I sat on a metal chair in Visiting Room B, separated from the interior holding cell by a thick pane of reinforced plexiglass.
On the other side of the glass, the door opened, and Arthur Vance was led inside by a corrections officer.
He was wearing an oversized orange prison jumpsuit. His silver hair had been cropped short, his face was pale and gaunt, and his posture was completely broken. The arrogant titan of logistics who had once ruled a multi-million-dollar empire now looked like a ghost waiting for the end.
He sat down heavily on the stool, picked up the plastic telephone receiver, and held it to his ear with a trembling hand.
I picked up my receiver.
"Elena," Arthur’s voice came through the speaker, raspy, weak, and hollow. "You... you actually came."
"I came to deliver a message, Arthur," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
Arthur leaned closer to the glass, his eyes filled with a desperate, pathetic plea.
"Elena... please," he begged, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. "Talk to the prosecutors. Tell them it was a family dispute. Chloe is facing twenty years in Bedford Hills Security Facility... I’m sixty-eight years old, Elena! I will die in here!"
I looked at him through the glass, remembering the night of July Fourth—the feeling of his thick fingers crushing my throat, the smell of scotch on his breath, and the cold, inhuman words he had growled while my daughter fought for air in his pool: If she can't survive water, she doesn't deserve life.
"Do you remember what you told me at the pool, Arthur?" I asked softly into the receiver.
Arthur swallowed hard, his eyes dropping toward the stainless-steel table. "Elena... I was angry... I was drinking—"
"You told me that only the strong belong in this family," I interrupted, every word spoken with razor-sharp precision. "You told me that if Lily couldn't survive, she didn't deserve life."
I leaned closer to the glass screen.
"You built a world based on absolute cruelty, Arthur. You taught Chloe that weakness should be destroyed. And now, you are sitting on that side of the glass because when the real test came, you were the weakest person in the room."
Arthur began to weep silently, tears running down the deep creases of his weathered face. "Please... Elena... I am your father..."
"You ceased being my father the second you put your hand on my throat," I replied coldly. "You were just my employer. And I have liquidated your account."
I set the phone receiver back onto its wall cradle.
May you like
Arthur slammed his fist against the bulletproof glass, screaming my name through the thick barrier, but his voice was muffled into absolute silence.
I stood up, buttoned my coat, and walked out through the heavy steel security doors into the bright afternoon sunlight, leaving him behind in the dark forever.
