Chapter 10 - Behind the Ballistic Partition-10
Ten minutes later, at my request, I walked into the primary visitation booth to face Mark one final time before his transfer to a maximum-security federal facility in Colorado.
The room was divided by a thick, seamless pane of reinforced ballistic glass. Mark sat on the cold metal stool on the other side, his orange jumpsuit wrinkled, his face gaunt, his hands shaking in heavy iron shackles as he lifted the plastic intercom phone. I picked up my receiver, holding it to my ear in total silence.
"You look remarkably well, Elena," Mark whispered through the line, his voice a raspy, broken shadow of its former self. "I see the civilian clothes suit you just as well as they did when you were playing the quiet, grieving mother in our empty house."
"I am not here to exchange pleasantries with you, Mark," I said, my voice carrying the clinical detachment of a lead auditor closing an empty file. "I am here to deliver the final court orders. The divorce decree was finalized by Magistrate Croft this morning. Your parental rights have been permanently and irrevocably terminated by order of the family court, and a lifetime protective order has been issued prohibiting you or any member of your family from ever coming within five miles of Noah."
Mark let out a sharp, bitter bark of laughter that degenerated into a dry, ragged cough. He pressed his face close against the ballistic glass, his eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate malice.
"You think you've won, Elena?" he whispered, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the plastic receiver. "You think you can just take our son, take your restitution money, and go back to your quiet little life? The Sovereign Trust... it wasn't just my uncle's local project. The cartel behind those European holding firms... they don't care about federal court verdicts. They care about their lost capital! $140 million of their money is currently frozen because of your camera trick!"
May you like
He leaned closer, his breath fogging the glass partition between us.
"They know your name, Elena. They know where you live, where you work, and where Noah goes to daycare. You might have locked me in this steel cage, darling, but you've locked yourself and our son in a prison of fear for the rest of your days. Every time a car slows down outside your house... you’ll know they're coming to collect the debt."
