Chapter 8 - Behind the Ballistic Glass-8
Ten minutes later, I walked into the primary visitation room to face Daniel one last time before his transfer to a maximum-security federal facility in Pennsylvania.
The room was divided by a thick, seamless pane of reinforced ballistic glass. Daniel sat down heavily on the cold metal stool on the other side, lifting his chained hands with immense effort to pick up the plastic intercom phone. I picked up my receiver, holding it to my ear in total silence.
"You look beautiful, Clara," Daniel whispered through the line, his voice a raspy, broken shadow of its former self. "I see the civilian suit fits you just as well as it did when you were playing the quiet, submissive wife at my kitchen island. I suppose I should thank you for leaving my sister her nominal trust shares. It was a remarkably generous act for a woman who called her marriage an empty room."
"I didn't do it for you, Daniel," I said, my voice completely flat, devoid of any emotion. "I did it for the law. You're going to prison for thirty-five years, Daniel. The company is gone. Your money is gone. Megan is currently cooperating with the feds to secure a reduced sentence in a medium-security facility, and your mother's lifestyle has been completely bankrupted by the federal asset seizures."
Daniel let out a sharp, bitter bark of laughter that degenerated into a ragged coughing fit, his chained hands shaking against the steel counter. "You think you won, Clara? You think this little courtroom victory makes you safe? You think you can just take your investment dividends and go back to your quiet little life as a senior auditor?"
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He leaned close to the glass, his eyes flashing with a sudden, malicious intensity that echoed the morning he threw the coffee mug.
"The Nicosia pipeline... you only pulled the top layer of the ledger, Clara. The real owners of that syndicate... the international cartel behind those Cypriot holding firms... they don't care about federal court verdicts. They care about their capital. Eighty-five million dollars of their money is currently frozen because of your short-circuit trick!"
