Chapter 13 - Vanessa's Sentence
|
The fluorescent lights of the federal holding facility hummed with an irritating, sterile buzz.
I sat on one side of the bulletproof glass partition, wearing a bespoke emerald silk blouse and tailored trousers that had belonged to my mother's private collection.
On the other side of the glass, the heavy steel door clicked open, and a female corrections officer escorted Vanessa into the small visitation booth.
The glamorous, arrogant socialite who had demanded Eleanor pay for broken champagne glasses was completely gone.
Vanessa wore a faded orange prison jumpsuit that hung loosely off her frail, shivering shoulders.
Her designer blonde highlights were limp and unwashed, her face was devoid of makeup, and her right arm was bound in a cheap plaster cast.
When she saw me sitting on the other side of the glass, her bloodshot eyes flashed with a pathetic mixture of rage and terror.
She sat down slowly on the metal stool, picking up the heavy plastic telephone receiver with her uninjured hand.
I lifted my receiver to my ear, waiting patiently for her to speak first.
"Are you here to mock me, little orphan?" Vanessa hissed through the speaker, her voice cracking with bitterness.
"Do you feel powerful now that you've stolen my husband and my life?"
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the stainless steel counter, looking at her with genuine, unvarnished pity.
"I didn't steal anything from you, Vanessa," I said softly, my voice calm and completely steady.
"You destroyed yourself the moment you decided that cruelty was a substitute for strength."
Vanessa let out a dry, manic laugh that ended in a ragged cough.
"My father will get us out of this," she declared, her eyes darting frantically around the barren concrete room.
"His high-priced lawyers will dismantle your bogus evidence before the grand jury even convenes!"
"We will be back in our mansion before the summer, and you will be back on your knees scrubbing floors!"
I shook my head slowly, pulling a crisp legal document from my leather handbag and pressing it against the glass partition.
"Your father signed a full confession two hours ago, Vanessa," I informed her quietly.
"He pleaded guilty to twenty counts of capital murder and racketeering to avoid the federal death penalty."
"He will spend the rest of his natural life in a supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, locked in an eight-by-ten concrete box for twenty-three hours a day."
Vanessa's jaw dropped, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at her father's familiar signature on the plea agreement.
"No..." she whimpered, the last shred of her delusional hope shattering into dust.
"That can't be real... he promised me we were untouchable..."
"No one is untouchable," I told her, flipping the page to reveal the second legal document.
"These are the divorce papers Luca filed this morning."
"Under the morality and criminal conspiracy clauses of your prenuptial agreement, your marriage has been formally dissolved."
"You are being stripped of every piece of jewelry, every vehicle, every offshore trust, and every property associated with the Moretti name."
"Even the engagement ring you wore was seized by the federal government as proceeds of criminal activity."
Vanessa began to tremble violently, tears carving dark tracks through the grime on her pale face.
"Luca wouldn't leave me with nothing..." she sobbed, pressing her hand against the cold glass.
"I was his wife! I loved him!"
"You didn't love him," I replied, my voice hard as diamond.
"You were putting poison into his wine every single night while planning to let a seven-year-old child die of cancer."
"You aren't a wife, Vanessa; you're an executioner who got caught with the blade in her hand."
I hung up the plastic receiver, cutting off the sound of her frantic, desperate screams through the intercom.
I rose from the chair, smoothed the emerald silk of my blouse, and turned my back on the woman who had treated the weak like garbage.
May you like
As the heavy steel doors of the prison facility opened to let me back into the warm morning sunshine, I took a deep, clean breath of freedom.
The debt had been settled, the wicked had received their judgment, and it was finally time to heal.
