I Caught My Husband Cheating While He Was Still Lying to Me / Chapter 27 / 69

Chapter 28 - A Cornered Rat|

The depressing visitor’s room at the Marion Federal Penitentiary was incredibly bleak, painted entirely in institutional gray and smelling heavily of harsh bleach and pure human despair. I sat patiently at a incredibly small metal table, the sophisticated recording pen resting innocently in the breast pocket of my tailored blazer. I waited for an agonizing ten minutes before the heavy steel door finally opened, and a heavily armed guard escorted Daniel roughly into the room.

He looked significantly, shockingly older. The incredibly expensive haircuts and perfectly tailored Italian suits were entirely gone, replaced by a drab, ill-fitting orange jumpsuit. But the incredibly arrogant, condescending smirk on his face remained entirely and infuriatingly intact.

"Rachel," he sneered, sitting heavily across from me. "To what exactly do I owe this highly unprecedented pleasure? Finally come to humbly beg for my help?"

"I came because Elias Thorne paid me a very terrifying visit last night," I said flatly, wasting absolutely no time.

Daniel's dull eyes lit up immediately with a sick, twisted sense of victory. "I told you he was highly motivated. I safely assume you found Caroline’s little hidden treasure trove, then?"

"I found it," I admitted, deliberately keeping my voice low and urgent, flawlessly playing the desperate part of the terrified mother. "But Daniel, Thorne explicitly threatened Sophie. He literally threatened your own daughter's life. How could you possibly set a violent monster like that on your own flesh and blood?"

Daniel leaned back casually in his rigid chair, completely and utterly unbothered by the horror. "Oh, please, Rachel. Spare me the pathetic maternal outrage. Sophie stopped being my beloved daughter the very day she looked at me in that courtroom and called me a monster. Thorne explicitly promised me a large percentage of the recovered funds, and much more importantly, he has a team of very expensive, very corrupt appellate lawyers who are going to get my entire sentence overturned on a technicality."

"So you just sold us out completely," I prompted carefully, ensuring he spoke loudly and clearly for the hidden microphone. "You deliberately contacted Elias Thorne from this secure prison, told him I definitely had the fifty million, and explicitly ordered him to brutally extort me using the children as direct leverage?"

"It’s strictly just business, darling," Daniel smiled incredibly coldly. "I specifically told Thorne to do absolutely whatever it takes to completely break you. And look, it worked perfectly. You’re going to give him the massive money, I’m going to get out of this hellhole, and you will go right back to being a pathetic, irrelevant little woman."