Chapter 19 - The Concrete Box
The visiting room of the federal penitentiary was a bleak, sterile expanse of gray cinderblock and harsh fluorescent lighting. The air smelled of stale floor wax and institutional despair.
I sat in a hard plastic chair, separated from the inmate side by a thick pane of bulletproof glass. I was wearing a sharp, tailored burgundy suit. My vision was completely restored, my eyes clear and bright. I did not look like the terrified girl who had collapsed by her suitcase. I looked like a Hart.
A heavy steel door buzzed open on the other side of the glass.
Daniel walked in.
The sight of him was jarring. The expensive Italian suits and the arrogant swagger were entirely gone. He was wearing a baggy, faded khaki jumpsuit. His hair was buzzed short, and his face was pale and gaunt. The pristine, untouchable heir to the Cross hotel empire had been reduced to an inmate number.
He sat down on the metal stool opposite me, picking up the heavy black telephone receiver. I picked up mine.
"Claire," Daniel breathed, his eyes wide with desperate hope. "You came. I knew you would. I knew you still cared."
"I am here, Daniel," I said, my voice perfectly level, "but not because I care."
His hopeful smile faltered. "Did you bring the letter for the parole board? My lawyer said if you just sign a statement saying you believe I was manipulated by my mother, they will expedite my transfer."
I reached into my designer leather briefcase and pulled out his handwritten letter. I held it up so he could see it through the glass.
"You wrote that you were weak, Daniel," I said, staring directly into his hollow eyes. "You wrote that your mother controlled you. But I saw the security footage. I saw you step over my body to check if the rug was stained. I saw the emails where you told your father that you owned me."
"I was desperate!" Daniel pleaded, his voice cracking, pressing his hand against the glass. "I was drowning in debt! You have to understand the pressure I was under!"
"I understand perfectly," I replied coldly. "You thought I was a nobody. You thought you could abuse me, blind me, and throw me away, and the world wouldn't blink. But you picked the wrong woman."
I slowly tore his handwritten letter in half, right in front of his eyes. Then I tore it into quarters.
Daniel’s face contorted in panic. "What are you doing? Claire, please! I can't survive in here! You don't know what it's like!"
"I know exactly what a prison feels like," I said. "You built one for me the moment you put that ring on my finger."
I stood up, dropping the torn pieces of his letter into the small trash can beside my chair.
"I didn't come here to forgive you, Daniel," I told him, looking down at the pathetic man cowering behind the glass. "I came here to look you in the eye and let you see that you have absolutely zero power over me. I will never write a letter for you. I will never speak to you again. You are going to serve every single day of your twelve-year sentence."
"You're a monster!" Daniel screamed into the phone, slamming his fist against the bulletproof glass, his true nature finally violently surfacing. "You set us up!"
May you like
"No," I replied calmly. "I just stopped playing the victim."
I hung up the phone, severing the connection. I turned my back on him and walked out of the sterile room, leaving his muffled, enraged screams trapped inside the concrete box where he belonged.
