Chapter 5 - The Prison VisitTwo weeks later, inside the maximum-security wing of the Cook County Correctional Facility, the air smelled of industrial bleach, cold iron, and stale sweat.
Sitting behind a heavy panel of reinforced bulletproof glass was Julian Vance.
He looked unhinged. His tailored suits had been replaced by a coarse orange institutional jumpsuit, his wrists bound in heavy steel handcuffs attached to a waist chain. His hair was messy, dark purple circles carved deep beneath his bloodshot eyes, his skin pale and covered in rough stubble.
Sitting across from him on the visitor stool, wearing a simple dark blue sweater and wool trousers, was me.
I held the acoustic phone receiver to my ear, looking at him with a calm, weightless peace.
Julian grabbed his receiver with both hands, pressing his face close to the glass, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his cheekbones.
"Nora...!" Julian wept frantically, his voice cracking into sharp, pathetic pieces through the small speaker. "Nora, thank God you came! Please... you have to talk to Arthur! They're offering a plea deal of thirty years without parole, Nora! Thirty years!"
I looked at him calmly, my hand resting gently over my twelve-week baby bump.
"You tried to kill me, Julian," I said softly through the receiver.
"It was Selena!" Julian shrieked, pointing a trembling finger toward the holding cells behind him. "She manipulated me! She told me you attacked her! She planned the whole thing, Nora! I was an idiot! I loved you! I still love you!"
"You didn't love me, Julian," I corrected deadpan, my voice smooth and razor-sharp. "You loved my fifty-one percent equity. You loved having a quiet wife who built your company in the shadows while you took the credit."
Julian stumbled back against his chair, his hands shaking violently against the counter. "Nora... please... think of our children! They need a father! Don't let them grow up knowing their father is in prison!"
A cold, dry smile touched my lips.
"My children will know their mother survived a monster, Julian," I whispered softly near the receiver. "And they will know that their father spent the rest of his life paying for his crime."
I pressed a printed copy of the ultrasound image flat against the bulletproof glass—showing the two tiny, radiant silhouettes resting peacefully in my womb under the bright hospital light.
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Julian stared at the image, his chest heaving in wild, shallow gasps, a loud, sobbing shriek escaping his throat as he realized that the family he could have had was gone forever behind iron bars.
I set the phone receiver back onto its brass hook, stood up from the stool, and turned my back on him forever as two corrections officers dragged his crying, broken frame back into the dark corridors of the prison.
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