"She Walked Out Of Her Own Birthday Party In Tears. Then The Most Powerful Man In The City Stepped In."

Sitting across the stainless-steel table, Daniel looked smaller than he had in the boardroom. The expensive dinner jacket was gone, replaced by an orange-trimmed holding jumpsuit that hung loosely on his shoulders. His hair was dry now, sticking up in untidy tufts where he had clawed at it during the three-hour interrogation.

The door clicked open, and Clare walked into the visitation booth.

She wore a simple, elegant trench coat over her green silk dress, her posture upright and unyielding. She didn't sit down immediately. She stood on the other side of the reinforced glass partition, looking at her husband through the smudged plastic window.

Daniel looked up, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. He scrambled forward in his chair, pressing his palms against the glass.

"Clare! Thank God," he rasped, his voice rough from hours of shouting and silence. "You have to tell them this is a misunderstanding! Your lawyers—Adrien’s lawyers—they can drop the charges if you just sign an affidavit stating it was an internal accounting error! We can settle this privately, Clare. Just you and me. We can sell the house, split the accounts, and walk away!"

Clare crossed her arms over her chest. "There are no charges to drop, Daniel. The state doesn't prosecute embezzlement as a domestic dispute. Once the federal forensic audit hit the U.S. Attorney's desk, it became a matter of public record."

"You did this," Daniel whispered, the veneer of pleading cracking to reveal a cold, venomous hatred. "You planned this. All those late nights in the study, all those quiet weekends when you pretended to read... you were building a case against me."

"I was surviving you," Clare corrected, her voice entirely level. "You spent twelve years convincing me that I was invisible. You made sure every contract bore your name, every board introduction minimized my contributions, and every public appearance framed you as the visionary and me as the ornament."

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small velvet box—the blue velvet box her grandmother had handed her on her wedding night.

She placed it on the stainless-steel ledge on her side of the glass, pushing it slightly toward the slot where guards passed documents.

"What's that?" Daniel muttered, eyeing the box with suspicion.

"Miss Cole's attorney dropped it off at my office two hours ago," Clare said quietly. "Along with a signed statement admitting that you instructed her to remove it from my dressing room so she could wear it to the Halcyon as proof of your affection."

Daniel swallowed hard. "She... she gave it back?"

"She gave it back the moment her own bank accounts were seized and she realized you weren't going to pay her legal fees," Clare replied. "People who build their lives on convenience don't tend to be very loyal when the ship starts sinking, Daniel. You should have learned that from your business model."

Daniel slammed his fist against the glass, though the sound was muffled by the thick acoustic plastic. "I built Bennett Maritime! I made us millions! Without me, you're just a lonely woman sitting in an empty house!"

"Without you," Clare said, turning toward the heavy steel door behind her, "I am the sole owner, CEO, and majority voting shareholder of Bennett Maritime, Vale Logistics, and three regional freight terminals that are currently buying up your former assets at auction for ten cents on the dollar."