Chapter 13 - Return to the Lion’s Den
Manhattan in late October was a landscape of slate-gray skies, towering glass monoliths, and piercing winds that whistled through the canyons of Park Avenue. Stepping out of the black town car outside the Manhattan Federal Courthouse, Anna felt an unsettling wave of déjà vu.
Only this time, she was not the quiet, exhausted woman wearing oversized sweaters and carrying diaper bags while her husband basked in flashbulbs. Today, she wore a bespoke charcoal wool trench coat from Armani, her dark hair swept up in an elegant chignon, her face framed by diamond studs that caught the flash of dozens of cameras waiting on the courthouse steps.
Beside her walked Julian, imposing and elegant, his presence a clear declaration to the media that Anna was no longer alone in this war.
"Mrs. Vance! Are you here to bail out your former husband?"
"Anna, is it true Jason claims you abandoned him while he was suffering from clinical depression?"
"Did Nicole Laurent steal forty million dollars with Jason's blessing?"
Reporters shouted questions like a pack of starving wolves. Anna didn't flinch. She paused at the top of the marble steps, turned to the cameras with an icy, devastating smile, and spoke clearly into the bank of microphones.
"My name is Francesca Moretti," she announced, her voice ringing with crystalline authority over the chaos. "I am here today to protect the rightful inheritance of my children from the fraudulent schemes of two convicted felons. Jason Vance ceased to be my husband the moment he forged his own path of deceit. If he has fallen into the pit he dug with Nicole Laurent, he may lie in it alone."
With those words, she turned and swept through the heavy bronze doors of the courthouse, leaving the press corps stunned in absolute silence.
Inside the private holding room, separated by a thick glass partition, sat Jason.
When Anna walked in, the sight of him made her stomach twist. The handsome, arrogant golden boy of New York architecture was gone. In his place sat a hollow, disheveled man with sunken eyes, trembling hands, and graying stubble. When he saw her, his bloodshot eyes widened with a desperate, pathetic hope.
"Anna..." Jason croaked, pressing his handcuffed hands against the glass. "You came. God, Anna, you came. I knew you still loved me. You wouldn't let them do this to me..."
Anna remained standing, her expression as unyielding as the marble pillars of Milan. "I didn't come for you, Jason. I came to take your signature."
Jason’s face collapsed into bewilderment. "My signature? What about us? What about the children? Anna, Nicole betrayed me! She told me you were plotting to take everything from me. She set me up! Those offshore loans... she forged my name! You have to tell the judge that I was sick, that you know I'm not a criminal!"
"You were never sick, Jason," Anna replied, her voice devoid of anger, filled only with the devastating chill of complete indifference. "You were just greedy, weak, and arrogant. And now, you will sign this relinquishment of parental trusteeship, or I will hand the federal prosecutor the unedited accounting records of Vance Enterprises from the past five years—records you forgot I had backed up on my private server."
Jason froze, the color draining completely from his skin. "You... you wouldn't destroy me like that."
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"You destroyed yourself the morning you handed me those divorce papers," Anna said. "Sign the papers, Jason. Or spend the next fifteen years in federal prison."
***
