Chapter 13 - The Visitor at Otisville
The visiting room at Otisville Correctional Facility smelled of floor wax, stale coffee, and institutional decay. It was a stark, brutal contrast to the imported marble and Egyptian cotton Carter Vance had taken for granted his entire life.
When the heavy steel door buzzed open, Carter stepped through, wearing the standard dark green prison uniform. He had lost at least twenty pounds. The immaculate grooming, the custom-tailored bespoke suits, the haughty arrogance of the Park Avenue heir had rotted away, replaced by hollowed cheekbones and dark purple bruises under his eyes.
Yet, when he saw me sitting across the laminate table in a sharply tailored charcoal coat, a sickening, pathetic smirk stretched across his cracked lips.
"Claire," he rasped, sitting down with a rattle of wrist chains. "Come to see the wreckage you created? Or did you finally realize you miss having a man in your bed?"
I didn't blink. I didn't flinch. I folded my hands calmly over the table.
"Your mother filed a claim for Victoria yesterday, Carter. Along with an offshore entity called Alabaster Rose."
The smirk on Carter's face faltered, if only for a fraction of a second. But then his eyes glinted with desperate, feral malice.
"You thought you destroyed me, didn't you? You took my apartment. You took my seat on the board. You locked me in a cage like an animal while you play happy family with Alexander." He leaned forward, the chains clinking harshly against the metal brackets. "You forgot that Elena loves me. She knows where every dollar is buried. She promised me that by the time my appeal hits the docket, you won't have a penny left to pay your fancy lawyers."
"Elena doesn't love you, Carter," I said, my voice level, stripped of all emotion. "She let you take an eight-year sentence so she could consolidate your mother's trust and use your daughter's name as leverage to extort Mercer Global."
"Shut up!" he hissed, his face reddening with sudden rage. "She visits me every month! She’s executing my plan!"
"Does she?" I slid an eight-by-ten glossy photograph across the table.
It was taken three nights ago outside a private luxury restaurant in Tribeca. Elena was stepping into a limousine, wearing an emerald dress paid for with funds drained from the Vance family’s remaining trust. And holding her hand, kissing her neck under the city lights, was not a ghost of Carter Vance.
It was Sterling Brooks—the predatory hedge fund billionaire who had spent five years trying to engineer a hostile takeover of Mercer Global.
Carter stared at the photograph, his pupils dilating until his eyes were almost entirely black. The color drained from his skin, leaving him gray as ash.
"She wouldn't..." he stammered, his fingers trembling violently against the table. "She... she swore to me..."
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"You were always a pawn, Carter," I said softly, leaning in close enough for him to see the complete absence of pity in my eyes. "You betrayed me for her, and she traded you for a man with deeper pockets. Sign the full irrevocable disavowal of your mother's filing. Give me the account codes to Alabaster Rose, or I will ensure the federal prosecutor reviews the offshore tax evasion files you left on my desk. They will add fifteen years to your sentence."
Carter slumped into his chair, his hands shaking so hard the chains rattled endlessly against the table. The illusion was shattered. The ghost was finally dead.
