Chapter 8 - The Fallen Prince
On Thursday evening, I requested a private visitor’s conference at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.
I didn't go out of cruelty. I went because a builder always inspects the foundation before closing the blueprint.
The interview room was cold, sterile, and smelled of industrial floor wax. When the heavy steel door buzzed open, Dominic was led inside by two guards. The contrast was devastating.
The man who had once sneered at tailoring that wasn't bespoke from Savile Row was now dressed in a faded orange jumpsuit. His hair was disheveled, dark purple circles hung beneath his hollow eyes, and his hands trembled as he sat down across the metal table from me.
He stared at me through the Plexiglas partition, his breath catching in his throat. I was wearing an impeccably cut navy trench coat, looking every bit the woman who ruled the city’s economic skyline.
"Did you come to gloat, Eleanor?" Dominic whispered, his voice hoarse, stripped of all its former charm.
"No, Dominic," I replied through the intercom phone. "I came to return something to you."
I reached into my handbag, took out a small velvet pouch, and slid it into the security tray beneath the glass.
The guard inspected it, nodded, and handed it to Dominic.
Dominic opened the pouch with shaking fingers. Inside were the silver cuff links he had fastened on Monday evening—the ones he had worn with so much arrogance before heading to the Palmer House gala.
Dominic stared at them, and a single tear slipped down his cheek. "You took everything from me. My company. My reputation. My money."
"You never had any of it, Dominic," I said softly, without anger, but with the cold weight of truth. "You were an actor reading lines I wrote for you. You wore suits bought with my sweat. You shook hands on deals negotiated by my intellect. When you decided that cheating, stealing, and belittling me was the way to prove your manhood, you signed your own eviction notice from my life."
Dominic buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. "Victoria left the state. Sterling won't return my lawyer’s calls. I have nothing, Eleanor. I am facing twenty years in prison."
"Then I suggest you use those twenty years to learn how to build something of your own," I said, standing up from the metal chair. "Goodbye, Dominic."
May you like
I turned my back on him. As the heavy steel doors buzzed open to let me out into the free air of Chicago, his muffled pleas faded behind the concrete walls.
***
