Chapter 15 - The Breaking Point
The jail visiting room was a place of glass,
static-filled intercoms,
and the smell of despair.
Luca sat on one side of the partition,
his hair greasy,
his face unshaven.
He looked like a ghost of the man who had toasted to his victory in Miami.
On the other side sat his lawyer—the same one who had been so confident during the mediation.
“They’re not offering a plea,
Luca,”
the lawyer said,
his voice coming through the speaker with a tinny rattle.
“The feds have everything.
The Chicago widow has come forward to testify.
Your mother’s offshore accounts have been frozen.”
“What about the house?”
Luca asked,
his voice a desperate whisper.
“Can we sue for a portion of the sale?”
“The house is gone,”
the lawyer said.
“And the pre-nup has been upheld by the state supreme court in a preliminary ruling.
The 'malfeasance' clause is air-tight.
You’re looking at twenty years,
Luca.”
Luca leaned his forehead against the glass.
The coldness of it was the only thing that felt real.
“What about Ma?”
“She’s in the women’s facility,”
the lawyer replied.
“She’s blaming you.
She told the investigators that you were the one who forced her to open the accounts.
She’s trying to cut a deal to testify against you.”
Luca let out a hollow,
broken laugh.
Of course.
Even at the end,
Wendy was looking out for herself.
She had raised him to be a shark,
and now she was the one biting.
“And Jessi?”
Luca asked.
“Does she...
does she say anything?”
“She doesn't talk about you at all,”
the lawyer said.
“According to the news,
she’s just launched a new foundation for women in business.
She’s naming a scholarship after her daughter.”
Luca closed his eyes.
The world was moving on without him.
The woman he thought he could control was becoming a legend.
The child he thought he could use as a pawn was being raised in a world of light and opportunity,
far away from his shadow.
He looked at his hands—the hands that had changed the codes,
the hands that had signed the forged documents,
the hands that were now empty.
“I want to see the baby,”
he whispered.
“Just once.”
“The judge denied the request,”
the lawyer said.
“The restraining order is permanent.
You’re never going to see her again,
Luca.”
The lawyer stood up,
gathering his briefcase.
“I’m withdrawing as your counsel.
There’s no money left to pay my fees.
The court will appoint you a public defender.”
He walked away,
the heavy metal door slamming shut behind him.
Luca sat alone in the booth.
He looked at his reflection in the glass.
He saw a man who had tried to steal a kingdom and ended up in a cage.
He saw a man who had underestimated the power of a mother’s love and an architect’s mind.
He reached out and touched the glass,
where Jessi’s face would have been if she had come to see him.
But she was never coming.
She was already gone.
She was building something new.
And he was just the debris that had been cleared away to make room for the foundation.
Far away,
in the penthouse,
Jessi Miller was standing on her balcony.
The sun was setting over the Rockies,
painting the sky in shades of violet and gold.
Lily was in her arms,
watching the lights of the city begin to twinkle.
“It’s a big world,
baby,”
Jessi whispered.
“And it’s all yours.”
The architect had finished her masterpiece.
May you like
The revenge was complete.
But the legacy?
