Chapter 14 - The Visitor in Cellblock C
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego was a brutal,
concrete monolith,
devoid of light,
comfort,
or luxury.
Inside the high-security visitation room,
the air was cold and thick with the smell of industrial disinfectant.
I sat on one side of a thick glass partition,
wearing a immaculate ivory coat,
my hands resting quietly on my leather handbag.
On the other side of the glass,
the heavy metal door unlocked,
and Christopher Lawson was led inside by a correctional officer.
He was barely recognizable.
Six months of federal custody had stripped away every trace of the handsome,
arrogant CEO I had married seven years ago.
His hair was shaved close to the scalp,
his body visibly thin,
his face sunken,
his knuckles bruised from prison yard fights.
He wore an orange jumpsuit,
his wrists bound by heavy steel cuffs.
He sat down slowly on the metal stool,
picking up the gray plastic phone receiver with shaking hands.
I picked up my receiver,
holding it to my ear.
"Victoria..."
Christopher’s voice came through the line,
raspy,
broken,
and trembling with raw emotion.
"You...
you actually came."
"I am here on business,
Christopher,"
I said,
my voice devoid of any warmth or anger.
"Not for a reunion."
Christopher closed his eyes,
a single tear cutting through the dirt on his pale cheek.
"I'm so sorry,
Victoria,"
he sobbed into the phone,
his forehead pressing against the cold glass partition.
"God,
I am so sorry.
I was a fool.
I was insane.
Michelle manipulated me,
Dominic used me...
I had the best woman in the world,
and I threw you away for a lie."
I listened to his weeping without moving a single muscle in my face.
"Apologies are useless in accounting,
Christopher,"
I stated calmly.
"They do not alter the balance sheet."
Christopher looked up,
his bloodshot eyes searching my face for any sign of the woman who used to love him,
any sign of the wife who had once saved his company and cooked his meals.
He found nothing. Only ice.
"Why are you here,
Victoria?"
he asked,
wiping his face with his orange sleeve.
"What do you want from me?"
I pulled a single legal sheet from my handbag and pressed it against the glass partition.
"This is an affidavit detailing the secret offshore accounts created by Dominic Lawson and Harrison Sterling during Vextor’s initial public offering three years ago."
Christopher blinked,
reading the text through the glass.
"Harrison Sterling...
the UK hedge fund manager?"
"Sterling is attempting to execute a hostile short-attack against Vextor,"
I explained.
"He claims Dominic pledged our IP as collateral.
You signed those authorization stamps,
Christopher.
I need your sworn testimony that Sterling knew the signatures were unauthorized and that he was laundering money through Dominic's Tucson clinic."
Christopher stared at the paper,
then looked back at me.
"If I sign this...
if I testify against Sterling...
will you help me?"
he begged,
his hands gripping the plastic receiver so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"Will you use your lawyers to reduce my sentence?
I can't survive ten years in here,
Victoria!
Please!
I’m dying in this place!"
I looked at him with quiet,
devastating pity.
"If you sign this affidavit,
Christopher,"
I said,
every word precise and razor-sharp,
"I will ensure that your mother's personal estate covers your commissary fees and private security protection inside this facility so you are not harmed by Dominic's associates."
Christopher swallowed hard.
"That’s all?"
"That is my final offer,"
I stated.
"If you refuse,
I will instruct the federal prosecutors to add secondary fraud charges regarding the forged IP stamps,
which will double your sentence to twenty years."
Christopher wept silently,
realizing that he had no leverage,
no power,
and no choices left.
He was entirely at my mercy.
"Give me the pen,"
he whispered brokenly.
The guard passed the affidavit through the bottom slot.
Christopher signed his name on the line,
his hand shaking violently,
surrendering the final piece of evidence against Harrison Sterling.
The guard pushed the signed document back to my side of the glass.
I picked it up,
checked the signature,
and placed it carefully inside my handbag.
I stood up from the metal chair,
smoothing down my ivory coat.
"Victoria,
wait!"
Christopher cried out through the phone,
his face pressed against the glass as the guard pulled him backward by his chains.
"Do you...
do you ever think about us?
About seven years ago?
Before all of this?"
I stopped,
looking back at him through the glass one last time.
"I think about the numbers,
Christopher,"
I said quietly.
"And the numbers show that leaving you was the greatest investment of my life."
I hung up the receiver,
May you like
turned my back on him,
and walked out of the prison block forever.
