Chapter 15 - The Reckoning of Sloane Bennett
An hour later,
I stepped into a separate visitor room located on the third floor of the female detention wing.
Sloane Bennett sat behind a thick pane of reinforced glass,
wearing a dark grey jumpsuit,
her unwashed hair pulled back into a messy,
greasy ponytail.
Her skin was pale and breakout-ridden,
her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from constant crying.
When she saw me sit down on the stool across from her,
she snatched up the plastic telephone receiver with frantic,
shaking hands.
I picked up my receiver and held it calmly against my ear.
"Nora!"
Sloane screamed into the phone,
her voice crackling through the cheap speaker.
"You have to help me!"
"My public defender is telling me to take a fifteen-year plea deal!"
"I can't do fifteen years in federal prison!"
"I'm only twenty-six!"
"You are twenty-six,"
I corrected her through the phone,
"and you committed corporate forgery,"
"interstate wire fraud,"
"and grand larceny against a publicly traded entity."
"Fifteen years is a generous offer."
"It was Adrian!"
she shrieked,
her fingernails scratching against the thick glass barrier separating us.
"He forced me to sign those documents!"
"He threatened me!"
"He told me if I didn't help him move Harbor Nine,"
"he would have his family enforcers hurt me!"
"I was terrified,
Nora!"
"You know what kind of man he is!"
I listened to her desperate lies with a serene,
unwavering silence.
When she finally ran out of breath,
panting heavily against the glass,
I held up a blue legal folder.
"Inside this folder,"
I said,
"is the complete forensic recovery log from your private laptop."
"It shows that you initiated the Harbor Nine forgery three weeks before Adrian even knew the terminal was being audited."
"It shows that you searched online for forgery techniques,"
"and that you purchased my signature traces from a corporate espionage broker in Eastern Europe."
Sloane's tear-streaked face froze.
The lies evaporated from her mouth instantly,
leaving her staring at me with a hollow,
terrified stare.
"You thought you were smarter than me,
Sloane,"
I whispered through the receiver,
my voice cold enough to freeze the blood in her veins.
"You wore my robe."
"You put on my jewelry."
"You slept in my bed."
"You thought taking my place in Adrian's life made you the queen of the empire."
"You didn't realize that being Adrian's queen wasn't a prize."
"It was a death sentence."
Sloane began weeping uncontrollably,
pressing her forehead against the cold glass pane,
her hands trembling violently against the shelf.
"What...
what are you going to do to me?"
she choked out.
"I am going to do nothing,"
I replied,
setting the blue folder down on the counter.
"The Justice Department is going to handle your future."
"I have already seized your Cayman accounts under a corporate restitution order."
"Every single dollar you stole has been returned to the Meridian employee trust fund."
"You leave this court with no money,"
"no career,"
"no defense,"
"and no future."
I hung up the plastic telephone receiver,
placing it neatly back on its hook.
Sloane slammed her hands against the glass,
screaming my name over and over again,
but her voice was instantly muted behind the heavy barrier.
I stood up,
adjusted my Armani suit,
and walked out into the crisp,
clean autumn air of Manhattan.
The sky above Wall Street was clear and bright blue.
The storm had passed.
May you like
The ghosts of the past were locked behind iron bars.
And for the first time in fifteen years,
