Chapter 12 - Shadows From The Past And Unfinished Business
Even behind federal prison bars,
Flynn Vance could not escape the agonizing weight of his own monumental stupidity.
His cell was tiny,
cold,
and windowless,
smelling of bleach and despair,
a far cry from his plush downtown penthouse.
He spent his hours staring at a crumpled photograph of Mabel that a sympathetic guard had allowed him to keep before confiscating it.
Without her,
without his money,
and without his status,
he was nothing more than inmate number 884-910.
Other inmates whispered about his downfall in the mess hall,
knowing he was the disgraced CEO who had stabbed his pregnant wife.
One afternoon during yard time,
a burly inmate blocked Flynn's path near the chain-link fence,
grinning maliciously.
“Hey,
big shot,
heard you used to run a multi-billion-dollar empire,
” the inmate sneered.
“Now look at you,
begging for scraps like a dog in the rain.
” Flynn kept his head down,
trying to walk away,
but the inmate shoved him hard against the cold chain-link fence.
“You think you're still better than us? You're a killer and a fool who gave everything away for a cheap mistress!” Flynn didn't fight back; he just slid down to the concrete,
wrapping his arms around his knees as silent tears soaked his prison uniform.
He had traded a loyal,
brilliant wife for a manipulative sociopath who had betrayed him at the first sign of trouble.
The irony of his punishment was absolute,
a self-inflicted hell from which there was no parole and no redemption.
Back in Chicago,
Mabel received a brief notification from the federal prison warden regarding Flynn's behavioral status.
She deleted the email without opening it,
feeling neither pity nor anger,
only the profound indifference of complete emotional detachment.
“He is a ghost of a life I left behind,
” Mabel said aloud to her empty office,
closing her laptop with a definitive click.
May you like
“He no longer exists in my world.
”
