Chapter 14 - THE VISITATION ROOM TENSIONTwo weeks later, a guard tapped on Roman’s cell bars. "Vale. Visitor. Booth four. Move it."
Roman’s heart skipped a beat. For a wild, desperate second, he thought it might be Mara. Maybe she had softened. Maybe she wanted to negotiate, to offer him a reduced sentence in exchange for a quiet divorce settlement. He walked down the echoing corridor with his shoulders squared, trying to muster a shred of his former corporate authority.
He pulled open the heavy glass visitation booth door and sat down, grabbing the heavy plastic telephone receiver.
On the other side of the thick plexiglass sat Celeste Arman.
Her hair was unstyled, devoid of designer makeup, wearing the drab orange jumpsuit of a federal inmate awaiting trial. Her eyes were hollow, rimmed with dark circles, staring at him with a mixture of pure venom and absolute despair.
Roman pressed the receiver to his ear, his expression hardening into disgust. "What do you want, Celeste? You ran to the Caymans the second the federal agents picked up the phone. You saved your own skin and left me holding the bag."
Celeste let out a bitter, cracking laugh that rattled through the speaker. "Save your moral outrage, Roman! You think you were the master criminal of the century? You were just a pawn in a much larger game!"
"What are you talking about?" Roman snapped, leaning closer to the glass.
"Before I left the office that night, I checked the secure corporate archives," Celeste whispered, her eyes wide with a manic intensity. "The federal investigation into your holding company didn't start the night your son was born. It started two years ago. Mara had already flagged your offshore accounts before we even met at the Conservatory. She was watching every transaction, logging every fraudulent signature, and letting you dig your own grave deeper with every single contract you signed!"
The words hit Roman like a physical blow to the stomach. He gripped the edges of the metal table, his breath catching in his throat. "That's... that's impossible. She played the dutiful wife. She stayed home."
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"She stayed home because she was building an airtight case that even the best defense attorneys in the country couldn't touch," Celeste hissed fiercely. "And while you were ignoring her phone calls during labor, she was sitting in that hospital bed transmitting the final master encryption key to the federal prosecutor. You didn't just lose an empire, Roman. You were executed by design."
Before Roman could form a single word of response, the guards stepped forward, yanking Celeste’s chair back and dragging her screaming back toward the cell block. Roman sat frozen in the empty booth, the heavy plastic receiver still pressed to his ear, as the terrifying truth washed over him: he had never known his wife at all.
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