Chapter 14 - THE PRISON VISITThe sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors of the federal detention facility smelled of industrial bleach, old paper, and unyielding despair.
I walked down Cell Block B flanked by two armed federal marshals and Julian Vance, whose presence was a silent, grounding anchor beside me. Mason had stayed behind at the tower to manage the corporate fallout, leaving Julian and me to handle the ghost.
When we reached the secure visitation room, the heavy iron door clanked open.
Preston Hale was sitting at a bolted metal table in the center of the room. He wore a coarse orange jumpsuit, his wrists shackled to a steel loop on the table surface.
He didn't look like the arrogant titan of Wall Street. He didn't even look like the broken, pathetic man who had begged on my living room floor months ago.
He looked hollowed out.
His hair was buzzed short, dark circles bruised the skin beneath his sunken eyes, and a jagged, purple-tinted scar ran diagonally across his left cheek—the souvenir from the prison cell attack three days earlier.
When the heavy door slammed shut behind us, Preston slowly raised his head.
His eyes locked onto mine, and for a fleeting second, a flicker of something resembling his old, desperate pride sparked across his face before instantly dissolving into ash.
"Eleanor," he rasped, his voice dry and cracking. "I knew... I knew you’d come."
I didn't sit down. I stood on the other side of the metal table, keeping my hands folded neatly in front of me, looking down at him with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a dying specimen.
"I didn't come to save you, Preston," I said quietly, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. "I came to find out why international criminals are trying to slice your throat open in the middle of the night."
Preston flinched, his shoulders curling inward as if trying to protect himself from an invisible blow. He glanced nervously at Julian standing beside me, then back to my eyes.
"They're not just criminals, El," Preston whispered, leaning forward as far as his handcuffs would allow. "They’re monsters. Men who don't care about courts, or laws, or federal prison sentences. If they find out what I know—if they get what they want—they won't just kill me. They’ll come for everyone connected to Hale Enterprises. They’ll come for your family."
"Let them try," Julian stepped in, his voice calm, measured, and terrifyingly cold. "My security team has been wiping out syndicate cells across London for five years, Hale. You’re talking to the wrong people if you think threats move us. Now, talk about the offshore vaults, or we walk out right now and leave you to the next cell block visitor."
Preston swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing convulsively. He looked back at me, a pathetic, desperate tear leaking from his eye.
"The keys aren't in a bank," Preston choked out. "They’re in a safe deposit box in Geneva. But the password... the biometric override code to open it..."
He stopped, gasping for air.
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"Where is it, Preston?" I demanded, leaning over the table, my eyes locking onto his.
"It’s encoded," he whispered, "inside the digital wedding ring you gave me twenty years ago."
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