Chapter 6 - THE VISITATION ROOMTwo weeks later, the snow began to fall over the city, blanketing the streets in a quiet, pristine white that contrasted sharply with the storm brewing inside the maximum-security holding facility downtown.
I was sitting in the secure glass visitation booth, my heavy winter coat unzipped to accommodate my now nine-month-pregnant belly. Beside me sat Alejandro, his posture rigid, his eyes fixed on the steel door across the room.
The heavy iron door buzzed and clicked open.
Two armed guards escorted Victoria Vance into the room. She was wearing a standard orange jumpsuit, her gray hair pulled back into a tight, severe bun. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her, and heavy iron leg shackles clanked against the linoleum floor with every slow, deliberate step.
She didn't look broken. Her eyes were sharp, cold, and burning with a bitter, unyielding fury as she sat down on the opposite side of the reinforced glass panel and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver.
Alejandro picked up his receiver. I picked up mine.
Victoria pressed her receiver to her ear, her lips curling into a venomous, thin-lipped smile.
“You look pale, Alejandro,” she said through the intercom speaker, her voice tinny and distorted by the static. “The stress of fatherhood must be weighing heavily on you. And you, Elena... still swelling up like a balloon. You think you’ve won, don't you?”
“It’s over, Victoria,” Alejandro said, his voice flat, devoid of any emotional resonance. “The federal prosecutor filed the final indictment this morning. Racketeering, identity theft under a stolen persona, murder conspiracy, and elder abuse. You will never see the outside of a federal penitentiary.”
Victoria let out a sharp, dry bark of laughter that echoed off the concrete walls.
“You naive, arrogant boy,” she sneered, leaning closer to the glass until her nose almost touched the surface. “You think a few dusty files and a burnt warehouse destroy what I built? Do you really believe the Vance estate was just a house and a bank account?”
Alejandro’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“Check the trust fund, darling,” she whispered, her eyes gleaming with a manic, triumphant satisfaction. “The one set up in your name when you graduated from West Point. The one funded by the corporate holdings I consolidated twenty years ago.”
She tapped her cuffed fingers against the table.
“It’s not just empty. It was mortgaged to the hilt three months ago to fund a private offshore trust—a trust whose sole legal beneficiary is not you, not your unborn child, and certainly not that worthless girl sitting next to you.”
A cold knot twisted in my stomach. “Who?” I asked, leaning into the microphone.
Victoria’s smile widened into something truly demonic.
“The baby you’re carrying,” she whispered. “I filed an emergency prenatal guardianship petition through a federal surrogate court three weeks before I was arrested. Even from inside this cell, the trust legally designates me—or my appointed corporate proxy—as the primary financial executor of your child's estate upon birth.”
The color drained from Alejandro’s face.
“That’s legally impossible,” he said, though his voice wavered for a fraction of a second. “No court would grant guardianship to an incarcerated felon facing capital murder charges.”
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“Courts don't look at the criminal record when the paperwork was signed under a protected federal corporate seal three months ago, before the charges were filed,” Victoria purred, hanging up her receiver with a sharp clack.
She stood up, her iron shackles clanking loudly as the guards grabbed her arms to lead her back to the cell. She didn't look back once. She just walked out with the triumphant stride of someone who believed she had won the war even while losing the battle.
