Chapter 5 - The Snake's Cage
While Adrian was left to rot in his holding cell awaiting trial, Vanessa Vale was currently staying in a high-security holding unit at the Rosewood Federal Correctional Facility for Women.
She thought she was clever. By turning state's evidence against Adrian, her attorney assured her she would likely receive a suspended sentence or, at worst, two years in a minimum-security facility.
She was sitting on her narrow cot, filing her nails with a plastic board she had begged from a guard, when the heavy cell door slid open with a loud mechanical screech.
"Visitor for you, Vale," the guard grunted. "Five minutes."
Vanessa smirked, tossing her file onto the mattress. She assumed it was her high-priced defense attorney bringing her the immunity plea paperwork.
She walked into the small visitation room, smoothing down her grey prison jumpsuit. But when she saw who was sitting behind the thick bulletproof glass, her smirk instantly vanished.
I sat there, holding a black phone receiver to my ear.
Vanessa hesitated, her eyes flashing with a mix of hatred and apprehension. But curiosity won. She walked over, picked up her phone, and sat down.
"Came to witness your triumph, Claire?" Vanessa sneered through the glass. "You think you won? Adrian is going down for twenty years. I’m walking out of here with a deal."
"Are you?" I asked, my voice coming through the static of the receiver smooth and undisturbed.
"My lawyer signed the proffer agreement with the Special Prosecutor this morning," Vanessa boasted, leaning forward. "I gave them everything on Adrian. His illegal offshore accounts, his bribe payments to foreign regulators, his tax evasion. They don't care about me. I was just the assistant. They want the big fish."
"Your lawyer is top-tier, I’ll give you that," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Mr. Harrison charges $1,500 an hour. A bit expensive for someone whose bank accounts were completely frozen yesterday afternoon, don't you think?"
Vanessa’s smile faltered. "What are you talking about? I have a secondary reserve fund in the Cayman Islands."
"Had," I corrected her. "Ellison Global Asset Recovery tracked that Cayman shell company—Blue Sky Management—two hours ago. It turns out, when you transferred $3.2 million from Mercer Dynamics into that account last month, you committed cross-border wire fraud using a U.S. correspondent bank in New York."
Vanessa’s hand tightened around the plastic receiver. "That... that account is private!"
"Nothing is private when my father buys the holding bank," I replied calmly. "And because those funds were tied to international money laundering, the Department of Justice revoked your proffer agreement twenty minutes ago."
Vanessa’s breath hitched. "No... no, that’s a lie! Harrison would have told me!"
"Mr. Harrison just withdrew as your legal counsel," I continued, holding up a fresh legal document against the glass for her to see. "Unpaid legal fees. Right now, you’re being assigned a public defender."
"You bitch!" Vanessa shrieked, slamming her fist against the glass. The guard near the door immediately took a step forward, his hand resting on his baton, but I raised a finger to signal I was fine.
"That’s not all, Vanessa," I said, my tone as cold as winter ice. "You thought framing me for leaking proprietary code to Vanguard Global was a stroke of genius. But you forgot one thing."
"What?!" she spat, tears of pure fury welling in her eyes.
"Vanguard Global isn't Adrian’s competitor," I smiled softly. "Vanguard Global is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ellison Conglomerate. I own the proprietary code. You didn't leak corporate secrets to an enemy—you sent stolen Ellison trade secrets to an Ellison enterprise."
Vanessa’s face went dead white. She was a financial consultant; she knew exactly what that meant under federal law.
"Economic espionage," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the receiver. "A mandatory minimum of fifteen years in a federal maximum-security penitentiary. No parole."
"Fifteen years for the corporate theft," I corrected her. "Plus another eight for bank fraud, and five for filing a false police report against me. You’ll be fifty-eight years old when you step out of prison, Vanessa. No money, no career, no youth, and no silver tongue."
"Claire... please!" Vanessa suddenly pressed both hands against the glass, her former arrogance completely shattered into pathetic desperation. "I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll testify against Adrian in court! I’ll tell them he forced me to wear your clothes! He forced me to insult you! I was just his victim!"
"You stood by the fireplace and smiled while he hit me with a belt," I said, standing up from my chair. "You wore my silk robe and drank my wine."
"I was stupid! I was jealous of you!" Vanessa sobbed, heavy tears streaking down her face. "Claire, please! Don't ruin my life!"
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"I didn't ruin your life, Vanessa," I said, hanging up the phone receiver. "You just paid the price for trying to live mine."
I turned my back on her and walked out of the room as Vanessa began wildly beating her fists against the bulletproof glass, her frantic screams drowning under the heavy metallic click of the security doors.
