Chapter 10 - Echoes from Maximum Security
The federal penitentiary upstate was a brutal, monolithic structure of reinforced concrete and razor wire, completely detached from the vibrant pulse of the city. It was early July when I received an official, encrypted notification from the prison warden requesting my presence for a mandatory legal disposition.
I didn't tell Catherine about the summons. There was no reason to reopen wounds that were finally beginning to heal.
Wearing a dark tailored suit, I sat across from the plexiglass partition in the prison's sterile visitation room. The heavy steel door clicked open, and two armed guards escorted Daria Kincaid into the booth.
She looked a shadow of her former self. Her silver hair was unkempt, her posture slightly stooped inside the coarse orange jumpsuit, and the arrogant, aristocratic fire in her eyes had been replaced by a bitter, hollow chill.
She sat down heavily on the metal stool, picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver, and stared at me through the smudged glass partition. I picked up my receiver slowly, matching her cold, unyielding gaze.
“You came,” Daria’s voice crackled thinly through the speaker.
“You requested the meeting,” I replied flatly. “Make it quick. I have a family waiting for me.”
A bitter, cynical smile twisted the corner of her lips. “Family. That's what you traded our entire empire for? A woman who crawled back out of the woodwork and a child that disrupts everything we built?”
My grip on the plastic receiver tightened until my knuckles turned white. “Catherine isn't just a woman; she is my wife. And Penelope is my daughter. The only thing that disrupted this family was your monstrous greed and your pathological need to control every living soul around you.”
Daria leaned forward, pressing her pale face closer to the glass. “You think you've won, Samuel? You think walking away with a foundation and a restored title makes you a victor? The Kincaid bloodline is ruthless. It's in your veins, whether you want to admit it or not. One day, you'll realize that mercy is a fatal weakness in the corporate world.”
“No, Mother,” I said, my voice dropping to a calm, deadly whisper that cut straight through the glass. “Mercy is what kept me from letting the courts throw away the key without investigating every single crime you committed. But your reign is over forever. You are entirely alone, forgotten by the world, and entirely irrelevant.”
May you like
I hung up the receiver with a sharp, echoing clack.
Daria banged her fist once against the glass partition, shouting something I couldn't hear, but I didn't turn around. I stood up smoothly, adjusted my jacket, and walked out of the visitation room, leaving the ghosts of my past permanently behind me.
