Chapter 8 - THE FALL OF VICTORIA
Rikers Island Correctional Facility was a nightmare of gray concrete, damp cold, and the perpetual hum of industrial fluorescent lights.
Victoria Vance sat on a hard metal stool in the non-contact visitation booth, separated from the visitor by a thick sheet of scratched, bulletproof Plexiglas.
Her manicured fingernails were broken and bitten down to the quick. Her dyed blonde hair was greasy and matted, showing thick gray roots, and the orange prison jumpsuit hung off her frail, shivering frame like an oversized sack.
The heavy steel door on the visitor's side opened with a loud buzz.
Victoria looked up with wild, desperate hope in her eyes. "Dominic? Dominic, have you posted my bail?"
The person who sat down on the other side of the glass was not Dominic.
It was Audrey.
Audrey wore a simple cream turtleneck and a dark wool coat. She picked up the black plastic telephone receiver on her side of the glass.
Victoria glared at her with rabid fury, snatching her receiver off the hook and slamming it against her ear.
"You!" Victoria spat, her voice trembling with hysteria through the crackling speaker. "How dare you come here! Did you come to gloat, you little viper? Look at what you’ve done to me! Look at this place! I am Victoria Vance! I belong in high society, not in a cage with murderers and thieves!"
Audrey looked at the trembling old woman through the glass, her expression utterly still.
"You pushed me, Victoria," Audrey said calmly. "You looked into my eyes, smiled, told me to remember my place, and shoved me down thirty marble steps. Did you really think there would be no consequences?"
"You had no right to be in my son’s life!" Victoria hissed, pressing her face against the glass until her breath fogged the surface. "You were an orphan! A nobody! You didn't have the bloodline to carry a Vance heir! If that baby died, it was God's will to cleanse our family tree!"
Audrey’s grip on the receiver tightened slightly, but her face remained an unreadable mask of ice.
"Your son is sterile, Victoria," Audrey said, her words dropping like heavy stones into the silence of the booth. "He was born with a congenital defect. That baby you murdered on the marble floor was the only grandchild you would ever have. The Vance bloodline ends with you."
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened in horrifying realization, the color draining from her face until she looked like a corpse.
"No..." Victoria whimpered, shaking her head frantically. "No, you’re lying... Dominic was strong... my husband was strong..."
"Dominic has been indicted on twenty-two counts of federal wire fraud and grand larceny," Audrey continued smoothly. "His trial begins next month. He is facing fifteen to twenty-five years in federal prison. And you, Victoria... the District Attorney has upgraded your charges to attempted murder in the first degree and felony feticide. There will be no bail. There will be no country club prison. You will spend the rest of your natural life in a maximum-security state facility."
"No! No! Dominic will save me!" Victoria shrieked, banging the plastic receiver against the Plexiglas window. "He will hire the best lawyers! He has friends!"
"Dominic has no money, Victoria," Audrey said, standing up from her stool. "The estate is gone. The jewelry has been auctioned off to pay your restitution. Even the family cemetery plots in Greenwich have been seized to satisfy the bankruptcy liens. When you die in this prison, you will be buried in an unmarked state grave."
Victoria let out a blood-curdling scream of pure terror and despair, dropping the receiver and clawing at the glass with her broken fingernails.
"Audrey! Please! Have mercy! I'm an old woman! Audrey!"
Audrey placed the receiver neatly back on its cradle, turned around, and walked through the heavy steel doors without looking back once.
Outside the prison gates, Alexander Reed stood waiting beside the car, holding an umbrella to shield her from the light afternoon drizzle.
"Are you alright?" Alexander asked softly, his warm brown eyes filled with genuine care.
Audrey looked up at the gray sky, letting out a long, deep breath that she felt she had been holding for three long years.
May you like
"For the first time in my life, Alexander," Audrey whispered, "I am completely free."
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