At our backyard barbecue, everyone laughed while I sweated over the grill, serving guests like a maid. “Do your duty as a wife,” my mother-in-law sneered. My husband tasted the meat and roared, “You call this edible?” Then he slammed my palm onto the hot grate. I screamed—but instead of begging, I overturned the table, smashed the grill, and smiled. They thought I had finally broken. They had no idea what I would destroy next.

One week later.

The Cook County Department of Corrections was a bleak, dreary complex of concrete walls, bulletproof glass, and heavy iron doors.

I sat on a cold plastic chair in Visitation Room B, separated from the secondary holding area by a thick panel of reinforced acrylic glass.

A heavy metal door buzzed open.

Daniel walked in, escorted by an armed correctional officer.

He looked unrecognizable. The sleek, arrogant, handsome man who had stood over a barbecue grill eight days ago was gone. In his place stood a broken, hollow shell of a man wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit. His dark hair was messy, his jaw was covered in silver stubble, and his eyes were sunken, bloodshot, and wide with deep, paralyzing panic.

He sat down heavily on the metal stool across from me, picking up the black plastic telephone receiver with trembling hands.

I picked up my receiver with my uninjured left hand, setting my bandaged right hand flat on the silver counter.

“Clara...” Daniel’s voice came through the phone line, raspy, cracked, and breathless. “Clara... thank God you came. You have to get me out of here. Please. The men in here... they’re animals, Clara. They know who I am. They’ve been threatening me every night.”

I didn't answer. I simply looked at him through the glass with total, unbothered silence.

“Clara, listen to me!” he pleaded, leaning his face close to the acrylic wall, leaving a smudge of sweat on the glass. “My lawyer says the federal prosecutors are charging me under the RICO Act! They’re talking about twenty-five years in federal prison! That’s a life sentence for me! You can fix this! You’re the trustee! If you drop the corporate charges, the DOJ won't have a case!”

“I didn't file the RICO charges, Daniel,” I said smoothly into the receiver. “The United States Attorney’s Office filed them. After Vanessa opened your Panama floor safe for them.”

Daniel froze. His jaw dropped open, his eyes bulging in absolute horror. “Vanessa...? What... what did she do?”

“She gave them the voice notes,” I replied gently. “The ones where you and Arthur Vance discussed how you were going to frame me for the six-million-dollar pension deficit. The ones where you laughed about how easy it was to manipulate 'a stupid, grieving orphan' into signing blank corporate guarantees.”

Daniel’s face flushed a dark, furious red. He slammed his fist against the plastic counter, making the glass vibrate.

“You traitorous bitch!” he screamed through the phone line, his voice echoing in the small room. “I built your life! You were nothing before me! I gave you ten years of my youth!”

“You didn't build my life, Daniel,” I corrected him softly, my voice remaining completely level. “My father built my life. You just built a house of cards on top of his grave, using stolen bricks and forged signatures.”

“I’ll fight you in court!” he roared, sweat dripping down his neck. “I’ll tell the judge you abused me! I’ll tell them you set me up! My mother will testify!”

“Your mother was evicted from the Lincoln Park townhouse three days ago, Daniel,” I said. “She is currently living in a two-star motel near the highway, using her small social security check to pay for instant noodles.”

Daniel let out a choked, pathetic sound, dropping his head onto the silver counter, weeping hysterically into his orange sleeves.

“Why... why are you doing this to me, Clara...?” he whimpered, his voice muffled by his arms. “I was your husband... We shared a bed for ten years...”

I leaned closer to the glass, looking down at his broken, weeping frame.