Chapter 8 - The Cornered Rat
The visitor’s room at the federal detention center smelled of industrial disinfectant and old floor wax. The walls were painted a dull, sickly green, illuminated by humming fluorescent lights.
Grant sat on the far side of the steel table, wearing a orange jumpsuit that looked three sizes too large for his once-athletic frame. His hair was messy, his jaw covered in three days of dark stubble, his eyes bloodshot and dark-ringed. He looked hollowed out, stripped of all the polished arrogance he had worn at Cedar Ridge.
When the guard unlocked my side of the door and I walked in, Grant flinched, pulling his handcuffed wrists close to his chest.
I sat down calmly in the metal chair across from him, smoothing my coat over my knees. I didn't speak. I simply stared at him in complete, absolute silence for two full minutes.
The silence stretched until Grant couldn't bear it any longer.
"Did... did you come here to gloat?" he rasped, his voice rough from disuse. "Look at me, Lena! I’m in an orange jumpsuit! My mother is in a medical ward under police guard! Beatrice won't even take my calls! You took everything! Are you happy now?!"
"I haven't even started yet, Grant," I said softly.
Grant swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously. "What do you want?"
"Victor Cross canceled your legal defense fund an hour ago," I informed him, watching his reaction closely.
Grant’s eyes widened slightly, but he tried to play dumb. "I... I don't know who that is."
"Stop lying, Grant," I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp tone. "You’re bad at it. You’ve always been bad at it. Cross bought your six-million-dollar personal debt from the Italian lenders four years ago. He set up your meeting with me at the museum gala. He gave you the code protocols for the rogue security firm you hired to override my gates. And when you failed to open my safe on Friday night, he cut your line."
Grant’s face twisted in panic, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the steel table. "He... he promised he’d handle the bail..."
"He’s not handling your bail, Grant," I said, pulling a document from my bag and laying it flat between us. "He’s letting you rot in here so you take the federal fall for the offshore wire fraud. You’re facing eighteen years in maximum security federal prison. By the time you get out, Ava will be in college, and you’ll be an broke, fifty-year-old ex-con with no career and no family."
A tear of pure, selfish terror leaked from Grant’s eye and rolled down his stubbled cheek. "Lena... please... I was stupid... he threatened me! He said if I didn't get those mineral rights deeds, he’d ruin my father’s memory... he’d release the tax fraud files on my family’s old estate..."
"I don't care about your excuses, Grant," I cut him off coldly. "I care about options."
"What options?!" he cried out, leaning forward as far as his handcuffs would allow. "I don't have any options!"
"You have one," I said, tapping my finger on the document. "This is a full state and federal immunity proffer. You sign this agreement, hand over the primary digital keys to the encrypted server you kept in your mother’s townhouse, and give sworn testimony against Victor Cross to the United States Attorney’s office."
Grant hesitated, horror filling his eyes. "If I turn on Victor... he’ll kill me..."
"Victor Cross can't touch you inside federal witness protection," I said smoothly. "But if you refuse to sign this paper... I will personally buy the rest of your commercial debt notes, take your family’s remaining ancestral property in Maine, and make sure you serve every single day of those eighteen years in the worst facility in the state."
Grant stared at the paper. He looked at the signature line, then up at my face. He looked for a shred of warmth, a lingering shadow of the wife who had once held his hand and cooked him dinner.
He found nothing. Only the cold, unyielding iron of a mother protecting her child’s empire.
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"Where... where do I sign?" he whispered, his voice completely broken.
I handed him a pen.
