My dad crashed his car into mine to kill me so my brother could inherit everything—then my mom said I was “worth more dead than alive.”

Two Months Later.

The Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan was a brutalist concrete fortress.

I sat in a small, sterile visitation room separated by a thick panel of bulletproof glass. The room smelled of heavy floor cleaner and stale air.

A heavy steel door clicked open on the opposite side of the glass.

My mother, Victoria Vance, was led inside by a female guard.

She looked unrecognizable. The styled hair, diamond necklaces, and tailored designer dresses were gone, replaced by a drab, oversized orange jump suit. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot, gray roots showing clearly under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her face looked gaunt, aged ten years in two months.

She sat down heavily on the metal stool, staring at me through the glass with a mixture of burning hatred and pathetic desperation.

She picked up the plastic intercom phone mounted on the wall.

I picked up my receiver, holding it to my ear, keeping my expression completely neutral.

"Are you happy now, Maya?" my mother’s voice came through the speaker, scratchy and bitter. "You've put your father, your mother, and your brother in prison. You've dragged our family name through the gutter. Is this your grand revenge?"

"I didn't put you in prison, Mom," I replied calmly. "You put yourselves here the moment you decided that money was worth more than your daughter's life."

My mother let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Oh, don't play the innocent victim! Your grandfather was a fool! He wanted to give away millions to charity while your father worked thirty years to build that company! We took what was rightfully ours!"

"It wasn't yours," I said firmly. "Grandfather built that company on integrity and hard work. Dad turned it into a personal piggy bank to fund his gambling debts and your vanity."

My mother leaned closer to the glass, her dark eyes flashing. "Your father’s trial begins next month. The prosecutors are offering Lucas a deal—he’s testifying against your father in exchange for a five-year sentence."

She paused, her lower lip trembling slightly.

"Lucas betrayed us," she whispered, a tear finally cutting through the dust on her pale cheek. "My own son... trading his father’s life for five years in a minimum-security facility."

"Lucas learned how to betray from the best teachers in the world," I pointed out coldly. "You taught him that family members are just assets to be traded when the price is right."

My mother closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the cool glass, weeping silently.

For a brief moment, a small ache of grief touched my heart—grief for the mother I had wished for as a child, the loving family I had never possessed. But I didn't let the grief turn into weakness.

"Why did you do it, Mom?" I asked softly through the receiver. "On the road that night... why did you laugh?"

My mother opened her eyes, looking at me through the glass. The madness in her expression was replaced by a hollow, terrifying emptiness.

"Because I was terrified of you, Maya," she admitted in a rasping whisper. "From the day you were born... you looked at us with your grandfather's eyes. You saw right through our lies, our pretense, our fake wealth. We knew that if you took control of the estate... we would be exposed for what we really were."

"Small, greedy people," I said.

"Yes," she whispered.

I took a deep breath, holding the phone tightly. "The plea deal for you is on the prosecutor's desk, Mom. Ten years for conspiracy. If you sign it, you avoid a life sentence."

"And if I sign it?" she asked, looking up. "Will you come visit me?"

I looked at the broken, hollow woman on the other side of the glass—the woman who had looked at her daughter bleeding in a crushed car and said, "You're worth more dead than alive."

"No, Mom," I said gently, but with absolute finality. "I won't be coming back. This is the last time we will ever speak."