Chapter 10: Shadows of Regret
A week later, Luca visited the state correctional facility. Behind the thick reinforced glass sat Vivian, stripped of her designer wardrobe and wearing a plain orange jumpsuit.
She stared at him bitterly. "Did you come here to gloat, Luca?"
"No," Luca replied evenly through the receiver. "I came to bring you these."
He pressed a folder against the glass containing photographs of the Hawthorne Children’s Hospital’s newly opened pediatric wing, named in honor of his late wife.
"You had brilliance, Vivian. You had access to resources that could have changed thousands of lives," Luca said. "Instead, you traded your soul for control over a ledger that you can’t even see from inside this cell."
Vivian looked down at the photos, her lips trembling slightly before she masked it with a cynical scoff. "I did what I had to do to survive."
"Survival without empathy isn't life," Luca said softly. "It's just a slow surrender to darkness."
May you like
He hung up the phone and walked away, closing that chapter of his life forever.
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