Chapter 7 - Face to Face in Holding
The visitor’s room of the federal holding facility was claustrophobic, smelling of damp concrete and unwashed despair. Julian shuffled in wearing orange jail scrubs, his hands cuffed in front of him.
Sitting at the small bolted table on the other side of the glass partition was Margaret. She wore a tailored charcoal wool coat over her cream dress, her posture upright and immaculate as she watched him approach.
Julian sat down heavily on the plastic stool, picking up the heavy plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands. Margaret slowly lifted her own receiver, her expression entirely unreadable.
“Did you come to gloat?” Julian asked, his voice cracking through the static of the speaker.
“Did you come to watch me rot in this hellhole after everything I sacrificed for this family?”
Margaret did not blink. Her dark eyes remained completely steady, holding his gaze with a chilling detachment.
“You sacrificed nothing, Julian,” Margaret said softly, her voice carrying clearly through the line.
“You inherited everything. You built nothing. You stole from the hardworking men and women who trusted your father with their futures.”
“I was protecting our legacy!” Julian argued, slamming his cuffed hand against the metal table in frustration.
“The corporate landscape is brutal! You have to cut corners to survive!”
“Your father never cut corners,” Margaret replied, her voice hardening slightly.
“He built Sterling Logistics on honesty, calloused hands, and broken backs that he respected and compensated fairly. You took those calloused hands and turned them into your personal ATM.”
Julian let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head as he leaned forward against the glass.
“And now you’re the hero, right? You gave the money back to the workers so the press could paint you as a saint while your only son rots in a federal penitentiary.”
“I am no saint, Julian,” Margaret said, setting her receiver down on the table for a fraction of a second before picking it back up.
“I am a mother who failed to teach her son the value of a dollar, and I am correcting my mistake before God and the law.”
Chloe was suddenly pushed through the side door by a federal guard, her hair disheveled and her designer makeup smeared across her face. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Margaret sitting across the glass partition.
“Margaret!” Chloe shrieked, rushing toward the glass with tears streaming down her face.
“Please! You have to tell them I had nothing to do with this! Julian forced me! He threatened me!”
Margaret slowly turned her head to look at Chloe, her expression shifting from cold indifference to absolute, burning disgust.
“Save your breath, Chloe,” Margaret said, her voice dropping to a whisper that echoed with finality.
“I already handed the financial records proving your offshore jewelry purchases directly to the lead investigator.”
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Chloe stopped screaming, her mouth hanging open in frozen terror as the realization hit her. Margaret hadn’t just destroyed Julian—she had systematically dismantled Chloe’s entire world as well.
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