My husband came home after three years away, brought his mistress into my kitchen the very next morning, and then accused me of attacking her when she threw herself onto the floor. What neither of them knew was that I had already uncovered three years of evidence, and while they were busy humiliating me in my own home, I was preparing to end far more than my marriage.

Before the federal transport van transferred Ethan to his permanent facility in upstate New York, I was granted one final ten-minute visitation at the district courthouse holding facility.

I walked into the small concrete meeting room wearing a tailored white coat over a black silk dress.

Ethan sat across the heavy steel table.

He looked ten years older than his thirty-five years. His hair was shaved short, his face was pale and drawn, and he wore a coarse grey jumpsuit with heavy steel shackles binding his wrists and ankles.

When he looked up and saw me, there was no longer any anger, arrogance, or pride in his eyes. There was only an empty, hollow shell of a man who had lost everything he had spent his life chasing.

"Mabel," he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper.

I sat down on the wooden chair across from him, resting my hands on my lap.

"I signed the divorce papers today, Ethan," I said quietly.

He swallowed hard, looking down at his shackled hands on the steel table. "I heard. The lawyers told me."

He paused, a single tear cutting through the dust on his cheek. "Did you ever love me, Mabel? Or was the last three years just a game to you?"

I looked at him, feeling no hatred, no anger—only a vast, quiet detachment.

"I loved you with everything I had, Ethan," I said softly. "I loved the man who used to share a cheap apartment with me in Brooklyn. I loved the man who promised we were partners. But that man died the moment you decided that power meant treating people who loved you like trash."

Ethan began to weep softly, his shoulders shaking beneath the coarse fabric of his jumpsuit.

"Chloe left me," he choked out. "She testified against me to save herself. She told the prosecutors that I forced her to take the money."

"I know," I said. "Mistresses who love your money don't stay when the money burns, Ethan. That’s something you should have learned before you brought her into my kitchen."

The guard knocked twice on the heavy iron door, signaling that the ten minutes were up.

I stood up slowly, smoothing the front of my white coat.

"Goodbye, Ethan," I said, turning toward the door.

"Mabel! Wait!" Ethan called out, his chains rattling loudly as he tried to lean forward across the table. "Will you... will you ever come visit me?"