My husband rehearsed a fake assault with his mistress for 800 witnesses, but he never knew I had been collecting evidence for three months.

On Tuesday afternoon, three weeks after the Winter Legacy Gala, I walked down the dim, tiled corridor of the Metropolitan Detention Center.

The air was heavy with the smell of industrial disinfectant and stale institutional air. A correction officer unlocked a heavy steel door, gesturing for me to step into a small, windowless visitation room split by a thick partition of reinforced glass.

I sat down on the hard metal stool on my side of the glass.

A moment later, the door on the opposite side opened, and Daniel was led inside by a guard.

He was unrecognizable. The polished, charismatic real estate tycoon had vanished. He wore a loose-fitting orange jumpsuit. His hair was unwashed and thinning, his face pale and sunken, with dark gray circles hollowed out beneath his red-rimmed eyes. His hands were cuffed at the waist.

He sat down heavily on the stool, picking up the black plastic telephone receiver with shaking fingers.

I picked up my receiver and placed it to my ear.

"Evelyn," his voice rasped through the speaker, thin and broken. "You came."

"I came because the final asset division papers required your signature, Daniel," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "And because my legal team needed you to confirm the release of the Tribeca penthouse back to the trust."

Daniel pressed his forehead against the cold glass, a tear sliding down his cheek. "Evelyn... please. You have to help me. The public defender they gave me doesn't care. Caroline’s lawyers are trying to lay the entire offshore money-laundering scheme on me! They're saying I forced her to open Belladonna AG!"

"She opened Belladonna long before you ever took Vanessa to Tribeca, Daniel," I told him plainly. "She played you. She was going to let you go to prison while she took the trust properties."

Daniel sobbed, a pathetic, choking sound that rattled through the phone receiver. "I was stupid... God, I was so stupid! Vanessa meant nothing to me, Evelyn! You have to believe me! I was drowning in debt from Miami, and I panicked! I thought... I thought if I could just get control of the trust for six months, I could flip the land, pay back the bank, and put everything back before you ever noticed!"

"You tried to have me committed to an asylum, Daniel," I reminded him, my voice steady and unyielding. "You sat in a room with our marriage counselor and lied to his face, building a record that I was insane. You paid a mistress to fake an assault in front of eight hundred people to ruin my life."

"I was desperate!" he cried out, banging his cuffed hands against the ledge beneath the glass. The guard near the door took a step forward, but I raised my hand slightly, and the guard stood down.

"No, Daniel," I said softly, looking him dead in the eye. "You weren't desperate. You were arrogant. You looked at me for twelve years and saw an obedient, quiet wife who would never question your authority. You forgot that before I was your wife, I spent ten years as a trial attorney tearing down men exactly like you."

Daniel stared at me through the glass, the reality of his situation sinking into his mind with terrible, crushing finality. There was no charm left to use, no lies left to spin, no money left to hide behind.

"What am I going to do?" he whispered, his eyes wide with genuine terror. "The prosecutor said I'm looking at fifteen years."

"You're going to serve your time, Daniel," I replied. "And you're going to sign those papers."

I slid the asset division document through the narrow slot at the bottom of the glass partition.

Daniel looked down at the paper. His trembling fingers picked up the cheap plastic pen provided by the guard. Without another word, he signed his name on the line at the bottom, sliding it back to me.

I picked up the paper, checked the signature, and placed it neatly into my leather briefcase.

I stood up from the metal stool, taking off the telephone receiver.

"Evelyn... wait!" Daniel pleaded through the glass, his hand pressing against the barrier. "Will you ever forgive me?"

I looked at him through the glass for a long moment. I thought about the white peonies in Tribeca, the three months of quiet terror, the counselor's office, and the four-minute rehearsal video in the Grand Ballroom.