Chapter 7 - The Prisoner's Confession
Forty-eight hours later.
The Essex County Jail was a cold, utilitarian concrete building located twenty miles inland from the coast.
I walked through the secure visitor facility dressed in a tailored cream wool coat, my dark hair styled elegantly, covering the small bandage on the side of my neck. My bruises were expertly concealed with light makeup, though my jaw was still slightly stiff when I spoke.
Beside me walked Nathan, carrying a thick black briefcase containing the final divorce, asset division, and parental rights termination documents.
We were led into a private, high-security visitation room with thick bulletproof glass separating the two sides of the table.
Two minutes later, the heavy iron door on the opposite side opened, and Grant was led in by two corrections officers.
He was unrecognizable.
The immaculate Brioni suits, the hand-crafted shoes, the arrogant, charming smile—all of it had been completely stripped away. He wore a baggy, faded orange jumpsuit, his wrists handcuffed to a heavy belly chain. His skin was pale and sallow, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw covered in dark, uneven stubble.
When he saw me sitting across the glass, he froze for a second, his chest heaving with desperate emotion.
The officer guided him into the metal chair, clicking his leg restraints to the floor loop before stepping back to stand near the door.
Grant picked up the heavy plastic phone receiver with his trembling, handcuffed hands.
I picked up my receiver, holding it to my ear, my expression completely unreadable.
"Claire..." Grant’s voice came through the speaker, raspy, broken, and begging. "Claire, please... you have to help me. You have to tell them to drop the felony charges. My lawyer says I'm facing eight to twelve years in state prison..."
"You are facing twelve to fifteen years, Grant," Nathan said calmly, sitting beside me and opening his briefcase. "With the corporate fraud charges, the tax evasion, and the recorded video evidence of the assault, the district attorney is seeking the maximum sentence without possibility of parole."
"Claire, please!" Grant sobbed, pressing his forehead against the cold glass, tears running down his dirty cheeks. "I was crazy! I was drunk! Celeste gave me something... she was manipulating me! My mother was pushing me! I didn't mean to hurt you! You know I love you! You know I love Lila!"
I listened to his groveling, desperate excuses, and for the first time in seven years, I felt absolutely nothing. No anger. No fear. No sadness.
Just a vast, clean emptiness where my love for him used to exist.
"You don't love Lila, Grant," I said, my voice smooth, cold, and razor-sharp through the telephone receiver. "If you loved Lila, you wouldn't have beaten her mother while she was blowing out her birthday candles upstairs. You didn't want a family. You wanted an ornament. You wanted a punching bag."
"I'll give you everything!" Grant stammered, his fingers frantically beating against the glass. "Take the company! Take the house! Take all the bank accounts! Just don't let me die in prison! Please, Claire! I'm Lila's father!"
"You were her biological donor, Grant," I corrected him. "And as of right now, you are no longer even that."
Nathan slid three heavy legal documents through the small secure paper slot at the base of the partition wall.
"These are the full parental rights termination papers, Grant," Nathan stated flatly. "You will sign them right now. You will surrender all physical, legal, and financial claims to Lila forever. In exchange, Claire will request that the prosecutor drop the secondary financial fraud charges against your mother, allowing her to avoid prison time and live out her retirement in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Florida."
Grant looked at the papers sliding through the slot, then looked at me through the glass, his mouth working silently like a dying fish.
"And if I don't sign?" Grant whispered.
"If you don't sign," Nathan said, taking off his glasses and leaning close to the glass, "I will personally handle the prosecution of your mother. She will spend the last ten years of her life in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy to commit grand larceny. And you will still lose your parental rights in a civil family court within ninety days."
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Grant stared at the black ink pen resting on top of the documents.
His trembling hand reached down, picking up the pen. With his eyes overflowing with bitter, pathetic tears, he signed his name on the bottom line of all three copies.
