Chapter 6 - Rikers Island
The visiting room at the Rikers Island Rose M. Singer Center was cold, loud, and smelled faintly of floor disinfectant and stale coffee.
I sat on one side of a thick plexiglass partition, wearing a simple beige cashmere sweater, my bandaged hand now down to a light, flexible dressing.
On the other side of the glass sat Julian.
He was dressed in a dull gray prison jumpsuit. His hair had been cropped short, his stubble was uneven, and his eyes were sunken and bloodshot. The manicured, arrogant golden boy of Wall Street had been stripped away, leaving behind a hollow, terrified shell of a man who looked ten years older than his age.
He picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver on his side of the partition with a hand that visibly trembled.
I picked up mine.
“You came,” Julian whispered, his voice dry and raspy over the crackling phone line.
“I came to bring you the final paperwork, Julian,” I said, sliding a thick brown envelope across the small tray beneath the glass partition.
Julian looked down at the document. Through the clear window on the envelope, the large bold lettering read: PETITION FOR ABSOLUTE DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE & FORFEITURE OF MARITAL ASSETS.
He didn't open it. He just stared at it, a bitter, broken smile twisting his lips.
“You planned every second of this, didn't you?” he asked, looking up at me through the dirty plexiglass. “From the moment you bought the brownstone under that shell company... from the moment you put those hidden cameras beneath the counter... you were just waiting for me to step out of line.”
I looked at him, shaking my head slightly.
“No, Julian,” I said gently. “I didn't want this. For the first two years of our marriage, I prayed every single night that you would change. I made excuses for your temper. I told myself you were stressed about work. I wore long sleeves in the summer to hide the bruises on my arms because I was ashamed that the man I loved treated me like an object.”
Julian lowered his eyes, his breath hitching in his chest.
“Do you know when I stopped hoping, Julian?” I asked.
He didn't answer.
“It was six months ago,” I said softly. “When you pushed me down the stairs because I bought the wrong brand of coffee, and your mother stood at the top of the landing and told me that a good wife learns her husband’s preferences without being told twice. That was the day I realized you weren't broken. You were just wicked.”
Julian’s face tightened, a flare of his old anger sparking in his hollow eyes. “I gave you a life, Elise! You were a nobody from Queens! I took you to galas! I introduced you to the most powerful people in New York!”
“You introduced me to your audience, Julian,” I corrected smoothly. “You wanted a pretty trophy you could parade in public and beat behind closed doors to feel like a man. But you forgot one thing.”
Julian frowned, leaning closer to the glass. “What?”
“You forgot that before I met you, I built systems for a living,” I said, leaning closer to the partition, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. “I spend my life finding vulnerabilities in arrogant security networks created by men who think they are too smart to be caught. You were just another broken system, Julian. And I mapped every single one of your flaws.”
Julian stared at me, his hands tightening around the plastic phone receiver until his knuckles turned bone-white.
“My lawyers say I’m looking at seven to twelve years for felony assault and witness tampering,” he choked out, his voice cracking into a sob. “Seven to twelve years, Elise... in here. I won't survive in here.”
“Then you should have thought about that before you turned on the stove, Julian,” I said softly.
I set the phone receiver back onto its wall cradle, stood up from my chair, and looked down at him through the glass one last time.
“Sign the divorce papers, Julian,” I said through the small metal grate in the wall. “Because if you make me go to trial for the property division, my legal team will release the audio files from the other three years. And twelve years will feel like a vacation compared to what the judge gives you.”
May you like
I turned and walked toward the heavy steel exit doors.
Behind me, Julian grabbed the plastic receiver and began pounding it against the thick plexiglass partition, his loud, desperate screams echoing through the visitor hall until the guards tackled him to the floor.
