Chapter 7 - The Visitor in Federal Custody
The subterranean detention ward of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago smelled of industrial floor wax, cold concrete, and bitter, rotting pride.
Julian Sterling sat on the edge of a stainless-steel cot bolted to the wall of his solitary cell, wearing an oversized orange institutional jumpsuit.
His styled hair had been buzzed down to the scalp; his expensive manicured vanity had been completely stripped away, his hands and ankles secured with heavy steel transport chains as he waited for his transfer to the federal penitentiary in Marion.
The heavy steel slider door buzzed open with a loud hydraulic clank.
Dominic Vale walked into the cell.
He did not hurry. His leather dress boots clicked rhythmically against the concrete with a slow, deliberate cadence. He wore an elegant dark charcoal wool overcoat over his three-piece suit, his posture commanding, sovereign, and entirely unbothered.
Julian flinched back against the concrete wall, his bloodshot eyes widening in a mixture of feral hatred and visceral panic.
"You came to gloat, Vale," Julian spat, his voice cracking into a dry, hoarse rasp.
"I came to look at you, Julian," Dominic said softly, stopping three paces from the cot. "I wanted to see what forty-one million dollars of stolen ambition looked like when the bespoke tuxedo was finally stripped away."
"You were an uncivilized brute who ruled this harbor through street violence, Vale!" Julian hissed, leaping to his feet, his transport chains rattling violently against the steel belt around his waist. "David Reed was an obstacle! He was a common state clerk who threatened our eighty-five-million-dollar buyout! I gave you the chance to let the bankers run the city! You threw it all away for a woman who cleaned your toilets!"
"You didn't offer me an empire, Julian," Dominic replied, his slate-gray eyes locking onto his with freezing clarity. "You offered me a slaughterhouse built on the blood of an honest man. You believed that because Hannah wore a gray uniform, she was blind. You believed that because David was quiet, his voice could be silenced with a severed brake line."
Dominic reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a copy of the morning's unsealed federal grand jury indictment.
He dropped the heavy document onto the steel cot.
"Senator William Thorne signed a full plea-allocution at sunrise, Julian," Dominic said. "He detailed every offshore routing token, every forged legislative proxy, and the fact that you ordered the Skyway hit from your office at Vale Tower."
Julian’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked down at the forty-eight felony counts listed on the parchment, his hands shaking so violently that the paper fluttered against his knees.
"Thorne... confessed?" he whispered, his voice finally breaking into a pathetic, terrified whimper.
"Thorne saved himself, Julian," Dominic answered quietly. "Just as you tried to save yourself at the Palmer House. The Sterling assets have been completely liquidated by the federal receivership, and your legal defense trust has a balance of zero."
Julian collapsed onto the cot, burying his face in his cuffed hands, weeping with the raw, ugly agony of a man who had realized that his vanity had left him completely alone in the dark.
"Dominic... please," he sobbed through his fingers. "Tell Hannah I'm sorry... tell her I was desperate... ask Arthur to drop the capital murder counts..."
Dominic looked at the broken man on the cot.
The charming chief operating officer who had smiled across boardroom tables was gone forever, replaced by an empty shell whose cruelty had consumed his own soul.
"Hannah didn't come to see you, Julian," Dominic whispered softly. "Because you ceased to exist the moment you took her husband's life. And now you can spend the rest of your life counting the days in the cold."
Dominic turned his back on the broken conspirator.
May you like
"Guard," Dominic called out.
The heavy steel door slid open, and Dominic walked down the echoing corridor into the bright morning sunshine of Chicago, leaving Julian Sterling to weep in the concrete shadows where he would remain for thirty-five years.
