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.
Grant Bellamy 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 gray 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.
Roman Moretti 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.
Grant flinched back against the concrete wall, his bloodshot eyes widening in a mixture of feral hatred and visceral panic.
"You came to gloat, Moretti," Grant spat, his voice cracking into a dry, hoarse rasp.
"I came to look at you, Grant," Roman said softly, stopping three paces from the cot. "I wanted to see what three million dollars of stolen ambition looked like when the bespoke suit was finally stripped away."
"You were an uncivilized brute who stole my daughter for a song!" Grant hissed, leaping to his feet, his transport chains rattling violently against the steel belt around his waist. "I built the Bellamy name! I spent twenty-six years feeding and clothing that girl! I had the right to negotiate her marriage to save my company! You had no right to take her!"
"You didn't raise a daughter, Grant," Roman replied, his slate-gray eyes locking onto his with freezing clarity. "You raised an asset to liquidate when your gambling debts came due. You told her she was broken because her body couldn't produce grandchildren for Victor Marino. You believed that because Nora was quiet, she was helpless. You believed that because she stood in an examination gown, she had no value."
Roman 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.
"Victor Marino signed a full plea-allocution at sunrise, Grant," Roman said. "He detailed every offshore routing token, every forged promissory note, and the fact that you planned to sell Nora’s medical records to the Chicago tabloids to justify her forced marriage."
Grant’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.
"Victor... confessed?" he whispered, his voice finally breaking into a pathetic, terrified whimper.
"Victor saved himself, Grant," Roman answered quietly. "Just as you tried to save yourself at the Continental Club. The Bellamy estate has been completely liquidated by the federal receivership, and your legal defense trust has a balance of zero."
Grant collapsed onto the cot, burying his face in his cuffed hands, weeping with the raw, ugly agony of a man who realized that his vanity had left him completely alone in the dark.
"Moretti... please," he sobbed through his fingers. "Tell Nora I'm sorry... tell her I was desperate... ask Arthur to drop the racketeering counts..."
Roman looked at the broken man on the cot.
The arrogant patriarch who had poured bourbon while discussing his daughter's body was gone forever, replaced by an empty shell whose cruelty had consumed his own soul.
"Nora didn't come to see you, Grant," Roman whispered softly. "Because you ceased to exist the moment you put a price tag on her heart. And now you can spend the rest of your life counting the days in the cold."
Roman turned his back on the broken conspirator.
May you like
"Guard," Roman called out.
The heavy steel door slid open, and Roman walked down the echoing corridor into the bright morning sunshine of Chicago, leaving Grant Bellamy to weep in the concrete shadows where he would remain for thirty-two long years.
