Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Trap
The federal detention center was a stark contrast to the luxury villa. There were no marble floors, no crystal chandeliers, and no expensive silk dresses. Victoria sat behind the scratched plexiglass window, wearing a standard orange jumpsuit. Her hair was unwashed, her makeup gone, exposing the deep, bitter wrinkles of malice on her face.
When Maya walked into the visitation room, escorted by two armed guards, Victoria violently grabbed the telephone receiver on her side of the glass.
Maya calmly picked up her receiver, sitting down with grace.
"You think youâve won, don't you, you little brat?" Victoria spat into the phone, her voice raspy and trembling with unfiltered rage. "You think because you put me in here, you can wipe out my legacy? I still have friends in the high court. My lawyers will have these charges reduced to a misdemeanor assault within a week. An accident is an accident, no matter what Marcus thinks he saw."
"Your lawyers have already abandoned you, Victoria," Maya said, her voice completely calm, devoid of any anger. "They realized that your bank accounts are completely empty. The forty million dollars Julian tried to steal was recovered by the federal authorities this morning. You don't have enough money to pay for a public defender, let alone a high-priced defense team."
Victoriaâs eyes flared with a desperate, feral energy. "I still have the diaries! Your fatherâs private journals! I know about the secret clauses in the Leighton foundation. If I release them to the press, the Vance name will be dragged through the mud! The stock will drop to zero!"
Maya shook her head, a look of genuine pity in her eyes. "You really don't understand how power works, do you? You spent ten years living in a house built by my family, and you never bothered to learn who we actually are. The 'secret clauses' you think are scandalous are actually the legal documents that protect our workers' unions and our environmental trusts. If you release them, the public will love us even more."
Victoria slammed her fist against the plexiglass, causing the guards to step forward threateningly. "I hate you! You were always in the way! If your father had just signed the shares over to my husband twenty years ago, none of this would have happened! You should have died in that pool!"
"But I didn't," Maya said, her voice hardening, showing the steel core of the Leighton family. "My husband saved me. My child is safe. And you are going to spend the next twenty years of your life staring at a gray concrete wall, realizing that every single day you spent trying to steal our lives was completely wasted."
Maya stood up, hanging up the receiver without waiting for Victoriaâs reply. Through the glass, Victoria began to scream silently, banging her fists against the partition until the guards forced her back into her cell.
As Maya walked out of the prison gates into the warm afternoon sun, Marcus was waiting for her by the car, holding a cup of her favorite herbal tea. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close, protecting her from the world.
May you like
"Is it over?" Marcus asked softly, kissing the top of her head.
"The past is over," Maya smiled, leaning into his warmth. "Now, we have a future to build."
