Chapter 13 - Echoes from a Distant Cell
While the sun shone brilliantly over the glittering waters of Lake Michigan, fifty miles west at the Cook County correctional facility, the lighting was fluorescent, harsh, and unyielding.
Tyler Vance sat on the edge of a bolted steel bunk in a holding cell that smelled faintly of industrial disinfectant and stale floor wax. His bespoke Italian suit had long since been replaced by a coarse orange jumpsuit with stenciled numbers across the chest. His hair, once meticulously styled with expensive pomade, was unwashed and uncombed, falling limply across a forehead creased with chronic stress, paranoia, and sleepless nights.
The heavy iron door rattled sharply as a correctional officer struck the bars with a heavy ring of keys.
“Vance! Visitor. Booth four,” the guard barked apathetically, unlocking the electronic latch with a dull clack.
Tyler flinched. For a terrifying second, he hoped it might be a high-priced defense attorney bringing news of a dismissed indictment or a technicality that would spring him from this nightmare. He stood up, smoothing down the front of his orange jumpsuit with trembling hands, and shuffled down the sterile hallway toward the glass-partitioned visitation booths.
He slid into the hard plastic seat on the inmate side of the booth, lifting the heavy black telephone receiver. On the other side of the glass sat his mother, Eleanor Vance, her face pale, her eyes rimmed with red from months of public humiliation and social ostracization. She picked up her receiver with shaking fingers.
“Tyler,” Eleanor whispered, her voice cracking with suppressed emotion. “Oh, my god, Tyler. You look terrible.”
“Skip the commentary, Mom,” Tyler snapped, pressing his palm flat against the smudged plexiglass divider. “Did you talk to Jessica? Did you call her personal line like I asked?”
Eleanor flinched as if she had been physically struck. She lowered her gaze, staring down at the stainless-steel counter. “I tried, Tyler. I called her office three times. Her executive assistant informed me in no uncertain terms that Miss Vance’s schedule is completely booked for the next six months and that unsolicited calls from former family members are automatically routed to legal compliance.”
“Legal compliance?” Tyler snarled, his voice rising in pitch as panic spiked through his veins. “She owns the company that foreclosed on our assets! She owns the building where I used to have my corner office! She can make one phone call to the district attorney or the corporate restructuring board and have these charges reduced!”
“She won't make that call, Tyler,” Eleanor said softly, tears finally spilling over her lower eyelids and tracking down her powdered cheeks. “She isn’t the woman you walked away from at the Bellmont Grand three months ago. She isn't hiding in the kitchen anymore. She is running Fierro Holdings. She holds the debt on every property our family ever owned. We are entirely at her mercy, and she has none left to give.”
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Tyler slammed his fist against the glass partition, the dull thud echoing through the visitation room. “This is insane! She was a nobody! A waitress from a failing diner! How did she get her hooks into Giovanni Fierro? How did she take everything I built?”
“You didn't build anything, Tyler,” Eleanor whispered, hanging up her receiver without another word and standing up to walk out of the room, leaving her son screaming soundlessly into the dead plastic phone.
