Chapter 12 - The Prison Cell Reckoning
Two weeks after the dramatic arrests, the heavy steel security doors of the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Illinois, buzzed open.
Dominic walked down the stark concrete visiting corridor wearing an impeccably tailored navy suit that exuded commanding, untouchable authority.
Sitting behind the reinforced glass partition in Visiting Booth 4 was Julian Sterling.
In fourteen days, Julian had aged twenty years; his hair was completely white, his skin gaunt and grey, his arrogant posture permanently destroyed beneath eighty-four felony convictions.
He picked up the heavy black telephone receiver with trembling, shackled hands, looking at Dominic with hollow, defeated eyes.
Dominic sat down on the swivel chair opposite him, picking up his receiver with calm, serene grace.
“Did you come here to watch me rot, Dominic?” Julian rasped through the speaker, his voice trembling with bitter, impotent venom.
“I came to give you the final corporate report, Julian,” Dominic replied softly, his voice smooth and untroubled.
“The Sterling ancestral estate on Storrow Drive has been completely demolished.”
“We leveled the foundation and donated the entire fifty-acre property to the city of Boston to build the Marcus Sterling Children’s Trauma & Oncology Center.”
Julian’s hands shook violently against the glass, his breath catching in his throat as the cruelty of his absolute ruin crushed him.
“And what about my father’s foreign accounts?” Julian wheezed.
“Every single dollar in Zurich, Panama, and the Caymans has been liquidated under federal restitution decrees,” Dominic informed him with chilling finality.
“The money was transferred into a permanent educational endowment providing full college scholarships to the children of our logistics dockworkers.”
“Your name has been permanently erased from every building, every trust, and every registry in this country.”
Dominic slowly hung up the receiver, rising from his chair and smoothing his tailored lapel.
May you like
Julian began to pound frantically on the glass, weeping in raw, hopeless despair as the correctional officers stepped forward to drag him away into the dark.
Dominic walked out of the visiting room into the bright autumn sunlight, leaving the ghosts of his past behind forever.
