Chapter 8 - The Plea Bargain
By February, the walls of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey, had completely stripped Sofia Sterling of every remnant of high-society glamour.
Visiting Room C was a long, concrete corridor divided by scratched polycarbonate security partitions and stainless-steel counters.
I sat on the visitors' side of the glass, wearing a cream turtleneck sweater and black slacks, my hands resting calmly beside my legal folder.
A heavy steel door buzzed open at the end of the hall.
A female corrections officer led Sofia into the cubicle.
She wore an oversized khaki prison jumpsuit with the letters NJ-DOC stenciled across the back in black block print. Her blonde hair had grown out, revealing two inches of dark brunette roots, pulled into an awkward ponytail with a rubber band. Her skin was sallow, pale, and mapped with stress acne around her jaw. She had lost at least fifteen pounds; the jumpsuit hung loosely from her collarbones like a sack of laundry.
She sat down heavily on the metal stool, picked up the black plastic telephone receiver with trembling, unmanicured hands, and pressed it to her ear.
I lifted my receiver.
"Elena," Sofia said. Her voice was flat, dry, and hollow, like gravel grinding in a cement mixer.
"Sofia."
She looked at the side of my head, her eyes tracing the faint, razor-thin white scar that ran through my hairline above my ear.
"They offered me a deal yesterday," Sofia said, staring at the scarred partition between us. "The prosecutor came to the facility with my lawyer."
"I know," I replied. "Sarah Lin consulted with me before she drafted the terms."
Sofia let out a short, bitter chuckle that died in her throat. "Twelve years. Second-degree aggravated assault and attempted manslaughter, with an eighty-five percent No Early Release Act stipulation. That means I do ten years and two months before I even see a parole board."
"You should take it, Sofia," I said evenly. "If you go to trial in Mercer County on the attempted murder indictment, with the CNC machinist from Paterson testifying that you specifically instructed him to sharpen the spikes to a needle taper... the jury will give you twenty-five to life."
Tears welled in Sofia’s bloodshot eyes, but for the first time in her life, there was no theatrical performance behind them. There was no audience of country club matrons to impress; there were no cameras rolling for social media.
There was only the cold concrete of a state penitentiary and the sister she had tried to butcher for money.
"Julian’s annulment cleared last week," Sofia whispered, her forehead leaning against the thick plastic partition. "He got everything. The house in Rumson. The wedding gifts. His father had our pre-nup declared null and void based on criminal fraud. I have nothing, Elena. Not a single dollar. When I walk out of here... I’ll be forty years old, with an attempted murder conviction, living in a halfway house in Camden."
"You made your choice, Sofia," I said, holding her gaze through the glass. "You stood in that ballroom, surrounded by two hundred people, looked at your little sister, and decided that my brain was worth four million dollars of real estate."
"I was desperate, Elena!" she sobbed, her voice rising into a sharp, hysterical squeak that made the guard behind her shift his hand toward his belt. "Julian told me his family was going to back out of the wedding if I didn't bring commercial assets to the table! He said his partners laughed at him for marrying a girl whose father ran an auto-body shop! I needed that money to keep him! I needed to be someone!"
I looked at the woman behind the glass.
I looked at the sister I had spent twenty-eight years trying to please, trying to love, trying to appease so our dinner tables wouldn't descend into screaming matches.
"You were someone, Sofia," I said softly, my voice filled with a profound, unshakeable pity that cut deeper than any insult. "You were my sister. But you decided that being a rich man’s wife was worth more than being a human being."
I set the black plastic receiver back onto its metal cradle.
Sofia began pounding on the glass with both hands, screaming my name through the partition, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks as the two corrections officers grabbed her arms, twisting her back toward the steel door.
May you like
I didn't turn around.
I picked up my leather portfolio, walked through the heavy security airlock, and stepped out into the clean, freezing February wind of the open world.
