Chapter 19 - The Price of Blood
Three days later, Julian stood in the visitor’s room of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Across the thick acrylic partition sat Vanessa.
She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit. Her long acrylic nails had been clipped down, her hair was tied back in an unwashed ponytail, and the arrogance that had defined her entire existence had been utterly crushed out of her.
Beside her sat Eleanor, who had been granted release on bail under house arrest with an ankle monitor, while Vanessa remained detained without bail as a flight risk and national security liability.
Eleanor was weeping silently into a crumpled tissue. Vanessa looked at Julian through the glass, picking up the heavy black receiver with a shaking hand.
Julian picked up his side.
"Are you happy now?" Vanessa asked, her voice cracking, raspy from days of screaming in a holding cell. "Look at me, Julian. Look at where I am. You put me in a cage."
"You put yourself here, Vanessa," Julian said calmly. "You made a choice. Every single day of your life, you chose to tear down anyone who didn't bow to your entitlement. You thought the world owed you luxury without labor, respect without honor, and obedience from me."
"I was your sister!" she sobbed, pressing her palm against the glass. "We grew up in the same house! I shared everything with you!"
"You shared nothing," Julian corrected her, his voice slicing through her delusion. "When Dad died, you took his life insurance check to go to Cabo with your friends, leaving me to work two jobs while studying twenty credits a semester just to pay the mortgage on the house you were living in. When I graduated at the top of my class, you couldn't even let me have ten minutes of dignity. You tore up my contract because you couldn't stomach the fact that I had built a future that didn't belong to you."
Eleanor grabbed the phone from Vanessa’s hand, her face pressed against the glass, sobbing hysterically. "Julian! Baby! The lawyers said Vanessa is facing ten to fifteen years in federal prison! They’re seizing the house because the mortgage payments were tied to the money Sterling laundered into our accounts! We have nowhere to go! You have millions now! Buy us an apartment! Hire the top defense attorneys! Save your sister!"
Julian looked at Eleanor. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel the familiar sting of wanting his mother’s love. He felt nothing. The emotional umbilical cord had not just been severed; it had been cauterized with white-hot iron.
"The house is gone, Mom," Julian said evenly. "And I will not spend a single penny on your defense. You made Vanessa what she is. You nurtured her cruelty, excused her malice, and joined in her laughter when she tried to destroy me. Now, you will live with the daughter you created."
"Julian! No! Don't hang up! Julian!"
Julian set the receiver back onto its metal cradle.
May you like
He stood up, smoothed down the lapels of his tailored charcoal coat, turned his back on the acrylic partition, and walked out of the visitor’s room without looking back.
Behind him, Vanessa’s screams through the glass were muffled, fading into the cold, industrial hum of the prison gates locking behind him.
