My Husband Ignored 50 Calls While Our 7-Year-Old Daughter Died, Telling Me Not To Bother Him—So I Buried Her Alone and Uncovered His Million-Dollar Money Laundering Plot In Her Name / Chapter 13 / 20

Chapter 13 - The Devil's BargainThe ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado is designed to break the human spirit. It is a sterile, concrete tomb where the worst monsters in the country are buried alive in twenty-three-hour solitary confinement.

I sat in the secure visitation booth, separated by thick, bulletproof glass. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly pallor over the gray room. Jonathan stood right behind my chair, a silent, imposing guardian.

The heavy steel door on the other side of the glass buzzed violently. Two heavily armored guards escorted David into the booth.

He was entirely unrecognizable. The arrogant, bespoke billionaire who used to mock my intelligence was gone. His hair was thinning and completely gray. He wore a faded orange jumpsuit, his wrists and ankles shackled in heavy chains. He had lost at least thirty pounds, his cheekbones jutting out sharply against his sallow skin. He looked like a hollow, terrified shell.

He sat down on the metal stool and picked up the heavy black receiver with shaking hands.

I picked up mine. I didn't speak. I simply stared at him, letting the silence crush whatever remained of his pathetic ego.

"Megan," David choked out, tears instantly brimming in his sunken eyes. "You came. Oh god, you actually came."

"I didn't come to absolve you, David," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "I came because your mess followed me home. Elena Rostova."

David flinched as if I had physically struck him. The color drained from his already pale face. "You... you know that name?"

"She froze the foundation’s assets. She framed me for your laundering scheme," I stated coldly, leaning closer to the glass. "I have less than twenty-four hours before the FBI arrests me. I need the physical master drive, David. I need the source code to prove she forged my signatures."

David began to weep, pressing his forehead against the smudged plexiglass. "I can't. If Elena finds out I gave you the drive, she’ll have me killed in here. She has guards on her payroll, Megan! I’m already a dead man walking!"

"You are a dead man walking either way," I pointed out without a shred of pity. "But if you give me the location of the drive, Jonathan will pull every political string he has to get you transferred to a medium-security facility under a protective alias. You give me the weapon to destroy Elena, and I buy you a few more years of breathing."

He looked up at me, weighing his absolute terror of the Russian syndicate against his desperate, primal instinct to survive.

"It’s not in a bank," David whispered, his voice trembling so violently I could barely hear him. "It’s in the city. The old brownstone we rented when we first got married. Before the money. Before Vanguard."

My heart gave a painful thud. The brownstone in Brooklyn. The place where Lily had taken her first steps.

"I bought it back through a blind trust three years ago," David confessed, crying openly now. "I hid the drive in the floorboards under the master bedroom window. It has everything. The routing numbers, Elena’s offshore accounts, all of it."

"If you are lying to me, David," I whispered, my tone absolute and unyielding, "I will personally call Elena and give her your exact cell block."

"I’m not lying! Please, Megan, you have to get me out of here!" he begged, pressing his shackled hands against the glass.

I hung up the receiver. I didn't wait for him to finish sobbing. I stood up, smoothed my coat, and walked out of the visitor's room without looking back.