Chapter 6 - The Interrogation Room Confession
The fluorescent lights of the federal holding facility hummed with an irritating, clinical buzz. Through the two-way mirror, I watched Vanessa Brooks sit slumped in an austere metal chair, her immaculate white Chanel suit looking entirely out of place in the gray, windowless room.
The smug, untouchable air she had worn in the executive boardroom had completely evaporated, replaced by a cold, cornered panic.
The door to the observation room opened quietly, and Marcus Vance stepped in, holding a leather folder containing her electronic transcripts.
"She’s cracking, Eleanor," Marcus reported, sliding into the chair beside me. "Her high-priced defense attorney just advised her that without Julian Cross stepping in to pay her legal fees—and so far, Cross has completely ghosted her—she’s facing up to fifteen years for wire fraud, extortion, and interstate financial conspiracy.
"Cross abandoned her the second the feds got involved?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Like rats leaving a sinking ship," Marcus replied with a thin smile. "Julian Cross operates through proxies precisely so he can burn them the moment things go sideways. Vanessa is realizing right now that she was nothing more than a disposable pawn in his thirty-year grudge against your family."
"Let me talk to her," I said quietly.
Marcus hesitated. "Eleanor, are you sure? She’s hostile, and legally—"
"I don't need legal advice for this, Marcus. I need answers," I said, standing up and smoothing my skirt.
A minute later, I pushed open the heavy steel door of interrogation room B and stepped inside. The air smelled of stale coffee and old metal. Vanessa looked up, her bloodshot eyes narrowing with pure venom when she recognized me.
"You," she hissed, her voice hoarse from crying. "You orchestrated this entire thing just to humiliate me. You poured water over your own head like a lunatic just to trap me!"
I pulled out the opposite metal chair, sat down deliberately, and folded my hands on the table between us. I didn't smile, nor did I look angry. I looked at her with the cold, detached pity one might reserve for a stray animal that had wandered into traffic.
"I didn't force you to pick up that bucket, Vanessa," I said evenly. "I didn't force you to mock an old woman, to demand that I clean mud with my bare hands, or to plot the systematic theft of my family's legacy. You chose every single one of those actions because of who you truly are beneath the designer clothes."
Vanessa slammed her cuffed hands onto the table, rattling the metal fittings. "You don't know anything about me! You grew up sitting on a pile of gold inherited from a dead husband! I had to claw my way out of the gutter! Every man I ever targeted, every dollar I ever took—it was just survival!"
"Survival is working a double shift at a diner to pay for college, Vanessa. Survival is building a legitimate business from scratch," I retorted, my voice sharpening into a razor's edge. "Extortion, fraud, and emotional parasitism are not survival. They are parasitism. And now, Julian Cross has left you holding the bag."
At the mention of Cross's name, Vanessa flinched. A flicker of genuine panic crossed her face.
"What do you know about Julian?" she whispered.
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"I know that he promised you a penthouse in Manhattan and a share of Whitmore Global if you successfully executed the prenup," I leaned forward, my eyes locking onto hers. "And I know that right now, his private jet is fueling up at Teterboro Airport, and his name isn't on a single document linking him to your arrest. If you want a reduced sentence, Vanessa, you are going to tell us every single offshore account, every encrypted communication channel, and every meeting place where Julian Cross coordinated this attack."
Vanessa stared at me, the last remnants of her defiance crumbling into ash as she realized she had been completely betrayed by the man she served.
