Chapter 12 - Marlene’s Desperate Plea and a Shocking Confession
While Dr. Vance Sr. lay recovering in the ICU, Marlene Holt was facing a lonely, terrifying reality inside her sprawling, cavernous mansion. With all bank accounts frozen by federal receivership and her credit cards declining at every luxury boutique in the city, the former queen of society was entirely cut off from the world.
Her phone rang continuously—reporters, creditors, former friends calling to distance themselves from the scandal. Finally, she answered a call from an unknown number, hoping against hope that it was Derek’s defense attorney bringing good news.
Instead, it was me.
“Marlene,” I said calmly into the receiver. “If you want to salvage what little dignity you have left, meet me at the café across from my office in thirty minutes. Don't call your lawyers. They’ve already abandoned you.”
Thirty minutes later, Marlene pushed open the café door. She looked a decade older, her designer clothes rumpled, her makeup smeared, her haughty posture replaced by the defeated hunch of a woman whose illusions had been shattered.
She slid into the booth across from me, her hands trembling as she wrapped them around a warm ceramic mug of black coffee.
“What do you want, Robert?” she whispered, refusing to meet my eyes. “You’ve taken everything. Derek is in federal prison, my assets are frozen, my social standing is destroyed. Are you here to gloat?”
“I don't gloat, Marlene. I deal in facts,” I replied, sliding a single sheet of paper across the table. “This is a cooperation agreement with the District Attorney’s office. If you sign it and testify truthfully about the corporate embezzlement scheme orchestrated by Jonathan Thorne, the court will recommend leniency regarding your personal estate liquidation.”
Marlene stared at the paper as if it were venomous. “You want me to turn on Jonathan? He’s been our family’s closest advisor for twenty years!”
“He’s also the man who used your son as a scapegoat to hide his own offshore money laundering,” I said evenly. “Derek was just a pawn in Thorne’s grand design. But you already knew that, didn't you, Marlene?”
Marlene flinched, biting her lower lip until it turned white. A heavy, suffocating silence settled between us before she finally broke down, her shoulders shaking with silent, bitter sobs.
“I created him,” Marlene choked out, tears carving tracks through her heavy foundation. “I pushed Derek to be perfect. I told him that failing was the ultimate sin, that wealth and prestige were the only things that separated us from the common rabble. I ruined my own son by teaching him that people were just chess pieces to be used and discarded.”
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“It’s not too late to tell the truth, Marlene,” I said softly, sliding a pen across the table. “For once in your life, do the right thing.”
Marlene looked at the pen, then at me. Slowly, with a hand that shook violently, she picked it up and signed her name at the bottom of the page.
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