Chapter 6 - Vivian’s Golden Cage
While Adrian watched his corporate empire slip into the hands of the woman he had underestimated, Vivian Cole was living in a nightmare of her own making.
Following the raid at the Midway hangar, federal prosecutors had placed Vivian under round-the-clock protection in a secure witness facility in downstate Illinois. Stripped of her designer clothes, her luxury penthouse, and the credit cards Adrian had provided to buy her silence, she sat alone in a sterile room painted the color of dull oatmeal.
The door clicked open, and Claire DeLuca walked inside.
Claire was accompanied by an assistant US Attorney, who placed a heavy recording device on the metal table and stepped back against the wall, folding his arms.
Vivian looked up, her face pale, hollowed out by days of sheer panic and weeping. “Did you come to gloat, Claire? Did you come to see the mistress in a cell?”
Claire sat down across from her, perfectly composed, resting her hands on the table. “I don't care about you enough to gloat, Vivian. You were an instrument. Adrian used you, and you let him use you because you liked the expensive gifts and the illusion of power.”
Vivian dropped her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I didn't want Sophie in that car. I swear to you, Claire. I begged him to leave her at school. I told him her teacher would call you if he didn't pick her up, but Adrian wouldn't listen. He said he had to bring her because the school called saying she had a fever, and if he took her home, you would know he had left work early. He brought her to protect his own lie.”
Claire felt a familiar, sharp agony tear through her ribs, but she kept her breathing steady. She refused to break in front of this woman. She had cried enough tears into Sophie’s small pillow to fill an ocean. Right now, she needed cold, unyielding iron.
“I know,” Claire said quietly. “I pulled the security footage from Sophie’s elementary school. I saw him drag her into the SUV while she was shivering with a 102-degree fever. He didn't care that she was sick. He cared only about making his flight.”
Vivian looked up, her eyes wide with terror. “The prosecutors said I’m facing ten years as an accessory to federal wire fraud and involuntary manslaughter. They said Adrian’s legal team is preparing to put the entire blame of the reckless driving on me! They have an affidavit claiming I grabbed the steering wheel!”
Claire leaned forward, her hazel eyes cutting through Vivian’s panic like a scalpel.
“Adrian will do whatever it takes to survive. He threw Sophie away. What makes you think he wouldn't throw you under a train?” Claire pulled a document from her leather portfolio and slid it across the table. “This is a proffer agreement from the federal prosecutor. In exchange for your complete, unvarnished testimony regarding the hidden accounts in Zurich, the shell companies in Panama, and the exact sequence of events inside that vehicle before the crash, they will drop the manslaughter charges and recommend probation.”
Vivian looked at the paper as if it were a life raft floating on a sea of fire. “Why? Why are you helping me? I ruined your marriage. I helped him hurt your baby.”
Claire stood up, straightening her blazer. Her voice was flat, devoid of mercy, devoid of spite.
“I’m not helping you, Vivian. I’m giving you a front-row seat to his execution. You’re going to sit on the witness stand under oath, look into his eyes, and tell the world that Adrian DeLuca murdered his own daughter to catch a flight. You wanted his world? You’re going to be the one who dismantles it.”
Claire turned and walked toward the door, pausing just before she reached the handle.
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“And when it’s over, Vivian, you will be left with nothing. No money. No status. No future. Every time you look in the mirror for the rest of your life, you will remember that you sold your soul for a man who would have left you to rot on a tarmac. That is your sentence. And you will serve it every single day.”
The heavy steel door swung shut behind Claire, leaving Vivian alone with the echo of her own sobbing.
