Chapter 11: Absolute Zero
Inside the bleak, heavily guarded visitor room of the county detention center, the pale, flickering fluorescent lights illuminated the cold concrete floor. The air smelled of bleach and despair.
The heavy steel door on the opposite side of the bulletproof glass clanked open.
Liam, handcuffed at the wrists and ankles, wearing a bright, humiliating orange jumpsuit, was escorted in by a burly correctional officer. In just half a month inside the federal lockup, he had lost a massive amount of weight. His cheekbones jutted out. His hair was thinning. He looked completely withered, a hollow, pathetic shell of the arrogant CEO he used to be.
I sat comfortably in the metal chair on the free side of the glass. Gracie, wearing her little pink hat, sat quietly on the chair next to me, coloring in a book, completely devoid of all fear or expression toward the man who had failed her.
I picked up the heavy black intercom receiver.
Liam scrambled into his chair and grabbed the receiver on his side with violently shaking hands. His sunken eyes radiated absolute despair, mixed with a impotent, burning hatred.
“Serena…” his voice cracked, dry and raspy. “Khloe and Lexi have both been officially indicted by the grand jury. They denied bail. My mother had a massive heart attack and is dying in a prison hospital bed chained to the rails. The entire Lawson family has been utterly, completely annihilated by you. Tell me… are you finally satisfied?”
“I didn’t destroy the Lawson family, Liam,” my tone was flat, completely undisturbed by his suffering. “Your own endless greed, your arrogance, and your viciousness did. The exact moment you laid a hand on Gracie, you should have expected this exact, absolute outcome.”
“Daddy?” Gracie looked up from her coloring book, hiding slightly behind my arm, calling out softly in lingering fear.
Hearing her tiny voice, Liam finally broke down. He collapsed into ugly, loud, sobbing tears. He violently banged his head and his handcuffed hands against the thick bulletproof glass. The steel chains clanged sharply against the barrier.
“Gracie! Daddy knows he was wrong! I’m so sorry!” Liam sobbed, snot running down his face. He pressed his face to the glass, looking at me with begging eyes. “Serena, please. I am begging you. Let me go. Just this once. I will take all the federal charges for Vanguard entirely by myself. I won’t fight. Just drop the civil lawsuits and leave just enough money in an account for my mother to eat! Please, Serena, I am on my knees begging you!”
I tilted my head backward, gesturing slightly.
Mr. Harrison, Liam’s former lawyer who now worked exclusively for me, stepped forward. He immediately slid two thick, heavily notarized legal documents through the steel transaction slot at the bottom of the glass.
“Mr. Lawson,” Mr. Harrison said coldly, devoid of any past respect. “This is an absolute, zero-asset divorce settlement. It strips you of all marital property. The second document is a full, unredacted confession to federal embezzlement and fraud. Sign it, and you walk away with absolutely nothing to your name. Full legal and physical custody of Gracie goes entirely to Miss Sterling, with a permanent restraining order attached.”
Liam stared down at the papers, his entire body convulsing with sobs. “Serena… if I sign this confession… I will rot in a maximum-security federal prison for twenty years. You aren’t leaving me a single way out.”
“A way out?”
I gripped the receiver tightly, a freezing, merciless smile forming on my lips.
“Liam, when your twisted sister and your cheap mistress pinned my tiny daughter to the floor, shaved her head, and covered her tender scalp in blood… did you leave my child a way out? Did you show her mercy?”
I leaned closer to the glass. “If you do not sign those papers right now, my legal team has a million different ways to ensure you never see the light of day again, and that you die old and alone in that cell.”
Faintly, drifting through the thick concrete walls and ventilation shafts, the hysterical, maddening shrieks of Lexi echoed from a neighboring high-security cell block.
Hearing his sister’s endless screams of torment, the very last, microscopic spark of hope in Liam’s eyes extinguished completely. The fight was over. The war was won.
With trembling, defeated fingers, he picked up the cheap black plastic pen provided by the guard. He traced his signature onto the bottom of the documents in absolute, soul-crushing despair.
Mr. Harrison swiftly retrieved the documents through the slot, verified the signatures, and bowed deeply to me. “Miss Sterling, everything is finalized. You have won.”
I hung up the receiver, cutting off the sound of Liam’s weeping. I stood up, taking Gracie’s hand.
“Serena! Serena, don’t go! Please! Let me look at my child just one more time!” Liam pounded wildly against the glass, screaming through the muffled barrier, only to be brutally grabbed and dragged back into the pitch-black corridor by the correctional officers.
Holding Gracie’s hand, I walked step by step down the sterile hallway and out the heavy, imposing iron gates of the detention center.
The rain outside had long since stopped.
Blinding, beautiful sunlight broke through the heavy gray clouds, casting a warm, brilliant golden glow over Gracie and me. The air smelled fresh and clean.
I stopped on the sidewalk. I gently took the little pink hat off Gracie’s head. I looked at the soft, beautiful baby hairs finally starting to grow back over her fully healed scalp, and I smiled warmly, a genuine smile from the bottom of my heart.
“Mommy, where are we going now?” Gracie looked up at me, holding my hand, her bright eyes shining with innocence and hope.
“We’re going home, sweetie,” I whispered, holding my daughter’s hand tightly. “To a place where no one will ever, ever dare bully us again.”
My heels clicked firmly against the pavement. I stepped forward into the brilliant sunlight, walking elegantly and unyieldingly toward a future where I held absolute, untouchable power over my own destiny.
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