Chapter 8 - The Confrontation Behind Glass
Three weeks later, David Blake walked down the cold, echoing corridor of the Cook County Department of Corrections Maximum Security Wing.
His side had finally begun to heal; the internal stitches had dissolved, leaving a thick, jagged purple scar across his lower ribs—a permanent, indelible reminder of the day he fought for his children’s lives. He walked with a firm, steady stride, his shoulders back, his head held high.
He was escorted by two armed correctional officers into a small, private non-contact visitation booth.
On the other side of the three-inch-thick ballistic glass sat Amanda.
The transformation was startling. Without her tailored designer suits, her expensive skincare routines, and her carefully styled hair, Amanda looked hollow. Her skin was sallow under the buzzing industrial fluorescent lights. Her hair was limp, pulled back with a plain elastic band. But when she saw David sit down on the steel stool across from her, her posture instantly stiffened, and that familiar, icy mask slipped over her features.
David picked up the heavy black telephone receiver mounted to the wall.
Amanda did the same.
"You look remarkably well, David," she said through the earpiece. Her voice was steady, crisp, and entirely devoid of remorse. "Considering how clumsy you always were."
David looked at her. For months, he had wondered what he would feel when he finally sat across from the woman who had shared his bed, mothered his children, and tried to slaughter his family. He had expected blinding rage. He had expected suffocating grief.
Instead, as he looked into her flat, dead eyes, he felt only a profound, liberating disgust.
"Cody flipped, Amanda," David said quietly. "He signed a full proffer agreement yesterday morning. The federal grand jury returned a twenty-two-count indictment against you an hour ago. RICO. Wire fraud. Attempted murder. Human trafficking conspiracy."
Amanda didn't flinch. She let out a small, dismissive sigh. "Cody was a weak, cowardly little man. I always knew he lacked the discipline to see an enterprise through to the end."
"An enterprise?" David leaned forward, his eyes burning into hers. "You hung Lily from a ceiling fan, Amanda. She was three years old. She cried for you until her throat bled."
Amanda tilted her head, her expression chillingly analytical. "Lily was defiance personified. Just like you. She needed to understand the hierarchy of authority. If I hadn't disciplined her, she would have grown up soft. Vulnerable. Like you."
"She is three," David repeated, his voice dropping to a harsh, dangerous whisper. "And you are a monster."
Amanda smiled—that same, empty, terrifying smile she had given him in the living room before she drove the shears into his side.
"You think you’ve won because I’m in this cage, David?" she whispered into the receiver. "You have no money. Your firm is in bankruptcy. The house is foreclosed. You're a broken man with three traumatized children who will wake up screaming for the rest of their lives. Every time Lily looks in a mirror, she will see my face. Every time Emma closes her eyes, she will hear me. I didn't just take your wealth, David. I poisoned your bloodline. I will live in their heads forever."
David sat in silence for a long moment, watching the poison spill from her lips.
Then, slowly, David reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a single photograph, pressing it against the ballistic glass.
It was a picture taken the previous afternoon on the beach outside Thomas’s cottage.
Lily was sitting on Emma’s shoulders, laughing hysterically as a gentle summer wave lapped at Emma’s bare feet. Noah was sitting in the sand between David’s legs, covered in wet sand, grinning with all six of his baby teeth. The sun was setting behind them, turning the water into molten gold.
"They aren't thinking about you, Amanda," David said, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "Lily hasn't asked for you in three weeks. Emma deleted every photograph of you from every device she owns. And Noah... Noah doesn't even remember your face."
Amanda’s eyes widened slightly as she stared at the photograph. For the first time, a flicker of genuine shock—and something resembling fear—passed across her features.
"You're not an architect, Amanda," David continued, his voice steady as iron. "You're just a parasite. A footnote in our lives. In five years, you will be sitting in a six-by-eight cell at Dwight Correctional Center, eating off a plastic tray, and my children will have forgotten that you ever existed."
David slammed the receiver onto its cradle.
He stood up, turned his back on her, and walked toward the heavy steel exit doors without looking back once.
May you like
Behind him, through the thick glass, Amanda dropped the phone. She began to pound her fists against the partition, her face twisting into a grotesque mask of hysterical, impotent fury, her silent screams swallowed entirely by the concrete walls of the prison.
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