Chapter 9 - Justice and Ashes
The winter of that year was the harshest the region had seen in a decade, but inside the maximum-security wing of Taycheedah Correctional Institution, the cold was not just outside—it was built into the concrete walls.
Victoria Vance sat at a metal table in the common yard, wrapped in a coarse, threadbare brown wool blanket that reeked of chemical detergent. Her fingers were stiff with arthritis, swollen and red from scrubbing the industrial laundry vats four hours every morning.
In her prime, she had spent thousands of dollars on specialized hand creams imported from Switzerland. Now, her skin was cracked, bleeding at the knuckles, and infected around the nails.
A heavy metal door buzzed open.
“Vance! Table four!” a guard barked, pointing a nightstick at the visitation cubicle. “You’ve got a visitor.”
A surge of wild, frantic adrenaline shot through Victoria’s frail chest.
*Dominic!* she thought, scrambling to her feet, her plastic shoes squeaking against the linoleum. *He finally came! He came to tell me he found a new lawyer! He’s getting me out!*
She rushed into the visitor cubicle, her heart hammering against her ribs, and snatched the black plastic telephone receiver off the hook.
Sitting on the other side of the security glass was not Dominic.
It was Sophia Sterling.
Sophia sat in a tailored camel-hair coat, looking pristine, untouchable, and completely composed. She didn't pick up the phone immediately. She simply let Victoria stare at her through the glass, letting the crushing disappointment sink into her bones.
Slowly, Sophia lifted the receiver to her ear.
“Where is my son?!” Victoria shrieked into the phone, her voice cracking with fury. “Where is Dominic?! Did that orphan girl send you here to mock me?!”
“Dominic isn't coming, Victoria,” Sophia said smoothly, her tone as dry as autumn leaves. “Dominic’s probation was formally revoked three weeks ago after he assaulted security officers outside the Symphony Center. He is currently serving eighteen months in a state work facility in southern Illinois. He does not have phone privileges.”
Victoria’s breath hitched. “No… no, that’s impossible! Dominic has friends! He has pedigree!”
“He has nothing,” Sophia corrected. “And neither do you. But I didn't travel three hours in the snow to talk about Dominic. I came to deliver the final disposition of the Vance estate.”
Sophia opened a manila envelope and pressed a single sheet of paper against the glass.
It was a certificate of demolition and municipal redevelopment.
“The Vance ancestral mansion was officially demolished yesterday morning,” Sophia stated, watching Victoria’s eyes with clinical precision. “The structure had severe black mold, structural rot, and unpermitted electrical work. The city approved Sovereign Crest’s petition to raze the property entirely.”
Victoria pressed her face against the glass, her eyes bulging with absolute, hysterical madness. “You tore it down?! You tore down my family’s house?! That house stood for ninety years!”
“The land has already been rezoned,” Sophia continued, ignoring the outburst. “By spring, ground will break on the *Audrey Montgomery Center for Domestic Survivors*. It will be a thirty-bed emergency shelter providing medical care, legal defense, and financial grants for women and children escaping abusive domestic environments.”
Sophia smiled—a small, razor-sharp curl of the lips.
“The plaque at the entrance of the sanctuary will read: *Built on the ruins of the Vance estate, where cruelty ended and healing began.*”
Victoria’s mouth opened, but no words came out. A high-pitched, strangled wheeze escaped her throat. Her eyes rolled back slightly as a wave of pure, apoplectic rage overwhelmed her nervous system.
The mansion—the ultimate symbol of her aristocratic pride, the fortress from which she had looked down upon the world—had been ground into dust. And in its place, the very woman she had shoved down the stairs would shelter victims of women just like her.
“You monster…” Victoria choked out, her trembling hand clawing at the glass. “You evil… vicious…”
“Accidents happen, Victoria,” Sophia whispered into the receiver, repeating the exact words Victoria had written on the note with the white lilies. “Stop making everything into a drama.”
Sophia hung up the receiver, snapped her briefcase shut, and stood up.
She walked out of the room without looking back once.
May you like
Behind the glass, Victoria Vance began to scream, slamming the plastic receiver repeatedly against the wall until two guards pinned her to the floor, her shrieks fading into the cold, concrete bowels of the prison where she would spend the rest of her days.
***
