Chapter 6 - The Ghost at the Table
Two weeks after Evelyn’s arrest, the corporate landscape of Chicago had fundamentally shifted.
The federal indictment against Evelyn expanded to include tax evasion and obstruction of justice, ensuring she would spend the next decade or more behind bars. Her defense attorneys had dropped her after the second week when it became clear that her offshore accounts had left a digital paper trail so wide a freight train could drive through it.
I sat behind a sleek walnut desk on the forty-second floor, looking out over the panoramic view of the Chicago skyline.
The nameplate on my door read Clara Sterling-Consultant. Richard had insisted on legally adopting me into the corporate structure as an executive advisor, giving me full voting rights on the board and a salary that made my old delivery tips look like pocket change.
The office door opened without knocking.
Richard walked in, leaning heavily on a carved wooden cane. The stress of the past month had aged him visibly, but there was a newfound lightness in his posture—the heavy burden of a toxic marriage finally lifted from his shoulders.
“Meeting with the regional shipping directors went well,” Richard said, lowering himself into the guest chair opposite my desk. “They accepted the restructuring plan without a fight. They know the company is cleaner now than it’s been in twenty years.”
“And Daniel?” I asked, sliding a stack of compliance reports across the desk.
Richard’s expression darkened slightly. “He’s working. Actually working. A mid-level logistics firm in Cicero hired him as an inventory clerk. Minimum wage. He called me yesterday crying because his rent check bounced.”
“Did you help him?”
“No,” Richard said firmly. “I told him that if he wants to survive in the real world, he has to learn how to stand on his own two feet. Just like you did, Clara.”
I looked down at my hands. The scrapes from Evelyn’s diamond ring had faded into faint silver scars, invisible unless you looked closely. They were a reminder of where I had come from, and more importantly, of what I had survived.
“Do you think Evelyn realizes yet how completely she destroyed herself?” I asked quietly.
May you like
“Evelyn will never accept responsibility for her own actions,” Richard replied, staring out the floor-to-ceiling window. “Even in federal holding, her lawyers tell me she spends hours drafting letters claiming she’s the victim of a grand conspiracy orchestrated by her ungrateful daughter-in-law and her senile husband.”
Let her write her letters. The walls of her prison were real now, far thicker and colder than the marble foyer where she had tried to break me.
