Chapter 10 - Grafton's Glass WallThe air inside Grafton Correctional Institution smelled of stale bleach, industrial wax, and rust. It was a stark, brutal contrast to the butter-scented luxury of my bakery.
I sat on a metal stool behind a thick glass partition, waiting. I had told no one—not Sarah, not my mother, and certainly not Richard. I needed to see Ethan’s eyes myself. I needed to know if he was still trying to burn down my world or if he was truly a broken man.
The heavy steel door buzzed, and Ethan walked in, handcuffed at the wrists.
I barely recognized him. The sharp, handsome man who used to strut through country clubs in designer suits was gone. His face was hollowed out, dark bruises shadowed his cheekbones, and his once-impeccable hair was shaved rough and uneven. He sat down heavily, picking up the receiver with trembling hands.
I lifted mine to my ear.
"You came," Ethan said, his voice raspy, stripped of all its former arrogance.
"I came to tell you to stop sending your mother to my shop," I said, my voice cold as ice. "And to tell you that your little mind games won't work on me anymore."
Ethan laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "You think this is a game? Charlotte, look at me. Look at what I’ve become. I’m dying in here."
"You put yourself in here, Ethan. You stole from me. You forged my signature. You tried to ruin my life."
"I did," he admitted, looking down at the metal table. "I was greedy, terrified, and pathetic. But I didn't act alone. When my firm was failing, I didn't know how to hide the debt. A senior financial consultant reached out to me off the record. He showed me how to set up the dummy offshore accounts. He suggested using your bakery’s tax ID as the shield because 'housewives don't get audited.'"
My blood ran cold. "What are you talking about?"
"The man who helped me engineer the fraud," Ethan whispered, leaning close to the glass, his eyes wide with genuine terror. "He set me up to take the fall when the IRS got too close. And then, when I went down, he stepped in to 'save' you so he could buy forty percent of your company on the cheap."
The room seemed to tilt. The fluorescent lights flickered violently above us.
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"Who?" I managed to ask, my breath catching in my throat.
"Richard Sterling," Ethan said. "He owned the debt firm that bought out my company’s toxic assets six months before we got divorced. He played us both, Charlotte. He created my ruin so he could own your success."
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