Chương 22 - The Ghost of the Past
That evening, after dismissing the board and ensuring Lucas was safely tucked into bed under the watchful eye of Dr. Rebecca Lawson and my mother, I drove down to the Cook County Department of Corrections.
The rain was falling again—a steady, miserable drizzle that seemed to follow me like a dark omen.
The visiting room was stark, smelling of industrial bleach and institutional despair. I sat behind the reinforced glass partition, waiting in the harsh fluorescent glare. A moment later, a guard escorted a man into the opposite booth.
Vincent looked nothing like the charismatic, high-society hotel mogul who had once commanded the Chicago skyline. His hair was cropped close to his skull, sprinkled with heavy gray; his posture was permanently slumped; and the orange jumpsuit hung loosely over his frame. Three years in a federal penitentiary had stripped away every layer of his arrogant facade, leaving behind only a hollow, broken shell of a man.
He sat down slowly, picking up the heavy black telephone receiver with trembling fingers. I mirrored his action, lifting my own receiver.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We simply stared at each other through the thick, scratched glass—separated by years of betrayal, a shattered marriage, and a chasm of unforgivable choices.
“You didn't have to come here, Claire,” Vincent whispered, his voice tinny and distorted through the intercom speaker. “The lawyers already finalized the divorce decrees six months ago. My name is gone from every deed, every trust, every memory. You won.”
“I didn't come here to talk about the divorce, Vincent,” I said, my voice devoid of warmth, sounding like cold steel. “I came here because of a name you used to whisper about when you thought I was asleep. Alistair Vesper.”
Vincent flinched violently. The color drained entirely from his already pale face, and his eyes darted nervously toward the guards standing by the exit before snapping back to mine.
“How... how do you know that name?” Vincent breathed, his hand gripping the edge of the metal table.
“Vesper Capital is making a hostile play for Hale Hospitality right now,” I replied, leaning closer to the glass. “They’re using Vanessa Cole as a front, buying up our floating shares through offshore accounts in Liechtenstein. You worked with Vesper before everything collapsed, Vincent. You helped him set up the initial shell companies that funneled money to Meridian Holdings.”
Vincent swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. He looked terrified—not of me, but of the man whose name we were speaking.
“You don't understand what you’re dealing with, Claire,” Vincent stammered, his voice rising in panic. “Vesper isn't a businessman. He’s a cleaner for international syndicates. He doesn't want to buy your hotels to run them—he wants to burn your entire empire to the ground and turn the land into a laundering front for weapons trafficking across Eastern Europe. If he takes control of the board, you won’t just lose your company... you, Arthur, and your son won't survive the year.”
I stared at him, my expression hardening into absolute ice. The stakes had just shifted from corporate survival to an outright fight for our lives.
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“Then it’s a good thing I’m not planning on letting him win,” I said softly, standing up and placing the receiver back on its cradle.
As I turned and walked out of the visiting room, leaving Vincent pounding frantically on the glass in mounting terror, I knew one thing with absolute clarity: I was going to hunt Alistair Vesper down, and I was going to tear his syndicate apart piece by piece.
