Chapter 8 - The Interrogation of Mrs. VaneAt 9:00 AM the following morning, the blizzard over Lake Michigan had blown eastward toward Indiana, leaving the sky washed in a brilliant, crystal-clear sheet of sapphire and gold.
Inside the subterranean holding cells beneath the Chicago federal building on Dearborn Street, the air was freezing, smelling of wet concrete and industrial disinfectant.
Mrs. Vane sat on an iron bench inside a reinforced security cell, her gray uniform dress shredded and stained with black coal dust and dried lake sludge, her fingers frostbitten, her bare feet shivering on the cold floorboards.
The heavy sliding iron door hissed open.
Dante Bellini walked into the vault, accompanied by Assistant United States Attorney Marcus Vance and two federal marshals carrying thick evidence binders.
When Mrs. Vane saw Dante, she scrambled to the bars, her bloodshot eyes wide with hysterical panic.
“Mr. Bellini! Please! Tell the marshals to release me! My hands... the frostbite... I can't feel my fingers!”
Marcus Vance stepped forward, opening the primary federal indictment folder.
“Your accounts in the Cayman Islands were seized by federal court decree two hours ago, Mrs. Vane,” the prosecutor said, his voice flat as an iron slab. “The federal grand jury returned true bills across sixty-four counts thirty minutes ago. Aggravated elder abuse, corporate extortion, conspiracy to commit murder, and the systematic embezzlement of four million dollars from the Bellini domestic payroll.”
He showed her the decrypted banking ledgers and the wire confirmations recovered from Dr. Vance’s private safe.
“Your trial begins in four weeks. You are facing thirty-five years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. You will eat prison bread. You will scrub prison floors. And every morning when you wake up, you will remember that the girl you called a sick mule owns every square foot of the house you tried to steal.”
Dante looked down at the ruined housekeeper with cold, absolute detachment.
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“You asked Clara if someone would look at her with pity, Mrs. Vane,” Dante whispered, his voice quiet enough that the water dripping in the drain sounded like a metronome. “No one looks at her with pity anymore. They look at her with terror, because she carries the sovereign seal of the Bellini Empire.”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the holding block, leaving her frantic, weeping cries to echo against the damp concrete until the heavy iron door slammed shut forever.
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