Chapter 13: The Prison Visit
Rikers Island was a miserable, gray fortress of concrete and razor wire. It was a place designed to break the human spirit.
Khloe sat on a bolted metal chair in the visiting room, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She wore a simple black trench coat, looking entirely out of place among the grim surroundings.
The heavy steel door clanged open, and Marcus Thorne was escorted in by a guard.
Khloe barely recognized the man sitting across from her. The billionaire golden boy was gone. Marcus was gaunt, his face covered in a patchy, unkempt beard. His orange jumpsuit hung loosely on his frame, and the arrogant fire in his eyes had been replaced by a hollow, desperate panic.
He picked up the phone receiver on his side of the thick plexiglass. Khloe picked up hers.
"You came," Marcus rasped, his voice sounding entirely too fragile.
"You called my lawyer twelve times this week, Marcus," Khloe replied, her tone devoid of all emotion. "I figured I would save Elias the headache. What do you want?"
Marcus swallowed hard, pressing his forehead against the glass. "They’re offering me twenty years, Khloe. Twenty years. I'll die in here."
"Actions have consequences," Khloe said flatly. "You stole forty-five million dollars from your own employees' pension funds. You tried to flee the country. And you orchestrated a cover-up for an assault on your pregnant wife. Twenty years sounds generous."
"I was out of my mind!" Marcus pleaded, tears welling in his eyes. "The pressure of the company, the merger... Isabella manipulated me! She poisoned my mind against you!"
Khloe let out a harsh, bitter laugh. "Stop. Just stop. You were a grown man who made his own choices. You didn't care about me, and you certainly didn't care about the child you thought I was carrying."
Marcus’s eyes darted around nervously. He lowered his voice, leaning closer to the glass. "That's why I called you here. My mother... she visited me last week. She told me the truth, Khloe. She told me about the baby. About my father."
Khloe’s expression hardened into a mask of stone. Eleanor had broken their agreement.
"She told me Jonathan isn't my son. He's my brother," Marcus said, a twisted, desperate smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "You played a brilliant game, Khloe. You bypassed me to get the trust. But if the press finds out... if the shareholders find out that the CEO used her dead father-in-law's sperm to secure a hostile takeover? The scandal will destroy Thorne Industries."
Khloe stared at him, unblinking.
"I have leverage now," Marcus whispered eagerly. "Here is the deal. You call the federal prosecutors. You tell them you misinterpreted the financial documents. You drop the civil suits. You get me a five-year sentence in a white-collar minimum-security camp. You do that, and I take the secret of Jonathan's parentage to my grave."
Silence hung heavy in the stifling visitation room. Marcus looked triumphant, believing he had finally found the string that would unravel Khloe’s perfect armor.
Khloe sighed softly. She reached into her trench coat pocket, pulled out her sleek smartphone, and unlocked it. She pressed a few buttons and held the screen up to the plexiglass for Marcus to see.
It was a press release. Stamped with the official Thorne Industries letterhead, dated two days ago.
“CEO Khloe Thorne proudly announces the birth of Jonathan Richard Thorne. In a miraculous medical journey, Khloe utilized the preserved genetic material of the late visionary founder, Jonathan Thorne Sr., ensuring the purest continuation of the Thorne legacy in the wake of Marcus Thorne’s removal.”
Marcus stared at the screen, the color completely draining from his face.
"You leaked it?" Marcus choked out, horrified. "You leaked your own secret?"
"It’s only a secret if you're ashamed of it, Marcus," Khloe said softly, pulling the phone back. "The shareholders didn't panic. In fact, they loved it. They view my son as the literal reincarnation of the man who built the company they trust. Stock is up four percent since the announcement."
She leaned in, her eyes burning into his shattered soul.
"You have no leverage. You have no money. You have no family. And you have no company," Khloe whispered through the receiver. "You are nothing, Marcus. And you will spend the next twenty years rotting in a cage, knowing that a woman and a baby bested you."
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Khloe hung up the phone. She stood up, smoothing her coat, and turned her back on the glass.
As she walked out of the visitation room, the muffled sound of Marcus sobbing and beating his fists against the plexiglass echoed behind her. It was the best music she had ever heard.
