Chapter 9 - The Prison Visit
The visitation room inside the high-security facility was bleak, cold, and smelled faintly of industrial disinfectant. Grayson sat quietly behind the thick reinforced glass wall, waiting.
The heavy steel door buzzed open, and Elliot was escorted in by two guards. He wore a coarse orange jumpsuit. His slicked hair was entirely gone, shaved close to his scalp, and his sharp features looked hollow and exhausted.
Elliot picked up the heavy plastic phone receiver, his eyes dull with bitterness. "Come to rub it in, Grayson? How does it feel sitting in my executive chair?"
"I brought you something you need to read," Grayson said, pressing his father's original letter against the glass partition.
Elliot frowned, his eyes scanning the handwritten lines through the glass. As his gaze drifted over his adoptive father's words, his harsh expression flickered for a fraction of a second before he slammed his cold posture back up.
"He was lying," Elliot rasped into the receiver, his voice shaking. "He always loved you more because of your blood."
"He created a secondary, private quiet trust for you, Elliot," Grayson revealed quietly into his phone. "It was scheduled to mature automatically on your fortieth birthday—no conditions, no tests, no corporate performance requirements."
Elliot froze mid-breath. His jaw slackened. "A... a quiet trust?"
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"It was worth fifty million dollars," Grayson said softly. "He wanted you to have total financial freedom so you'd never feel like a subordinate in this family. But because you committed felony embezzlement and extortion against his estate, that trust was permanently voided by law. You destroyed your own inheritance because you couldn't trust the man who called you his son."
Elliot slowly dropped the phone receiver. It hung dangling by its metallic cord as he buried his face in his trembling hands, weeping hysterically as the guards pulled him away.
