Chapter 11 - A Visitor at Rikers
Two weeks before his federal trial was scheduled to begin, Dominic sat in a cold visitation room at the Metropolitan Detention Center. He wore a coarse orange jumpsuit, his dark wavy hair shorn short, his once-handsome face hollow and pale.
The heavy steel door unlocked, and Audrey walked in. She wore a simple camel wool coat, carrying a small leather folder under her arm.
Dominic lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes filling with a mixture of shock and desperate hope as he grabbed the plastic telephone receiver on his side of the glass.
Audrey picked up the phone on her side, sitting down calmly.
"Audrey..." Dominic wept, pressing his hand against the thick partition. "You came... I knew you still cared... Please, Audrey, talk to the federal prosecutor! You own the hospital system, you have influence! Get them to lower my charges!"
Audrey looked at him through the glass without a trace of anger or affection—only cool neutrality.
"I didn't come here to save you, Dominic," Audrey said quietly. "I came to deliver the final legal decree."
She slid a document under the glass partition slot.
Dominic picked up the paper with trembling fingers. It was a formal decree terminating his parental rights permanently, accompanied by a court order barring him from ever contacting Liam or Chloe upon his release from prison.
"Sign it, Dominic," Audrey said, echoing the exact two words he had spoken to her in the NICU six months ago.
Dominic gasped, looking up at her in horror. "You... you're taking my children away forever?!"
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"You threw them away in an incubator for money," Audrey replied coldly. "You signed away your right to be their father the moment you brought your mistress to their bedside. Sign the paper, or I instruct my lawyers to seek the maximum twenty-five-year federal sentence."
Dominic’s hands shook uncontrollably as he grabbed the plastic pen attached to the desk and signed his name at the bottom.
