I sat across from him in the bleak, gray visiting room, separated by a pane of heavily scratched acrylic glass. He was brought in wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. He looked abhorrent. The thirty-six-year-old CEO had aged two decades; his cheekbones jutted out like knives, and his hair was threaded with thick patches of coarse gray.
He picked up the black intercom phone with trembling fingers. I slowly lifted my receiver, maintaining a temperatureless calm.
“Seven years and two months,” his voice crackled over the line, raspy and broken. “I plead guilty to everything.”
I offered a single, microscopic nod.
“Clare,” he choked, tears immediately pooling in his sunken eyes. “I wanted to see you… not to beg. Just to say I am so deeply sorry. Every single day in this cell, I relive the delivery room. I know Leo wasn’t mine. I burned my life down for a ghost.” He paused, his breath hitching. “When did you know?”
