Chapter 10 – The Final Confession

The concrete walls of the federal visitation room were painted a sterile, depressing gray.

I sat in the uncomfortable metal chair, the thick plexiglass separating me from the prisoner’s side.

Luca stood directly behind me, his hand resting reassuringly on my shoulder. He had insisted on coming, refusing to let me face the monster alone.

The heavy steel door on the other side clicked open.

James walked in, wearing an orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed to a belly chain. He looked older, thinner, and completely defeated.

He sat down, picking up the phone receiver on his side of the glass.

I picked up mine.

“You got the rosary,” James said, his voice flat.

“You dug up my father’s grave,” I hissed, my voice trembling with rage. “Why?”

“I didn’t dig him up, Em,” James replied, leaning closer to the glass. “I took it off him before they put him in the body bag.”

My stomach churned. “You killed him. You gave him something to trigger the heart attack.”

“No,” James sighed, looking surprisingly exhausted. “I didn’t kill him. His heart gave out on its own. But I was there. And I searched his pockets before the cops arrived.”

We had an answer. James was a scavenger, a predator who preyed on the dead before preying on the living.

But it opened the ultimate question: Why was my father’s death the reason James chose to marry me?

“Your father owned a hardware store, right?” James asked. “A struggling little shop on the south side.”

“Don’t talk about him.”

“Do you know how he kept that shop open, Emily? How he paid for your college?”

I froze.

“He was a bookie,” James revealed, dropping the bomb that shattered my entire reality. “Your sweet, innocent father ran an illegal gambling ring out of the back room. And he owed money to the wrong people. Two hundred thousand dollars.”

Reversal.

My father wasn’t the perfect, honest man I thought he was. He was in deep with the mob.

“When he died,” James continued, “that debt transferred to his next of kin. You.”

I stared at him, the world spinning.

“The men he owed were coming to kill you, Emily,” James said softly. “So, I bought your debt. I paid them off. And in exchange, I owned you. I married you so I could use your perfectly clean, unsuspecting life as my cover.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks. Six years of marriage. Six years of poverty. It was all built on a terrifying, sick transaction.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked, my voice cracking.

James looked past me, locking eyes with Luca.

“Because Valentina is planning a hit on you from the inside,” James said, his eyes darkening. “She paid a guard. They’re coming for your house tonight. They’re going to kill Matteo and take the kid.”

Luca stiffened.

“Why warn us?” Luca demanded through the glass.

James looked back at me. And for the first time in six years, the tears in his eyes looked real.

“Because you were the only good thing that ever happened to me, Em,” he whispered. “I’m a monster. But I don’t want you to die.”

He hung up the phone and walked back to the guard.

TITLE: The True Surrender

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