When I looked in the mirror and saw what had happened to my hair, I didn't scream.

While Daniel languished in a cell waiting for his arraignment, Vanessa Brooks was experiencing her own terrifying descent into reality.

She had spent forty-eight hours in a women's detention center, her designer clothes rumpled, her makeup smeared, stripped of the illusion of power she had wielded when she sat behind Daniel's desk wearing his suit jacket. She had assumed Daniel would instantly post her bail, hire the city's top defense lawyers, and protect her.

She didn't know that Daniel’s personal accounts were entirely frozen, his assets seized, and that he was currently blaming her for everything during his interrogations with the District Attorney.

Three days after the boardroom showdown, I walked into the visitation room at the county jail. Marcus had arranged a private meeting between Vanessa and me, at her frantic request conveyed through her public defender.

Vanessa sat behind the thick acrylic glass, wearing an orange jumpsuit. The sleek, arrogant executive assistant who had sneered at me and slashed my hair was gone. Her eyes were sunken, dark circles carved deep into her pale skin, her hands shaking as she picked up the intercom phone.

I sat down on the other side of the glass. I wore a tailored cream-colored trench coat, my platinum pixie cut styled to perfection. I looked radiant, powerful, and completely unbothered.

I picked up my receiver.

"You asked to see me, Vanessa," I said quietly.

"Where is Daniel?" she demanded, her voice crackling through the small speaker, desperate and thin. "Why isn't he answering my attorney's calls? Why hasn't he posted my bail?!"

I looked at her with a mix of pity and cold detachment. "Daniel is currently in cellblock C on federal wire fraud and grand larceny charges. He spent his entire bail hearing yesterday telling the prosecutor that you were the mastermind behind the offshore accounts. He claims you manipulated him, used sex to coerce him into signing illegal wire transfers, and stole four million dollars from his company."

Vanessa’s face went ghastly white. She gripped the phone so hard her knuckles turned yellow. "What?! He's lying! He was the one who set up the Cayman account! He told me it was my safety net so I'd never have to work again!"

"It doesn't matter what he told you," I replied. "The paper trail shows your signature on the corporate shell company documents. His name isn't on the corporate registration of V&B Global—yours is. He made sure you were the legal shield in case he ever got caught."

Tears began to spill down her cheeks, washing through the dirt on her skin. "He promised me... he said he was going to divorce you next month! He said you were a mindless trophy wife who didn't understand business! He said you were weak!"

"I know what he said about me," I said calmly. "And you believed him because you wanted the life I helped build. You were so blinded by vanity that you thought cutting my hair would prove your dominance over me. But all you did was strip away my last hesitation to burn down everything you were trying to steal."

"Emily... please," she sobbed, pressing her hands against the glass. "I'm facing ten years in state prison for aggravated assault and grand theft! Please drop the assault charges! I was crazy... I was out of my mind! I'll testify against Daniel! I'll tell the prosecutor everything he did! Just help me!"

I looked at her for a long moment.

"I won't drop a single charge, Vanessa," I said smoothly. "You chose to walk into my life and assault me. You chose to participate in ruining a company that thousands of innocent employees depend on for their livelihoods. You wanted my life? Now you get to live with the consequences of it."