Chapter 8 - The Confrontation
Two days before the trial, I requested a meeting with Marcus at the county jail.
He was brought into the visitor's room in an orange jumpsuit. The tan had faded from his skin. The arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by a hollow, frantic paranoia. The Vitiellos had clearly gotten a message to him on the inside.
He picked up the phone through the thick plexiglass. His hands were shaking.
"Why are you here, Nora? Come to gloat?" he spat, though his voice lacked its usual venom.
"I came to give you a choice, Marcus," I said evenly. "Tomorrow, you will take the stand. You will plead guilty to all charges. The fraud, the assault, the money laundering."
He laughed, a desperate, raspy sound. "Or what? You'll release more tapes? You've already ruined me!"
"Or," I leaned in, pressing my hand against the glass, "I let the DA know that you're willing to testify against the Vitiello family. The moment that hits the public record, you are a dead man. Not even solitary confinement will save you."
Marcus went pale. "You wouldn't."
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"Look what you forced me to do, Marcus." I threw his own words back at him, letting them cut deep. "Plead guilty. Take the twenty years. Or go to war with the mob. Your choice."
I hung up the phone and walked away, leaving him trembling in his orange suit.
