Chapter 5: Interrogation in the Grand Hall
Down in the subterranean holding cells of the federal detention center, Nathan Ashford sat in a sterile interrogation room staring at his cuffed hands. The adrenaline of the midnight raid had completely worn off, replaced by the crushing realization of his total, irreversible ruin. The door clicked open, and two federal marshals escorted Assistant U.S. Attorney Vance and FBI Special Agent Miller into the room.
Nathan looked up with bloodshot eyes, his expensive suit wrinkled and stained with spilled highball whiskey from the night before. "I want my lawyer! You can't hold me without a hearing, I demand my constitutional rights!" Nathan rasped, his voice cracking from hours of panic. Vance pulled out a thick manila folder, dropping it onto the metal table with a heavy thud that made Nathan flinch.
"You have your rights, Mr. Ashford, but right now you need to look at what your legal team is walking into," Vance said coldly, sliding a stack of papers across the table. Nathan glanced down at the documents, recognizing the official bank routing numbers of his hidden Cayman accounts immediately. "How... how did you get these? Those accounts were encrypted behind military-grade firewalls!" Nathan stammered in disbelief.
Agent Miller leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as he stared down the disgraced CEO with utter contempt. "Your mistress Celeste handed over the encryption keys the second we mentioned a forty-year federal prison sentence," Miller revealed smoothly. Nathan’s jaw went slack, his face turning pale as he realized Celeste had betrayed him the moment pressure was applied.
"Celeste... she wouldn't... we were partners!" Nathan gasped, clutching his head in his hands as the betrayal washed over him. "She told me you were a useless, unremarkable nobody who deserved every lash you took," Nathan muttered bitterly, though whether he was talking to us or himself was unclear. Vance flipped to the next page of the dossier, revealing the audio transcripts recorded by my sapphire pendant.
"Mr. Ashford, your wife Victoria has provided us with over two hundred hours of audio and video documentation detailing your abuse and fraud," Vance stated formally. "If you cooperate fully and plead guilty to all fifty-two counts of federal racketeering and assault, we might recommend a thirty-year sentence." Nathan stared at the prosecutor as if he had spoken in a foreign language, the concept of prison time completely alien to his privileged mind.
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"Thirty years? I'm Nathan Ashford! I run a multi-billion-dollar logistics firm!" Nathan screamed, standing up so violently his chair crashed backward onto the concrete floor. The marshals stepped forward instantly, pinning Nathan against the metal table with practiced, brutal efficiency. "Your firm doesn't exist anymore, Mr. Ashford, and neither does your freedom," Vance said, standing up to leave the room.
Upstairs in the secure observation suite, I watched the interrogation unfold on a high-definition monitor alongside my father. Arthur poured two cups of hot green tea, handing one to me while keeping his eyes fixed on the weeping CEO on the screen. "He still doesn't understand that he was never the master of his own universe," my father observed quietly. "Men like Nathan believe power is something you conquer, rather than something you inherit through discipline and blood."
