Part 2: My husband slapped me under the chandeliers and told me to know my place, completely unaware that I was the senior partner of the firm handling his family's corporate bankruptcy.

At five o'clock that evening, I walked down the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor of the federal detention facility in South Boston.

The heavy steel door of Consultation Room B buzzed open.

Mason sat at the metal table, wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit. His hair was greasy, unwashed, falling into his eyes. The aristocratic arrogance that had defined every movement of his life had been completely stripped away, leaving only a hollow, terrified boy.

When he saw me enter, he scrambled to his feet, the chains around his ankles clinking loudly against the linoleum.

"Olivia," he breathed, his voice cracking. "Thank God. Thank God you came. You have to tell them it was a misunderstanding. Elena... Elena manipulated the paperwork! She told me you approved it!"

I pulled out the metal chair across from him and sat down. I didn't speak. I just watched him.

"Olivia, please!" Mason dropped his hands onto the table, the handcuffs biting into his wrists. "I'm facing twenty years! Do you know what they do to men like me in federal penitentiaries? I won't survive a month! You loved me! You stood at the altar and promised to love me through sickness and health, for richer or poorer!"

"I promised to love a man who had honor, Mason," I said, my voice flat, devoid of anger, devoid of pity. "You slapped me in front of two hundred people because you thought I was defenseless. You thought that by putting a ring on my finger, you owned me."

"I was stressed!" he cried, tears splashing onto the cold metal table. "The company was dying! Victor Sterling was threatening to expose my father's old embezzlement! I didn't know what I was doing! If you drop the identity theft charges, I can plead out to a misdemeanor! We can start over! We can take your money and move to Europe!"

I let out a soft, bitter laugh. "Start over? With you?"

"I'm your husband!" he yelled, slamming his cuffed hands against the table.

"The marriage was annulled at eight o'clock this morning, Mason," I reminded him coldly. "You aren't my husband. You're an unsecured debtor facing seven counts of federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft."

Mason stared at me, the reality finally piercing through his delusion. His jaw worked, but no sound came out.

"And Elena?" I asked. "Do you want to know what your beloved partner in crime is doing right now in Room A?"

Mason blinked. "What?"

"She just signed a proffer agreement with the Assistant U.S. Attorney," I said, leaning back in my chair. "She handed over three years of encrypted WhatsApp messages between you and Victor Sterling. She testified that the entire Eastbridge liquidation was your idea, that you forged my signature on the initial corporate resolution, and that you promised her thirty percent of the hotel sales in exchange for her silence."

Mason’s face turned an ungodly shade of grey. "She... she gave them the messages?"

"She did," I said. "You threw me to the wolves to save yourself, Mason. Did you really think a snake like Elena Cross wouldn't do the exact same thing to you?"

Mason slumped forward, burying his face in his cuffed hands, his body wracked with violent, shuddering sobs. The realization of his complete, irreversible destruction had finally broken his spirit.

I stood up and knocked on the steel door for the guard.

"Olivia!" Mason screamed as the lock buzzed. "Don't leave me here! Olivia! Please!"

I paused at the threshold, turning my head slightly.

"Learn your place, Mason," I said softly, quoting the exact words he had spat at me under the chandeliers twenty-four hours ago.