Chapter 14 - The Final Audit
One year later.
The high-security visitor hall of the Florence Federal Correctional Institution in Colorado was quiet, cold, and smelled of heavy industrial disinfectant.
Behind a thick sheet of reinforced bulletproof glass sat Nathan Drake.
He wore a faded orange prison jumpsuit. His hair was shaved to the scalp, his face was gaunt and sunken, and his hands were secured in steel waist cuffs. The once-arrogant real estate mogul who had sneered across a forty-floor Seattle office was now nothing more than inmate #49201, serving a fifteen-year sentence for federal tax fraud, armed extortion, and domestic terrorism.
The heavy steel entrance door clicked open.
Stepping into the visitor room was Eleanor Vance, wearing a sleek grey business suit, holding a dark leather briefcase.
She sat down calmly on the stool opposite the glass, placing the handset to her ear.
Nathan slowly picked up his phone with his cuffed hands, his eyes dull, hollow, and devoid of life.
"Why are you here?" Nathan rasped, his voice rough from disuse. "Did Blackwood send you to laugh at me?"
"Mr. Blackwood does not think about you at all, Nathan," Eleanor replied cleanly, her tone cold and clinical. "I am here as the legal administrator of the Clara, Julian & Alexander Blackwood Trust to deliver your final financial disclosure notice."
Eleanor pressed a printed legal document against the glass screen.
"Your remaining secondary personal assets in Florida have been officially liquidated by the federal bankruptcy trustee," Eleanor explained. "After restitution fees and back-taxes were paid to the government, the remaining three hundred thousand dollars was legally transferred to the Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation under Mrs. Ava Blackwood’s name."
Nathan stared at the document through the glass, his jaw trembling slightly.
"Ava..." Nathan whispered, his voice breaking. "How... how is she?"
Eleanor took a slow, deep breath, looking at the broken man through the glass with zero pity.
"Mrs. Blackwood is currently celebrating her children’s first birthday at their estate in Bellevue," Eleanor reported smoothly. "Her triplets are walking, healthy, and thriving. She is pregnant with her fourth child—a daughter—and she is currently the Executive President of the largest maternal health charity in North America."
Nathan slumped forward against the steel ledge, pressing his forehead against the cold glass, letting out a ragged, silent sob.
"She has everything..." Nathan wept softly. "She took everything..."
May you like
"She didn't take anything from you, Nathan," Eleanor corrected him, setting her phone back on its hook and standing up from her stool. "You threw away gold because you thought it was brass. And Lucian Blackwood was wise enough to pick it up."
Eleanor turned her back on the crying inmate, her heels clicking sharply against the concrete floor as she walked out into the clean, open air.
