CHAPTER 547: NO ONE WOULD EVER MESS WITH HER IN THIS LIFE (1)

Solitary Confinement – Block X, Maximum Security Prison.

"How much time has passed?" the woman murmured to herself in the small, empty room, but there was no one to answer. She had no idea whether only days had gone by, or weeks or even months, and she had no one to talk to.

There was no window in the room to tell the day or the night, nor did it have a clock or any other features, except for one. It was just stone walls, stale air, a steel, unmovable toilet... and a small, flickering screen mounted high in the corner.

It was placed just high enough that she could not reach it, and it played one video. Only one, in a loop. It played day and night, serving as a cruel reminder of what had happened outside the prison walls. It played the recording of her daughter’s trial, specifically her sentencing.

Over.

And over.

And over again.

’Guilty on all counts!!!!’

The woman’s lips trembled, but no words came out at first. Her eyes refused to blink. Her body remained stone still.

Abi sat hunched on the edge of her bunk — what was left of it, anyway. The thin mattress had been taken after she’d tried to use it to end her life. Her pillow was gone, as were the sheets. Even the prison uniform was standard-issued, sleeveless, and had no strings. She had no hope.

Her once-glorious hair was now dulled and tangled, her eyes locked on a small, dusty TV screen suspended in a metal cage high above the corridor.

Her daughter, her princess, once so bright, so full of promise, stood in handcuffs, surrounded by cameras, as a judge read the verdict with terrifying calm.

On the screen, the judge’s gavel slammed as if re-emphasizing the earlier words.

"We find the defendant guilty —"

She watched as Brianna’s eyes brimmed with tears on the tiny TV. By now, Abi could conjure the whole scene in her mind, which was driving her crazy.

Tears. They once used to be considered a form of weakness to Abi, but Abi, in her state, couldn’t care less.

It slipped down her cheek as if her entire life had finally cracked. It was the first time she had truly wept, but there was no going back.

"Why... why did I think I could cover the skies with my hand?" she whispered, voice raspy from disuse.

She got up and walked to the nearest wall, which was just three feet away; the whole length of the room. She leaned forward slowly, resting her forehead against the freezing walls.

"The man, Ian! ... he’s the devil himself," she said. Her voice broke. "Why did I step on the head of a sleeping snake?! WHY?!"

She clenched her knuckles white till they turned white and punched the walls, trying to vent her frustration.

"I did this. I caused this. My daughter... my only child..."

Failure had never been in Abi’s vocabulary. Her rise had been built on control, fear, flawless execution. She had never lost. Until now. Until him – Ian.

Thoughts darkened quickly, her mind spiralling toward the one escape that seemed left.

Death.

But the facility — oh, they knew her kind well. After James Wendover, such escape had been blocked. All the edges in the room were dulled, so they could not cut anything.

They had stripped her of everything. No sheets, no utensils, no ropes, no curtain rods. Not even the dignity of a proper toilet door.

She looked around her barren cell.

There was no escape, no redemption and definitely no legacy.

Abi let out a sound—half sob, half bitter laughter.

"So, this is what the end looks like," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Not in a storm... but in silence. Alone. Forgotten."

She knew that solitary, total isolation was the way they wanted to break her, and they had. She was going crazy out of her mind in there, and they had compounded it with Brainna’s ordeal, counting on that for the final trick.

The news looped again, showing Brianna’s tear-streaked hollow face as the cuffs clicked closed.

And all Abi could do was stare... and weep. Even if she closed her eyes, the sounds re-echoed in the tiny cell, making it impossible for her to escape.

And then her face — devastated, betrayed, broken just before the screen faded to black and reset to the beginning, yet again.

A whisper left her cracked lips. "No... no more..."

She buried her face in her hands, but the audio kept going. Louder in the silence.

"The power got to my head, and I thought myself invincible! Why did I think I could cover the sky with one hand...?" she muttered.

This was her punishment. It was not just imprisonment, but a psychological annihilation.

All this happened because of her, and Abi knew that. This was what was breaking her from the inside.

And worst of all, she had been warned. Subtly, yes — but warned. Ian had told her in his own devilish way. She hadn’t listened.

And now? It was too late to take any action. Her whole family was done for. She went from the highest to zero overnight.

At some time during the brief seconds of quiet, Abi shot up from the floor, wild-eyed, slamming her fists into the wall, over and over again. Her scream died in her throat from exhaustion.

Her knees gave out, and she crumpled to the floor, trembling. "Stop... please, just stop..."

But it didn’t.

It never did.

This was no longer solitary confinement, but an eternal sentencing. And the verdict played forever as if mocking her.

During those silent seconds, the echo of keys clinking somewhere down the corridor.

She had just closed her eyes, as though finally surrendering to despair, when a sharp clang echoed against her cell bars. She flinched, but with a slight hope that the mental torture would finally cease. How wrong she was.

A correctional officer stood there — not one she recognized, young, impassive. He didn’t speak. He simply slid a thick cream envelope through the slot, turned and left.

It had no name. Just a wax seal. Black.

She froze. Her hands trembled as she reached out. Somehow, deep inside, she already knew who it was from.

She tore it open like a woman tearing off a bandage from a festering wound. Inside was a single sheet of paper — handwritten.

**"How does it feel?

To finally understand that you were never the one pulling the strings.

To watch your daughter fall, not from your enemies’ hand, but from the trap you walked her into. This is what you get when you bite more than you can chew.

You tried to crush me, but you forgot one thing.

I am in control of everything! You are in my playground. You only succeed when I let you.

Sleep peacefully, knowing your family is with you during this ordeal! And my wife is doing well.

PS: At least I care enough to send you mail ;)

–I."**

Her hand dropped the paper like it had burned her, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

"I..." she whispered. "No... no, it can’t be—"

But it was. Abi’s last news of Ian was of his disappearance but seeing this. Her despair shot up.

This was the same man she’d once tried to manipulate and bind through her daughter.

The same man her daughter had been groomed to think that they would. The one that she thought her daughter could seduce --

She looked around her cold, stripped-down cell again, the shadows now darker than before. There would be no redemption. No appeal. No visitors. Not anymore.

"Indeed, I should have followed my gut! I was just too lax!" She slumped down, spewing the rest of the envelopes’ contents – pictures that she’d rather not have seen. Details to further increase her distress!

What Abi did not know was that her husband was not in any better shape.

***

In another prison — far from the cold despair of Abi’s facility — Abram lay curled on a thin, stained mattress. His eye was swollen shut, his ribs ached with every shallow breath, and a foul-tasting trickle of dried blood crusted his lip.

He barely stirred when the usual clamour erupted in the common area — shouts, slamming trays, the bark of guards.

Abram didn’t need a replay as a constant reminder because the trail was etched in his mind and firmly so.

"Guilty."

He was in gen pop and, as the accomplice, was supposed to have a lighter sentence, but the inmates had taken him as their way to vent.

He watched his princess’s face in his mind’s eye. The same face he had once kissed goodnight. Her eyes were hollow — his baby girl.

"No... no..." he whispered. But his voice was too soft, just a breath. No one heard. No one cared.

One of the other inmates snorted from a nearby bench. "Ain’t that your brat, old man? Apple didn’t fall far, huh?"

The others laughed, and he shifted painfully to see a small TV replaying the trial coincidentally.

Abram didn’t even flinch. Not anymore. Let them laugh. Let them beat him. Let them spit. None of it mattered—not compared to the wreckage of his family.

He closed his eyes, trembling.

He remembered when they’d built their empire, when they’d dined with kings and dismissed enemies like insects. When he’d believed his wife was untouchable. That they were untouchable.

And now?

His wife rotted in a cell. His daughter, even more so than them. And he... he was just meat to the wolves in gen pop—a trophy for the lowlifes he used to control.

"I should have stopped her," he whispered, tears leaking from the one eye that could still open, but he knew that he wouldn’t. That was the life Abi had ever known, and he loved her for that. Still, he convinced himself, "I should’ve told her no."

But he hadn’t and wouldn’t.

He’d been the silent partner. The coward. And now all he could do was lie there, broken in body, tormented in mind, staring at the flickering image of his daughter

For the first time since their downfall, Abram also cried.

Not from pain, or humiliation, or fear.

But from a helpless, suffocating grief for his princess.

Because there was no greater punishment than watching your child fall—and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

What exactly did they do wrong? Where had they gone wrong?! Could their action have made a difference? He briefly wondered.

The cell door clanged open.

"You have a visitor!"

*********

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