Seraphina's Rage

Seraphina’s rage was a physical presence, vibrating through the glass partition.

Elena stood on the other side of the high-security visitation booth, watching the woman who had once been the "fragile" center of the Hawthorne universe. Seraphina’s hair was a matted halo, her silk blouse stained with the grime of a holding cell, but her eyes were twin lasers of pure, unadulterated hate. She had been demanding a face-to-face with Elena for six hours, refusing to speak to the district attorney until she could look the "intruder" in the eye.

"You think you won," Seraphina hissed, the sound echoing through the cheap plastic receiver. "You think because you found a few files and a recording that you can dismantle three generations of us? We are the ground you walk on, Elena. You’re just a temporary occupant."

"I'm the occupant who just evicted you," Elena said, her voice dropping to that cold, forensic register that always drove Seraphina to the brink. "I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours with the IRS criminal division and the FBI. They don't care about your 'generations.' They care about the twenty-four million dollars you moved through the 'Art Therapy' shell company."

Seraphina slammed her shackled hands against the counter, the clatter of metal on laminate making the guard at the door shift his holster. "That was my life! My privacy! You stole my husband, you stole my daughter, and you stole my future!"

Elena let out a short, sharp laugh. It was a sound devoid of humor, a final exhaled breath of the woman she used to be.

"I didn't steal your life, Seraphina. You sold it. You sold it to me piece by piece every time you accepted a wire transfer from my personal consulting accounts to pay for your 'rehab' villa. You sold it every time you let me mother the children you were too self-absorbed to notice. I didn't steal anything. I bought it. I bought your clothes, your lawyers, your solitude, and your lies."

"Marcus loved me," Seraphina shrieked, tears of fury finally breaking through. "He was mine. He was always mine."

"Marcus just signed a plea deal that names you as the primary architect of the bio-ethics violations," Elena countered, watching the words land like physical blows. "He’s testifying that you coerced him. He’s liquidating you to save his own skin, just like you would have done to him. I bought your life, Seraphina. But the quality was poor. Now I'm just returning the merchandise."

Seraphina’s face contorted, the beauty that had been her greatest weapon curdling into something monstrous and unrecognizable. She lunged at the glass, her fingernails screeching against the reinforced surface.

"I'll find you! I'll find that boy and I'll—"

The guard stepped in, grabbing Seraphina by the shoulders and forcing her back into the chair. She thrashed, screaming obscenities that were muffled as Elena set the receiver back on its hook. Elena didn't look back as she walked out of the grey, windowless room and into the bright, clinical light of the hallway.

The AUSA was waiting for her, leaning against the cinderblock wall with her tablet in hand. She looked up as Elena approached, her expression unreadable.

"She’s done," Elena said, smoothing her hair. "She’ll talk now."

"She might not have to," the lawyer said, tapping the screen and turning it toward Elena.

It was a notification from the state registrar’s office. A red flag had been placed on the Hawthorne birth certificates.

"We just got a hit on the secondary metadata you provided," the lawyer whispered, her eyes wide with a new kind of horror. "The necklace in the photo. The one Marcus said was his grandmother's?"

Elena looked at the image. A close-up of the sapphire locket, the silver filigree catching the flash.

"It wasn't a family heirloom," the lawyer said. "It was a GPS transmitter. And it just pinged from a location that shouldn't exist."

The refund was denied.