Chapter 5 - Shadows in the System
The heavy door clicked shut behind Sarah and Lily, leaving David back in the holding block, but the atmosphere inside his chest had fundamentally changed. The cold, crushing weight in his heart had been replaced by a burning, unyielding resolve.
He sat on his cot in cell block B, the sweet taste of chocolate still lingering on his tongue, his fingers tracing a small, folded napkin that Lily had decorated with a crayon drawing of a smiling family holding hands.
"You look different today, 4421," a gravelly voice muttered from the neighboring cell.
David looked up to see Old Man Vance—a veteran inmate who had spent twelve years inside for a white-collar securities fraud he claimed he never committed—peering through the vertical bars of his door.
"I had visitors," David said quietly, tucking the napkin safely beneath his thin mattress.
Vance let out a dry, knowing chuckle. "Visitors in this hole usually mean bad news. Lawyers telling you to plead out, or family members giving up. What did they bring you that put that look in your eye?"
"Proof that I'm not forgotten," David replied, standing up and walking to the front of his cell. He gripped the cold steel bars, his knuckles whitening. "And a reminder of who I'm fighting for."
Vance’s expression grew serious. He stepped closer to the bars, lowering his voice so the roving night guard wouldn't hear down the concrete corridor. "Listen to me, kid. If you want to get out of here before Marcus locks down his fraudulent shell companies permanently, you can't wait for the court-appointed lawyer to do it. That public defender is moving at a snail's pace for a reason."
David frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Marcus didn't just frame you by doctoring accounting logs," Vance whispered fiercely. "He bought out the senior partner handling your defense. Every piece of exculpatory evidence you’ve tried to submit? It’s sitting in a shredder in the district attorney’s basement."
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through David’s veins. "How do you know that?"
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"Because Marcus used the exact same playbook on me twelve years ago," Vance said grimly. "And the only way I survived to see my day in court was by finding the one person inside the system who couldn't be bought."
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