Chapter 18 - The Devil’s DealThe Tennessee State Women’s Penitentiary was a bleak, fortress-like structure surrounded by razor wire.
I sat in the visitor's booth, picking up the heavy black telephone as the guards marched Brenda to the glass partition. It had been nearly two years since I saw her at the sentencing. She looked terrible. Her hair was completely gray and stringy, her face sunken, and the harsh prison environment had aged her twenty years.
She picked up the phone, her hands trembling. When she looked at me, there was no defiance left. Only a broken, hollow shell of the woman who had tried to murder my family.
"Connor," she rasped, tears instantly pooling in her eyes. "You came."
"Don't flatter yourself, Brenda," I said, my voice entirely devoid of emotion. "This isn't a social call. And it's not forgiveness."
She flinched as if I had struck her. "Please, Connor. It's hell in here. Shirley won't even speak to me in the yard. The other inmates... they know what I did to a baby. They make my life a living nightmare. Just put a little money in my commissary account. Please. Fifty dollars. So I can buy decent soap."
I stared at her, feeling absolutely nothing.
"I'll put ten thousand dollars in your commissary account," I offered. "And I'll pay a lawyer to request a transfer to a lower-security facility in another state where nobody knows what you did."
Brenda gasped, pressing her hand against the glass. "You would do that? For me? Why?"
"Because you have something I need," I leaned closer to the glass. "When you were racking up your three-hundred-thousand-dollar debt in Chicago, you gambled at the VIP tables run by Viktor Volkov. You spent time with his inner circle."
Brenda’s eyes widened in sheer terror. "Volkov? Connor, no. Stay away from him. He is the devil."
"He's threatening Amy and Frederick," I said softly, letting the lethal intent bleed into my tone. "Which means I am going to destroy him. But I need to know where he operates from. He's in Nashville right now. Where is his base?"
Brenda shook her head frantically. "I don't know! They blindfolded us when they took us to the private games! I swear on my life!"
"Think, Brenda," I commanded. "Did Arthur Vance ever mention a specific location? A front business Volkov uses when he's in Tennessee?"
She closed her eyes, crying silently, desperately trying to access her ruined memory to secure her ticket out of maximum security.
"A... a meatpacking plant," she stammered finally. "Arthur used to complain about the smell. He said Volkov held his private meetings in a freezer. A place called... called Cumberland Meats on the east side."
I memorized the name instantly.
"Is there anything else?" I asked.
"His ledger," Brenda whispered, terrified the guards might hear her. "Volkov is obsessed with physical records. He doesn't trust computers. He keeps a red leather book with every bribe, every hit, every politician he owns. He takes it everywhere in a steel briefcase handcuffed to his enforcer. If you get that book, you get his soul."
I stood up, placing the phone back on the receiver.
"Connor!" Brenda yelled through the glass, her voice muffled. "The transfer! You promised!"
I looked at the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who poisoned my wife and child for money.
I leaned toward the glass and spoke loud enough for her to read my lips.
May you like
"I lied."
I turned my back on her screams, walking out of the prison. I had exactly what I needed.
