MY HUSBAND KICKED ME IN THE RIBS AT HIS COMPANY GALA WHILE HIS MISTRESS LAUGHED— BUT HE HAD NO IDEA WHO REALLY OWNED EVERYTHING HE CALLED HIS…

Two weeks later, the air inside the visitors' facility at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island smelled of industrial floor bleach, stale sweat, and despair.

I sat behind a thick sheet of scratched bulletproof glass, wearing an understated gray cashmere sweater and dark trousers. Jaziel stood quietly behind my shoulder, his arms folded, watching the heavy steel door on the opposite side of the partition.

The door buzzed and swung open.

A correction officer led Camden into the cubicle.

In fourteen days, the man who had fancied himself the next Steve Jobs had completely unraveled. His manicured hair had been shaved down to an uneven buzz cut due to a facility-wide lice protocol. The dark circles beneath his hollow eyes were purple and swollen. His cheekbones protruded sharply from his sallow skin, and the oversized orange prison jumpsuit hung off his frame like a dirty sail.

His hands were cuffed to a chain around his waist. He shuffled to the stool, sat down with a wince of genuine pain, and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver with trembling fingers.

I picked up my receiver and held it to my ear.

"Vicki," he whispered. His voice was cracked, raw from screaming and crying in the holding pens. "You came. Thank God. Thank God you came."

"I am here to deliver the final settlement decree, Camden," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.

He didn't listen. He pressed his face against the scratched glass, tears immediately leaking down his hollow cheeks. "Vicki, you have to get me out of here. You have to tell the DA it was a domestic misunderstanding. They put me in general population for three days before Jaziel had me moved to protective custody. The men in here... they took my shoes, Vicki. They took my food rations. I haven't slept in a week."

"You kicked me, Camden."

"I was drunk! I was insane! I was under so much pressure to prove I was worthy of the tech world!"

"No," I cut him off, my voice steady and cold. "You weren't under pressure. You were arrogant. You thought you had climbed to the top of the mountain, and the very first thing you wanted to do was crush the person who built the ladder for you."

Camden lowered his head, his forehead resting against the glass, sobbing uncontrollably. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Vicki. What do you want? Tell me what you want, and I’ll sign it. Just get me out of here. I’ll sign the divorce papers. I’ll waive alimony. Just talk to the judge."

"The criminal charges belong to the State of New York now, Camden," I said. "Even if I asked them to drop it, the District Attorney has the gala security footage and twenty-four eyewitness statements. Jaziel informed me this morning that your public defender is negotiating a plea agreement."

"A plea agreement?" Camden gasped, his head snapping up. "How much time?"

"Five years," Jaziel spoke clearly into the microphone beside me. "With three years mandatory at the Sullivan Maximum Security Correctional Facility before parole eligibility. If you reject the plea and go to trial, Mrs. Vance will personally finance a special prosecutor to ensure you receive the statutory maximum of seven years."

"Five years..." Camden whispered, staring at his shackled, trembling hands. "My youth... my career... my life is over."

"Your life as a fraud is over," I corrected him.

I pulled a single document from Jaziel’s folder and pressed it flat against the bulletproof glass.

It was the final decree of absolute dissolution of marriage, granted by the Supreme Court of New York under emergency summary judgment due to felony domestic violence.

"You leave this marriage with precisely what you brought into it," I told him. "Four thousand dollars in a state-monitored escrow account, eighty thousand dollars in outstanding student loans which have been returned to your personal name, and a felony record that will ensure you never sit on a corporate board for the rest of your life."

"Vicki... please don't leave me with nothing," he wept, pressing his shackled hands against the glass, trying desperately to touch the reflection of my face. "Just write me one letter. Just visit me once a year. Please don't erase me."

I placed the telephone receiver back onto its metal cradle.

I stood up, smoothed down the front of my cashmere sweater, and turned my back on him.

Behind the glass, Camden began to scream, slamming his chained fists against the partition until two correction officers grabbed him by the shoulders, forced him backward onto the concrete floor, and dragged him kicking and screaming into the darkness of the cellblock.