“They are offering fifteen years.”

“If you fight it, you will get forty.”

“I am not fighting it,” I said.

“I want the deal.”

“You will have to testify against Leo,” Marcus warned.

“They will call you a rat.”

“I do not care what they call me,” I said.

“Is the immunity for Claire guaranteed?”

“Yes,” Marcus said.

“It is in writing.”

“She will not be charged with any of the corporate fraud.”

“She gets to keep her personal assets.”

“The money we got from her father’s estate.”

“That is all I need,” I said.

“Give me the papers.”

Marcus reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of documents.

I signed my name on the blue lines.

Each stroke of the pen felt like a nail in my own coffin.

But it was a coffin of my own making.

Three months later, I was transferred to a federal penitentiary in Southern Illinois.

The prison was surrounded by miles of flat cornfields.

In the winter, the wind blew across the open ground, carrying the cold straight from the north.