HE BROUGHT HIS MISTRESS TO STRIP ME OF EVERYTHING IN COURT, BUT WHEN I TOOK OFF MY COAT, THE ENTIRE ROOM DISCOVERED THE SINS HE BURIED TEN YEARS AGO

Six months later.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois was silent as the jury filed back into the jury box after four days of deliberation in the criminal trial of United States v. Jason Mitchell.

Jason sat at the defense table wearing a drab, ill-fitting gray prison suit. His hair had gone almost completely white during his six months in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. His skin was pasty, his eyes sunken, the last traces of his once-dazzling charisma extinguished forever.

Judge Thomas Sterling—no relation to his former defense attorney, who had since surrendered his law license amid ethics violations—took the verdict form from the foreperson.

"In the matter of the United States versus Jason Mitchell," Judge Sterling read clearly, the courtroom holding its collective breath:

"On Count One: Attempted Murder in the First Degree — GUILTY."

"On Count Two: Arson Resulting in Severe Bodily Injury — GUILTY."

"On Count Three: Federal Wire Fraud and Embezzlement — GUILTY."

"On Count Four: Money Laundering and Concealment of Assets — GUILTY."

"On Count Five: Subornation of Perjury and Witness Tampering — GUILTY."

The reading continued down the list. Guilty on all fourteen counts.

Judge Sterling set the papers aside and looked down at Jason Mitchell with cold, unsparing judgment.

"Mr. Mitchell," Judge Sterling said, his voice echoing with absolute moral authority. "In my thirty years on the federal bench, I have rarely encountered a defendant who demonstrated such profound, calculated malice, such monstrous greed, and such absolute disregard for human life. You took the brilliance and trust of your wife, attempted to incinerate her alive, stole her identity, and built a monument of vanity upon her suffering."

Judge Sterling picked up his sentencing document.

"It is the sentence of this court that you, Jason Mitchell, be remanded to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to serve a term of forty-five years at the United States Penitentiary, Florence High, without the possibility of parole."

Jason’s legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed heavily into his chair, a pathetic, choking sob breaking from his chest as the reality of dying in a concrete cage finally crushed him into dust.

Two federal marshals grabbed him under his arms, hauling him to his feet, and dragged his trembling, sobbing body out of the courtroom for the final time.

I sat in the gallery, wearing an elegant emerald-green silk dress with short sleeves, my arms uncovered, my scars bathed in the bright morning sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows of the courthouse.