Danica
Five years later
"You don't have to do this," Leo said, pulling Maisie, our three-year-old from my arms.
"I do," I sighed.
We rarely fought, but we'd had the same argument over and over. I had to do this. My biological father gave his freedom for my happiness. He'd asked me to visit. I couldn't refuse.
“Let me go with you, Abigail will watch Maisie.”
Abigail Charles became family. She adored Maisie almost more than Maisie adored her.
“No, I want to do this alone.”
Miguel was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole. The death sentence was removed in exchange for pleading guilty and saving the Charles’ the pain of another trial. I’d written him a few times, sent a picture of Maisie every year since she was born, but I’d never spoken to him in person since the day I arrested him.
Maria and my dad visited him a few times a year when they came down to Texas to visit us. They told me he’d adjusted to prison life well, gotten clean, studied for his GED and was working in the prison workshop. He didn’t regret taking Leo’s place. I didn't understand why he wanted to see me in person. If Maria knew she remained tight-lipped over it.
“Fine,” Leo relented.
I planted a kiss on Maisie’s golden curls. Leo refused to let me leave without a hug.
“If he upsets you at all…”
“He won’t.”
He had no reason to. I never asked him to confess, nor did my dad. It was all his own doing. He chose his own fate.
The two-hour drive was excruciating. What do you say to the man who ruined your life and then single-handedly saved it? What if he asked for my forgiveness? Could I forgive him?
He’d brought me into a world of drugs and brutality as a baby, made no efforts to keep me safe, abandoned me to my fate after discovering me missing and assuming his brother and father took me and killed me. On learning I’d lived he’d didn't contact me. He handed my kidnappers my details to save his own skin. And then he saved Leo from death. He granted me a happiness beyond anything I could imagine. Did that ease the harm he’d caused?
I pulled into the car lot of the Lewis Unit, my mind still racing, the answers to the questions I asked myself still evading me.
Mothers, children, girlfriends, wives and fathers filled the waiting area, all smiling and laughing, eager to hug their incarcerated family member. We were called through one by one, asked for id, searched and shown to our seats.
Men in prison overalls streamed through the door. Guards lined the room, watching the prisoners, their beady eyes missing nothing. I didn’t recognise Miguel until he took his seat opposite me.
He’d gained weight, his skin and eyes brighter, the stench that had clung to him when I arrested him had been washed away. He smiled unsurely at me.
“Danielle.”
“Danica, I changed my name, I’m Danica now.”
“I see. Your mother named you Lucia.”
“My father named me Danielle. I changed it to Danica after I escaped the men you sent to my door.”
He reached across the table. I dropped my hands into my lap, away from his touch. I did not forgive this man, I could not forgive this man. I’d be forever grateful for what he’d done for Leo, but forgiveness was more than I could offer.
He inhaled, tears pooling in his eyes.
“Sorry isn’t enough, is it?”
I shook my head, avoiding his tearful gaze.
“Why did you ask me here?”
He spoke quietly, furtively glancing around him, afraid other prisoners would overhear. His reputation as an Ortiz had saved him from the violence that would usually be inflicted on a child killer. What he was proposing would shatter the thin veil of protection his name afforded him.
The DEA and Mexican officials had asked for his help. They wanted him to testify against his former Cartel. The few who remained after my father took his vengeance against them for my kidnap were still very much active, they were wreaking havoc across Mexico and flooding Texas with cheap cocaine.
“They’ve offered me the chance of parole after serving no less than twenty-five years in exchange for my cooperation. I’ll be moved somewhere nicer, with more privileges. I want to testify anyway, those men need stopping but if you don’t want me to take the deal, I won’t. I deserve to spend the rest of my life in here, I know that. All I want to is take away some of your pain, if seeing me free would hurt you, I’ll testify without a deal.”
I studied him, he locked his gaze on his hands, folding them together on the table. The crimes he had confessed to were horrific but no more horrific than the things he’d actually done when he was working with the cartel. Innocent of Stacey and Maia’s murder or not, he deserved to be locked up for life. And he would be. He was in his early fifties now, with twenty-five years minimum to serve and little to no chance of getting parole the day he becomes eligible, he was going to die behind bars. If having a slither of hope helps get him through each day, who am I to refuse him?
“Take the deal,” I whispered, resting my hand on his. “It won’t hurt me.”
There wasn’t anything in the world that would hurt me more than he already had.
“I just want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy, Danica. Are you happy?”
“Yes. I am.”
Happy. Safe. Loved. I had my happy ever after, the man of my dreams and the family I’d always yearned for.
THE END