Leah felt Catherine’s shoulder shake against hers, and she knew she was stifling her tears. She gave Catherine’s hand a squeeze, keeping her eyes on the judge as she tried to read his expression.

His eyes were completely impassive, giving away nothing of his thoughts.

“Taking into consideration the facts of the case and the plea agreement that was reached, at this time the court declares the defendant guilty on both counts of aggravated assault and voluntary manslaughter.”

Leah’s throat was constricting, making it difficult to take a full breath, and she swallowed hard, staring at the judge as he shuffled a few more papers.

“Mr. DeLuca, you have taken responsibility for your actions and shown remorse for your crime. The court recognizes that you reached out to the victim’s family and paid the hospital bills and funeral costs of your own accord.”

Her eyes flashed to the back of Danny’s head, immediately flooding with tears. He’d never told her that.

“The court also recognizes that you have had no prior convictions or arrests, and that you’re in good standing in your community. Taking into consideration all factors, and in accordance with the terms of the plea agreement, I’m sentencing you to twenty-one months in the Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix…”

Leah’s ears started ringing, a strange humming sound that blended with the droning voice of the judge until there was nothing but white noise in her head. She vaguely registered him saying something about a fine and anger management classes before the buzzing in her ears took over.

Leah felt a hand come to rest on her shoulder from behind, either Jake or Tommy, as an officer approached Danny, bringing his hands behind his back and cuffing them.

Her vision blurred and she felt as if she were going to pass out.

And then he was being led away from them, and Leah lurched forward in her seat, gripping the divider in front of her.

WAIT.

The word was thrashing around wildly in her head, but she couldn’t make her mouth say it. She needed to do something—to say something to him—to touch him one more time.

Just before Danny walked through the doors, he turned and looked in their direction. It was a split second, but in that moment, his eyes conveyed everything.

Love. Remorse. Reassurance. Bravery.

And then he turned, walking through the doorway with a cop on either side of him. The door swung closed behind them, and the sharp click resounded through the room, erasing all the other sounds swirling in her ears and leaving an unsettling silence behind it.

Catherine clutched at her, and Leah turned and wrapped her arms around the woman who had raised Danny.

As her frail, trembling hands gripped the sides of Leah’s blouse, a desperate, broken wail cut through the silence, and Leah couldn’t be sure if it was Catherine’s or hers.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Danny knew he should be overcome with excitement right now. He should be envisioning what it was going to be like to have Leah in front of him again. Leah wrapped in his arms, laughing as he buried his face in her hair. The lilting sound of her voice as she assured him she was okay. That everyone was okay.

That he was going to be okay.

But so much had happened since he’d last seen her in that courtroom, and he just couldn’t reconcile that fantasy with his reality anymore. That sort of daydream didn’t belong here. It seemed too far-fetched, too unrealistic.

And idealism was a childish indulgence in this place.

For the first ten days after his arrival, Danny hadn’t been able to speak to anyone on the outside. Upon entering the facility, he had been told he wouldn’t have access to the phone lines or computers until his inmate account was set up; they said it would be activated shortly, and he had believed them.

He should have realized then how disgustingly naïve he was.

Apparently, a ten-day wait was something to be grateful for; there were guys who claimed to have waited twice that long for their accounts to be activated. But hearing that information didn’t provide Danny with any consolation. It only made him angrier.

Ten fucking days.

Ten days to program someone’s name into a computer. Ten days of knowing the people he loved were panicking over not having heard from him. Ten days of the walls closing in by the hour.

An interminable wait, simply to prove he was at their mercy. That he was just a number now. That his suffering meant nothing to anyone in charge.

On the fifth day, his cellmate Troy had offered to call Danny’s family to let them know he was waiting on his account to be set up.

Danny hadn’t been allowed to go inside the call room, and the knowledge that Troy was a few feet away with Leah’s voice in his ear was almost more unbearable than the first five days put together. When Troy returned, he told Danny she had appreciated the call and promised she’d pass the message along.

He wanted to ask how she had sounded. If she’d been crying. If she’d asked any questions about him. If she’d seemed relieved, or sad, or angry. He wanted to ask Troy to repeat every single thing she had said to him verbatim so Danny could memorize it.

But instead he had nodded and went back to his cell.

Troy’s call home should have provided him with some level of relief, but the next five days were somehow more excruciating than the first. The need to connect with someone from home had become a living thing, twisting and churning and clawing at his insides until it could be sated.

The first time Danny had been allowed to call Leah, his rush to explain the visiting instructions had overshadowed the brief respite brought on by her voice. Danny had been required to provide the Bureau of Prisons with a list of potential visitors, and in turn, each person would receive a packet in the mail. As soon as the forms were completed and sent back, the BOP would conduct a background check and either approve or deny the applicants. Danny would receive word when the process was complete, and then anyone who had received clearance would be permitted to visit.

He had also explained that his phone use was restricted to fifteen minutes a day with a cap of three hundred minutes per month, and that within those restrictions, he would have to divide his time between Gram, Jake, Tommy, and his family. Leah had told him not to worry, that she understood they wouldn’t be able to speak every day.

And then their conversation was cut off.

Fifteen minutes up. No warning. No countdown. Just a click, and then nothing.

He’d spent the rest of that day feeling completely unnerved instead of gratified.

He tried to be more aware of the time after that, but it was surprisingly easy to get lost within the confines of fifteen minutes. It happened almost every phone call—the abrupt disconnection when his time was up—and each time was just as unsettling as the first.

The ability to end a phone call with “good-bye” was a suddenly a luxury, something he hadn’t even anticipated losing because it was such a basic fundamental of life, he’d never even given it a second thought.

So many simple, every day privileges—gone.

He shouldn’t have been as shaken by this place as he was. Danny’s life had been far from easy, but he had always taken pride in his resiliency; never once had he succumbed to adversity. Never once did he give in to the struggle.

But in his life before this, there had always been something to throw his energy into. Some distraction. Some way for him to expend his suffering.

Here, there was nothing.

He had enrolled himself in classes, but they only occupied ninety minutes of his day. He checked books out of the library, but he couldn’t digest any of the words. Maybe it was because his thoughts were the only thing they couldn’t put restrictions on, but Danny found himself perpetually lost in his own mind.