Chapter 47 Knox #3
“I’ve replayed that night a thousand times in my head.
I see all the different choices I could have made.
All the different outcomes that were possible.
And each one haunts me.” I met the thin man’s eyes.
“You asked what changed. I changed. I finally stopped using my justifications as armor and let myself face the consequences of my actions. Not the legal consequences. The human ones.”
The woman with the pointed glasses set down her pen and allowed a long silence to envelop the room before asking, “Is there anything else you’d like the board to know?”
I turned and looked at my daughter.
She was crying. Silently, tears streamed down her cheeks, but she held my gaze. Didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch.
“I’ve missed fourteen years of my daughter’s life,” I said, my voice thick.
“Fourteen years of birthdays and graduations and ordinary Tuesday nights. Fourteen years I can never get back.” I turned back to the panel.
“If you give me this chance, I won’t waste it.
I won’t end up back here. I will spend every day of my life trying to be the father she deserves. The man she can be proud of.”
The thin man made a note.
“Thank you, Mr. Blackwood. This panel will now adjourn to deliberate.”
The three of them stood, gathered their papers, and disappeared through a side door. The click of the latch echoed through the room like a gunshot.
Ryker’s hand landed on my shoulder. “You did good. I’m proud of you, man. That was real. They felt it.”
I wanted to believe him. But my eyes kept drifting to the stack of papers they’d left behind. Harper’s medical report sat right on top, the words violent confrontation visible, even from here.
“I also have two violent incidents on my record from the past year,” I said flatly.
“Knox.”
“They’ve already made up their minds, Ryker. You saw their faces.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the side door swung open again.
My heart stopped.
That was way too fast. The last time I’d gone through this process, the panel had at least pretended to deliberate longer.
There was only one reason they wouldn’t need to debate.
As the thin man led the way back to the table, my eyes burned with tears of disappointment. Beside him, the woman with the pointed glasses took her seat without looking at me. The sausage-fingered man followed, shuffling papers.
I couldn’t breathe.
This was it. After everything, after finally opening up and showing them the man I’d become, they were going to deny me anyway. And I deserved it.
But Harper didn’t deserve the guilt. I hated that she’d probably blame herself for something that was my fault, not hers.
Then I thought about another 365 days in this place. Another year away from Harper. Another year of Gwen growing older without me.
Something inside me started to cave in.
The thin man cleared his throat. “Mr. Blackwood.”
I looked up.
“This panel finds that you have demonstrated genuine remorse and meaningful rehabilitation over the course of your incarceration.”
Wait.
“After careful consideration of the evidence, including your conduct over the past fourteen years, your educational achievements, and the testimony presented here today, we will be recommending commutation of sentence to the governor.”
The words didn’t make sense. They bounced around inside my skull like pinballs, refusing to land anywhere that mattered.
“I’m sorry,” I heard myself say. “Could you repeat that?”
The thin man’s lips twitched. It might have been a smile.
“You’ve been granted parole, Mr. Blackwood.”
Ryker’s hand slammed down on my shoulder and squeezed.
I stared at him. Then at the panel. Then back at Ryker.
“I don’t …”
“Your release date has been set,” the woman added, her voice marginally warmer than before.
“The governor’s approval is largely a formality at this stage,” Ryker whispered.
The rest of the hearing dissolved into white noise. Procedures were followed. Papers were signed. Words were spoken that I couldn’t process.
I’d won.
After fourteen years, I was getting out.
The panel stood. Filed out of the room.
When I turned, the room blurred.
My family was already moving toward me, but my eyes caught on the back row. Three men sat in the back, having snuck in just to be here for me. Quietly, without announcement, without needing credit for it.
Blake. Jace. Axel.
They stood slowly. No cheering. No theatrics. Just three men who had seen me at my worst and stayed anyway, each offering a smile and a single nod. The kind that said everything that couldn’t be said out loud.
I had to look away before I lost it completely.
My family reached me then. Arms around me. Voices breaking. My mother pulling me down until her hands found my face the way they had when I was small and she needed to make sure I was real. I’d never seen her so happy. It absolutely wrecked me.
When they shuffled to the side, Harper launched out of her chair.
She crossed the distance between us, and then her arms were around me, her face pressed to my chest, and she was crying.
“Hey,” I murmured against her hair. “No tears.”
Her voice was muffled. “I’ll cry if I want to.”
I wrapped my shackled arms around her as best I could, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her body pressed against mine.
Realizing that soon, I’d get to hold her anytime I wanted.
She pulled back, eyes red-rimmed and shining. “I’m so sorry about that report. I didn’t know, Knox. Back then, I didn’t know who you really were, and I just—”
“Stop.” I tilted my chin down, catching her gaze. “That report was honest. You documented what you saw. That’s your job.” I paused. “And back then? You were right to be afraid of me.”
“I wasn’t right about anything.”
“Harper.” I waited until she looked at me. “You saved my life. In every way that matters. Don’t apologize for it.”
Her lower lip trembled. But she nodded.
A throat cleared behind us.
I looked up to find Gwen standing a few feet away, hands twisted together, eyes uncertain.
Harper stepped back, swiping at her cheeks. “Ryker? Can we give them a minute?”
God. She always knew exactly what I needed.
Ryker nodded, moving to intercept the approaching officer. “Give them a moment. He’s not going anywhere.”
Gwen stepped closer.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
“Congratulations,” she finally managed.
“I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you.” I offered a gentle smile.
Gwen’s expression turned sheepish. She wiggled her head and looked down at her feet, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the ground. “After I visited you …”
Her attention flicked to my chest. To the necklace hanging around my neck. The one she’d made me when she was just a kid, all clumsy knots. The one I’d worn every single day since. Through fights and lockdowns and nights so dark, I wasn’t sure I’d see morning. That necklace never came off.
I wondered if she understood that now. If this one little piece of leather string and metal beads made her realize I hadn’t been some absentee father content to rot in here and forget her. That I’d thought about her every single day. Every. Single. Day.
She swallowed hard. “Ryker gave me your letters.”
My heart stopped. I glanced at my best friend, who gave me a sheepish, apologetic smile.
“He thought maybe if I read some of them, I’d come to the parole hearing,” she explained.
I said nothing. Couldn’t decide if I was angry or thrilled.
“I read them all,” she continued. “Then I confronted Mom, and she finally told me the truth. That it was HER choice to cut ties.”
I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing. Years of silence, and now the truth decided to show up.
“After we had an epic fight about that, she told me you’d actually been a wonderful father. It’s not that she talked crap about you. It’s just …” She shrugged one shoulder. “She never really talked about you at all. I think she thought she could just erase you from the outskirts of my life.”
Erase me. Like I was a mistake she could just white-out and pretend never happened.
“But once we started talking, she had nothing but good things to say.” Gwen met my eyes. “She pulled out photo albums. Showed me pictures of us together.”
Something painful unwound in my ribs. Photos I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Moments I’d only been able to replay in my memory, faded and worn at the edges like old film.
Gwen squared her shoulders, and for a second, I saw myself in the stubborn set of her jaw. “I decided I wanted to be here for you on a day that was really important.”
I tilted my chin down, fighting the burn behind my eyes.
So many years, I’d waited to hear those words.
“Thank you for coming.” My own voice was barely a rasp. “It means more than you know.”
She nodded, twisting her fingers together.
“Did you mean it?” she asked quietly. “What you said up there. About regretting not being here for the last fourteen years.”
“Absolutely.”
I could see the word land. Could see something tight in her shoulders start to loosen.
“That man,” she said slowly. “The one you killed. He was hurting me, wasn’t he?”
My throat constricted.
“That’s why you never told me.” She wasn’t really asking. “You didn’t want me to know that I was …” She trailed off, unable to finish.
“I don’t know for certain what happened before I entered your bedroom,” I said carefully. “But even if I did, that information wouldn’t serve any purpose in your life except to hurt you.”
I stopped. Considered the words I’d just spoken. And realized they were exactly the kind of well-intentioned lie I’d been telling myself for years.
“Or so I thought,” I amended. “I should have been honest with you, Gwen. I should have trusted you to handle the truth. You deserved to know that your father didn’t just get into some random fight. You deserved to know why I made the choices I made.” I paused. “Even if those choices were wrong.”
She studied my face. Looking for something.
“For what it’s worth,” I continued, “I thought about you every single day. Every morning when I woke up. Every night before I fell asleep. You were the reason I kept going.”
Her eyes glistened.
The corrections officer shifted impatiently behind us, but I didn’t look away from my daughter.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” I said. “But I can’t leave this room without asking if there’s any way I can stay in touch with you. Even if it’s just letters. Even if—”
“How about dinner?”
I blinked.
“After you’re released.” A tentative smile curved her lips. “I could have you over for dinner. If you want.”
A tear escaped down my cheek before I could stop it.
“Yeah,” I managed over my tight throat. “That sounds fantastic.”
Gwen smiled. A real smile this time. The kind that reached her eyes.
She turned to go, then paused. Looked back over her shoulder.
“Dad?”
My heart seized. She hadn’t called me that in years.
“I’m glad you’re coming home.”
Then she walked out of the room, and I stood there in my shackles and my prison orange, tears streaming down my face.