Chapter 7 - Desperate Pleadings
Two days later, I was sitting in the study of our home—now fully cleared of any legal encumbrances—when the desk phone rang. It was an unlisted number from the Cook County Jail.
I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Daniel? Daniel, is that you?!”
It was my mother’s voice. Gone was the arrogant, sneering tone she had used on the day I returned. Now, her voice was raspy, frantic, and broken.
“Daniel, please don't hang up!” she sobbed into the receiver. “You have to help us! They have Ryan in a maximum-security block! He can’t handle it in here, Daniel! He’s having panic attacks! The lawyers say we’re facing twenty years in federal prison!”
I leaned back in my leather chair, listening to her cries without a shred of pity.
“You did this to yourselves, Mom,” I said coldly.
“We are your family!” she shrieked, her tone suddenly shifting back to anger. “I gave birth to you! Ryan is your little brother! How can you stand by and let strangers lock us in a cage over money?! It was just money!”
“It wasn't just money,” I shot back, my voice cutting through her rant like a razor. “You tortured my wife. You systematically abused her, starved her, terrorized her, and tried to strip her of her dignity while I was serving my country. You used my name and my dad's memory to commit federal crimes.”
“I was desperate!” Eleanor wailed. “Ryan owed bad people money! If I didn't get him that cash, they were going to kill him!”
“Then Ryan should have faced his own consequences like a man,” I replied. “Instead, you chose to destroy Emily. You chose to destroy me. You made your choice, Mom. Now you get to live with it.”
“Daniel, please!” she begged, her voice shrinking into a squeak. “Just drop the charges! Tell the prosecutor it was a family misunderstanding! We’ll give everything back! We’ll apologize to Emily!”
“You can’t drop federal charges, Eleanor,” I said, using her first name for the very first time in my life. “The United States Government is prosecuting you, not me. And even if I could... I wouldn't.”
“You monster!” she screamed. “You cold-hearted monster!”
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“No,” I said calmly. “Just a soldier who protects his own.”
I pressed the red button, ending the call, and blocked the jail’s line from the house system forever.
