There was nothing out of place, yet I couldn’t stop the sharp fear that built. It had been five years since I had been escorted out of that courtroom and up until the last week, I had been in the clear. The first two times I felt it, I brushed it off, thinking it had been a customer or someone at the store as I picked the last jar of spaghetti sauce off the shelf.
This though, I felt in the pit of my very soul. A shadow shifting further down the road caught my attention but disappeared before I could look that way. The eyes that watched me had to work for my father, there was no other explanation, and the thought of his ruthlessness made me shiver. No matter how far I’d gone, or how long I’d been ‘dead,’ he could find me. The horror my father was capable of, that I had witnessed firsthand, seemed as fresh as if it had just happened yesterday, but knowing he could get me was what terrified me the most.
My eyes burned from holding back the urge to cry. Acid crept further up my throat as I stood next to the witness stand. Any second now, the wave of unshed tears would come cascading down my face—the evidence of my family’s cruelty. Guilt ate away at me; I was the daughter of a monster, but that didn’t mean that I was anything like my father. And that’s why I was here—to right my father’s wrongs. It was me who was about to, hopefully, put him away for life. All I would have to do was make it through the testimony.
Inhaling sharply, I forced the lump in my throat down, willing my face to remain impassive despite the eyes I felt burning into my back. The air of danger that lingered in the courtroom swirled around as the bailiff took residence in front of me. Who would win? The eighteen-year-old who had seen something she shouldn’t have … or the forty-something-year-old mobster. Another pang of fear threaded through me, the flashes of what I had seen racing to the front of my mind. I knew the odds weren’t in my favor, but I had to try. Even as I stood there with my feet cemented to the carpeted floor of the courtroom, nausea built when the bailiff raised his hand.
“America Perelli, please repeat after me.”
His voice was deep and commanding, the sound pulling me from my inner turmoil to focus on what was going on around me. Blinking, I nodded when he paused. When he was assured I was truly listening, he rattled off the oath.
“I do solemnly and sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” I echoed, knowing there was no going back once I stepped onto that stand. When the officer moved, my vision tunneled. The distance was only a few feet to the chair but it stretched into miles before me.
“You can take the stand now, America,” the judge stated simply, her soft command to move still coming through clearly despite the turbulence fighting to steal every bit of resolve and focus that I’d hardly held onto. Taking a deep breath, I took the couple of steps and closed the distance between me and the simple office chair.
As soon as I sat, my eyes drifted to my father and his men. The former refused to look at me—as if I wasn’t even there. The lack of care in his posture wasn’t surprising, but I would have thought he’d be glaring me down knowing my testimony was the key piece to the entire case. Jason Perelli was a cruel man and always had been. Mean to me and my mother when she was alive but even worse after she’d passed.
Black eyes, the carefully placed bruising of a too-strong grip, forceful rebukes that started to trigger an intrinsic urge to shrink away from him, all signs that rang as a clear warning that my younger self hadn't been able to fully grasp. My father was dangerous. If only that lesson had truly hit home before I wound up here.
As the lawyer collected his notes to start the questioning, I wasn’t sure if I was more worried or relieved at my father’s dismissiveness. His lackeys, on the other hand, stared with cold, hard gazes, but it wasn’t their eyes that I felt burning a hole through my chest.
My testimony should have been my focus, ensuring that my father would truly pay for what he had done, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from searching the crowd. When my gaze finally landed on them, I knew what the feeling was. That indescribable pull, an intimate yet inescapable tug that said, ‘you belong over here’ resonated throughout my entire being with no thought to ask permission and definitely no intention to beg forgiveness for its intrusion. But how had they found out? I had purposefully not told them. With the trial being kept on the down-low, the media left out of the loop, they shouldn’t have known.
Yet they did.
They were my safe place to escape and forget the harsh reality of life for a while, and this was no different. My eyes sought theirs, worry building at what I might possibly see, but an almost imperceptible nod let me know they weren’t mad. My panic eased, and the symptoms of a possible panic attack—the building acid, the spreading numbness—began to settle. My body had been trained well, and it knew that when they were here, worry didn’t need to exist. If only they could truly protect me from what was about to happen next. Their eyes never left mine as the lawyer made his way to the floor.
“Did you see your father kill this man?” The prosecutor in a crisp navy suit held up a photograph of a smiling man sitting next to his wife and son. His face was lined with the wrinkles of a life well lived.
Here it was, the moment of truth. The calm that I had gotten from the guys vanished. Sweat pooled under my arms, and my mouth suddenly went dry as the sound of my heartbeat hammered against my temples. One simple word. Yes or no was all it would take. Opening my mouth, I spit the answer out as fast as I could.
“Yes,” my voice croaked the single word.
The lawyer asked questions over the course of the next half hour. The time on the stand seemed to stretch longer, dragging on. My mind struggled to keep focused, but somehow I answered. Each statement was a knife to my chest, knowing there would be no going back. I would be at risk from my father’s men even if he was found guilty, and I’d be thrust into Witness Protection no matter what the verdict said. It was the right thing to do, to testify, but my heart ached knowing that to keep myself and those I cared about safe, I would have to leave this life behind.
The minutes felt like hours, and my body slowly grew more tired as the questions finally came to a close. Taking the seat I had been given near the bailiff, I waited for what was to come. Finally, after long arguments, evidence, and deliberation, all of which I spent in a haze, zoning out in my assigned spot next to a US Marshal, there was a verdict from the jury.
“Not guilty.”
Everything happened all at once. Loud yelling and dissonance from the Sanchez family who waited in the benches surrounded me. I doubled over as the need to vomit took hold of me, my stomach dropping as my vision darkened for a split second. The panic and fear, the adrenaline that had been building throughout the entire trial left me, my body going numb, and worst of all, my father’s handcuffs were removed for the final time. My eyes shot up and caught the cold stare of my father; the look on his face promised revenge and my death. I quickly lost sight of him as his men surrounded him and a firm grip lifted me by my arm. A pair of U.S. Marshals shuffled me out of the room, both stoic as they explained what was next as they directed me towards the door.
“What just happened?” I muttered, cutting off one of the men, my feet slowing until I wasn’t walking. He glanced at me with a furrowed brow, not seeming upset I had interrupted. “How was he not found guilty?” I croaked out.