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Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. Everything in the room around him was a trigger: the sharp smell of antiseptic mixed with the metallic stench of blood, the shrill sounds of the monitors beeping in the background, and the feel of the sheer surgical cap covering his head. Together, it all brought him right back to being awake on the operating table as Elizabeth and Dani implanted the ICD inside his chest.

Even without knowing they intended to use it as a torture device, Nick had been terrified. And despite knowing the defibrillator had been taken out more than ten months ago, he still felt the familiar fear of being shocked each time his heartbeat accelerated, even when it was a perfectly normal and healthy reaction to whatever he was doing - working out, rehearsing, playing with his son, making love to his wife. All the doctors had assured him there was nothing physically wrong with his heart and, thus, no reason to worry, yet his debilitating anxiety had made it difficult for him to get back to doing the things he loved. With the help of therapy, he had found ways to cope without letting it completely overwhelm him, and most days, he managed it just fine. But in stressful situations like this one, when his heart started racing while his emotions were already running high, it was hard for Nick to reign it back in.

“You okay?” he heard Lauren ask softly. He opened his eyes again and saw her lying on the table in front of him. She was gazing up at him with tears in her eyes and a look of concern on her face - not for herself, but for him.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, feeling embarrassed to have been caught on the verge of freaking out. He couldn’t fall apart now, not when his wife needed him. Get it together, Carter, he scolded himself. He was supposed to be the one comforting her, not the other way around. “How you doing, baby?” he asked, stroking her head through the gauzy surgical hat she wore over her hair. She had been so strong for him during his hospitalization. Now it was his turn to be strong for her.

“This feels so weird,” she murmured, frowning at the blue sterile drape that hung right in front of her face. It was moving back and forth with the flurry of activity happening behind it.

Nick nodded, knowing what she meant. Again, he was reminded of the implantation procedure. He remembered being flat on his back, pleasantly numb enough not to feel pain but still fully aware and able to feel the pressure of Elizabeth pulling and poking around inside him. It was a strange and unsettling sensation.

Lauren’s whole body was trembling, but whether it was from fear or the anesthesia or merely the force of what was being done below her waist, Nick wasn’t sure. He didn’t dare look behind the drape. The nurse had told him to stay at the head of the table and help keep his wife calm, so that was what he did.

“Hey, look in my eyes,” he said as he continued to caress Lauren’s forehead, forcing her to focus on his face. He could hear metal instruments clanging around, but he tried to block out the sound for them both. “Aren’t you happy?” he asked her in a bright, cheerful tone, even though, in the back of his mind, he was terrified. “You made it! You did it!”

Lauren nodded, her lips curving into a crooked smile. The last nine months had been full of highs and lows for both of them, but the best moment had been finding out on Nick’s fortieth birthday that they were expecting another rainbow baby. For Nick, who had barely made it to forty, getting the news that he was going to be a father again was the most amazing gift he could have asked for. He looked to Lauren’s due date like the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. It kept him moving forward, made him even more determined to climb over every roadblock that stood in the way of his recovery. He wanted to be healthy and whole again for his new son or daughter.

From the beginning, everything about this baby had seemed like a miracle. Considering that a mere seven weeks before her conception, her father had been fighting for his life in the ICU, it was incredible that she had even come into existence. After what Lauren had gone through with her last two pregnancies, she and Nick were cautious with this one. They waited a long time to tell their family and friends, even longer to share their good news with the world. They went into every prenatal appointment with guarded optimism, afraid to get their hopes up in case something had gone wrong. But although Lauren’s pregnancy was considered to be “high risk” due to her age and previous losses, it progressed normally with no major complications. As they made it to each milestone, breathing a sigh of relief whenever they heard their baby’s heartbeat or felt her move inside Lauren’s belly, they began to let their guard down and allow themselves to look forward to their little girl’s arrival.

With the help of her midlife, Lauren had planned for another home birth, like she’d had with Odin. Neither she nor Nick wanted to spend another night in the hospital, and given how nervous he was around doctors and nurses, they had decided it would be best for them both if she delivered their daughter in the comfort of their own home. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out the way they had planned.

At Lauren’s last appointment, they had found out the baby was in the breech position. “Given your history and the increased risk of complications associated with vaginal delivery of breech babies, we’ll have to do a C-section,” Lauren’s obstetrician had told her. “I’m sorry; I know you had your heart set on a natural childbirth, but this is the safest way to bring your little one into the world.”

All Lauren and Nick really cared about was having a healthy baby, so they reluctantly agreed to the Cesarean section. “Look on the bright side,” Nick had said to Lauren. “At least you won’t have to go through labor again.” After holding her hand through the grueling twelve hours it had taken her to deliver Arya, he was relieved that it wouldn’t be like the last time. And, of course, they were both hoping for a different outcome.

Nick tried to remain calm and positive for Lauren’s sake, but inside, he was a bundle of nervous energy, barely in control of his own panic. He couldn’t relax until he heard the cry that meant this baby had been born alive.

“It’s a girl!” the doctor announced suddenly. Nick’s breath caught in his throat as he looked up, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of his daughter over the drape. He couldn’t hear her, but he saw that her skin was bright pink, not dusky blue as Arya’s had been.

He looked back down at Lauren to see tears trickling out of the corners of her blue eyes. “You did it, baby,” he told her, as his own eyes welled with tears. “You did it.”

As if on cue, the baby began to cry. It was blessed music to Nick’s ears, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. “That’s her!” he exclaimed, as Lauren smiled and turned her head toward the sound. “She’s alive!”

“You wanna come see her while we get her cleaned up and checked out, Dad?” called one of the nurses. “We’ll bring her back in just a minute so Mom can hold her.”

Nick looked uncertainly at Lauren, who gave a nod. “Go make sure she’s okay,” she murmured. Still, he hesitated, reluctant to leave her side. He was remembering the nightmare he’d had about her dying in childbirth. Although he had never told Lauren about that, she seemed to understand his internal struggle. “I’ll be fine, Nick - go see her,” she urged him.

He swallowed hard. “Okay,” he finally agreed and patted her on the head. “I’ll be right back, baby.” He felt bad for leaving his wife, but he was eager to get a better look at their newborn daughter.

The baby had been taken to a smaller table off to one side of the operating room, where the pediatrician was examining her while the nurse dried her off with a towel. “Is she okay?” Nick asked nervously as he approached the table.

“She’s perfect,” replied the pediatrician, smiling up at him. “Congratulations!”

Nick’s heart felt a lot lighter as he looked down at his daughter, counting her ten tiny fingers and ten little toes as she flailed her limbs. “You made it!” he cried, not sure whether he was talking to her or to Lauren or to himself. Triumphantly, he thought, We all made it.

Watching the doctor and nurse take such good care of his baby girl while the rest of the team tended to his wife, Nick was overcome by gratitude. “Thank you, everybody. Thank you,” he kept repeating, raising his voice so the whole room could hear it. “Thank you so much.” Then he turned back to his newborn, who was still crying on the table. “It’s okay, baby, you’re out now,” he told her. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

After a few minutes, they brought the baby back over and laid her on Lauren’s chest so she could snuggle her as she was being sewn up. “Can you see her?” Nick asked Lauren. “She’s absolutely beautiful - looks just like her mama.”

Lauren nodded, tears pouring down her cheeks as she planted a tender kiss on their daughter’s face.

Nick bent down and kissed his wife’s forehead. “I’m so proud of you, baby,” he whispered. “You did it.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she replied hoarsely, as she stroked the baby’s head through the knit hat the nurse had put on her. “I love you, Nick.”

“I love you both,” he said back, feeling happier than he had been in a long time. “My two favorite girls…”

“Do you guys have a name picked out yet?” the nurse wanted to know before she took the baby to the nursery to be weighed, measured, and bathed.

Nick looked at Lauren, who nodded, giving him permission to announce the name they had agreed on. “Saoirse,” he said, swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat. “Saoirse Reign.”

“Saoirse?” the nurse repeated with a smile. “I like that. It’s pretty.”

“Thanks,” said Nick, smiling back. But they hadn’t picked out the name because it was pretty. They had picked it because it was powerful.

It meant “freedom.”

***


Hours later, as Lauren rested in her hospital room, Nick rocked in a recliner next to her bed, holding baby Saoirse against his bare chest. The skin-to-skin contact was supposed to help her bond with him, but Nick was certainly benefiting from it, too. When he cuddled her warm little body close to his heart, he felt comfortable for the first time since he and Lauren had arrived at the hospital that morning. His heart rate came down, his breathing slowed, and he was finally able to relax.

He didn’t want to ruin the moment by turning on the television, but he felt compelled to watch his captors’ sentencing hearing, hoping it would bring him the sense of closure he needed. Fatefully, it had been scheduled for the exact same day as his wife’s C-section. He kept the volume low so as not to wake Lauren as he flipped through the channels.

It wasn’t hard to find a live feed - due to the high-profile nature of the case, most of the major news and entertainment networks had provided extensive coverage of it over the past few months. Both Nick and Brian had been hounded by the media, inundated by requests for interviews. Their standard response had been to insist they couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation or pending litigation, but time had run out on that excuse. To their relief, the trial had ended several weeks earlier with guilty verdicts for each of the four co-defendants. Once Dani, Elizabeth, Patrick, and Rob received their prison sentences, Nick hoped the media coverage would die down so he and Brian could move on with their lives and leave their nightmare behind.

As the camera panned across the courtroom, Nick clutched Saoirse tighter, knowing he was about to see his captors on the TV screen. Even now, almost a year later, the sight of their faces and the sound of their voices still made his blood run cold and his heart beat faster. It had taken every bit of courage he possessed to sit on the stand across from the people who had terrorized him and testify against them during the trial, but both he and Brian had done it, forcing themselves to relive their experience in front of a full courtroom while the rest of the world watched on TV. As the only surviving victims of “The Key West Four,” as the media had dubbed them, the two Backstreet Boys’ testimony had been critical in securing a conviction.

“Daddy helped put the bad people behind bars,” he told his daughter in a hushed voice, stroking her back. “If this hearing goes the way it should, they’ll never be able to hurt anyone again. The world will be a little bit better place for you to grow up in, baby girl.” He kissed the top of Saoirse’s head, breathing in her sweet, new baby scent.

When he glanced back up at the TV, his heart skipped a beat, for the screen had been filled by a close-up shot of Dani’s face. Her Florida tan had faded over the ten months she had spent in the Monroe County jail, and without makeup, she looked pale and haggard. Her golden highlights had grown out, leaving dark roots that went halfway down the length of her lank, dishwater blonde hair. The sparkle was gone from her brown eyes as they stared straight ahead, dull and soulless. Looking at her now, it was hard for Nick to understand how he had ever been attracted to her.

“Bitch,” he heard his wife whisper from her bed.

“Hey,” he said, turning toward her with a smile. “You’re awake.” Despite the fact that she had just had major abdominal surgery that morning, Lauren looked fresh-faced and far more beautiful than Dani had ever been - at least in Nick’s eyes. “How you feeling, baby?”

“Tired and sore,” she admitted, but she smiled back as her eyes fell upon Saoirse. “How’s our little one?”

Nick folded down the top of the blanket that covered the baby so Lauren could get a better look at her. “She’s absolutely perfect,” he replied, running his hand over her head of sleek, dark hair. “Do you wanna hold her awhile?”

Lauren shook her head. “I’ll wait until she gets hungry again. She looks pretty happy right where she is.”

Smiling down at their sleeping daughter, Nick nodded. “She does, doesn’t she?”

“How about you? How are you doing?” asked Lauren. She tipped her head toward the TV. “Are you sure you wanna watch this?”

He nodded again slowly. “I’m all right… and it’s not that I want to watch it. I need to.”

“I know,” said Lauren with a sigh. Despite being pregnant, she had spent most of the summer with him in Florida for the trial, braving the heat to accompany him to the courthouse day after day without complaint, never once questioning why he felt compelled to be there. She had provided Nick with much-needed moral support, sitting by his side as the case against his captors played out in front of the jury, holding his hand while the prosecutors presented evidence of the pain and suffering they had caused him and Brian. When the defense team tried to argue that mental illness was to blame for their actions, the cameras had caught Lauren glaring across the courtroom, shooting daggers at Dani and Elizabeth in particular. A gif of her death stare had since gone viral, earning her almost as much media attention as her husband. Like Nick, she couldn’t wait until it was finally over. “I’m sorry we couldn’t be there in person today,” she added.

“I’m not,” Nick replied without hesitation. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.” Holding onto Saoirse with one hand, he reached out his other hand to Lauren, and she took it. “Besides,” he said, squeezing her hand, “Brian’s there to represent us both.”

They turned their attention back to the TV, where the judge was saying, “At this time, the court will hear from any victims who wish to make a statement.” Addressing the district attorney directly, he added, “I understand you have one individual present who intends to speak?”

“I do, Your Honor,” confirmed the prosecutor with a nod. “I call upon Brian Littrell to come to the podium.”

The courtroom buzzed with excitement as the camera cut to Brian, following him as he approached the wooden podium in front of the judge’s bench. He was wearing a pair of dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a sport coat. Nick noticed he had left the top two buttons of his shirt undone to let the small, round scar on his neck show - a calculated move, no doubt. He could have concealed it by buttoning his collar and wearing a tie, but instead, Brian had made sure it was clearly visible as a reminder of how he had been victimized by the people sitting before him.

As he took his place behind the podium, Brian cleared his throat and swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, before he began to speak. “I’m making this statement on behalf of both myself and my friend, Nick Carter,” he said into the microphone, his voice cracking. Nick could tell he was nervous.

C’mon, Frick, you got this, he thought, wishing there was a way to send positive vibes through the airwaves.

“Nick couldn’t be here today because his wife just gave birth to a healthy baby girl,” Brian continued, a flicker of a smile crossing his face. As he gained confidence, his voice grew stronger. “Thankfully, he was there to welcome his daughter into the world - a world that will be a better place without these four monsters walking free.” His icy blue eyes narrowed, fixing them with a piercing stare. “When they imprisoned us both inside that torture chamber they called a hospital, they didn’t just take two men or two members of the Backstreet Boys. They took two fathers away from their children. They took two husbands away from their wives. They took our freedom, and they almost took our lives. They also took away our trust - the trust we had in doctors… and in nurses… and in people in general.”

As Nick nodded from his chair, far away from the Florida courtroom, Brian paused behind the podium, taking a deep breath before he continued. “Personally, I’ve always had a lot of respect for medical professionals. I was taught to trust doctors and nurses at a young age. See, I was born with a congenital heart condition, so I saw a cardiologist annually from the time I was five on. When I was twenty-three, I had to have open-heart surgery to close the hole in my heart. It was a scary experience, but I knew I was in good hands. I trusted my surgical team, and the staff at the Mayo Clinic took excellent care of me. Twelve years ago, when my son Baylee was hospitalized with what turned out to be Kawasaki Disease, I again put my trust in the medical community to make my boy better. The doctors didn’t have all the answers then - it took them almost two weeks to correctly diagnose Baylee’s condition - but I never had any doubt in my mind that they were doing their best to help him.”

Here Brian paused again and looked down at the podium. Nick could tell he was starting to get emotional. Stay strong, bro, he tried to encourage him.

Clearing his throat, Brian went on, “So when I was lying in that hospital bed, listening to these doctors and nurses telling Nick I was in a coma, that I had a brain and spinal cord injury, I believed them.”

At that point, the broadcast switched to a split screen, showing Brian behind the podium on one half while, on the other, a second camera recorded the criminals’ reactions as they sat with the rest of their defense team on the opposite side of the courtroom.

“Even when Dr. Henault here was cutting a hole in my throat,” Brian continued, rubbing the round scar on his neck as he spoke, “and I could feel everything, I just assumed he had made a mistake with the anesthesia, that it wasn’t working. It never even occurred to me - not then, at least - that a doctor would put his patient through that kind of pain on purpose.” Brian’s blue eyes bore into Rob like a pair of laser beams, but Rob stared determinedly down at the table in front of him, refusing to meet them. “In my experience, doctors and nurses were good, trustworthy people. I had no reason to doubt them.”

Nick nodded again, his eyes on Dani. He wanted to see her squirm, but she was sitting as still as a statue beside her husband, her head bowed as if she were deep in thought or possibly prayer. Probably praying she gets off easy, he thought with disgust.

Brian glanced down at the piece of paper he had perched on the podium in front of him. “Nick grew up differently than I did. His parents didn’t trust doctors. He tells this story about one time when he cut his knee open as a kid, and instead of taking him to the hospital for stitches, his dad just sewed it up himself - Nick has the scar to prove it.”

Nick smiled ruefully, remembering his father. A lump rose in his throat as he ran his hand over Saoirse’s back and held her a little tighter. He liked to think that, in a different realm, his dad was doing the same with Arya.

“I don’t think he’d ever spent a night in the hospital before all this happened, at least not since he was born,” Brian was saying. “Unlike me, he never had any health problems until he was an adult. Then, when he started having problems, it took him a long time to work up the courage to go see a doctor.”

Nick swallowed hard as he thought back to all those nights he had lain awake on his tour bus, hyper-aware of his own heartbeat thumping heavily in his chest. He had known there was something wrong, but he’d been afraid to find out what it was.

“When he finally did, that doctor referred him to another doctor, a cardiologist, who diagnosed him with cardiomyopathy. And despite how hard Nick worked to get healthy again, this doctor - this cardiologist - convinced him that his heart was failing.” Brian glared at Elizabeth, who sat stone-faced, staring straight ahead. “And Nick believed her. Why wouldn't he? After all, doctors are among the most respected professionals in our society. We depend on them to help us stay healthy and to heal us when we're sick. Even when they can't cure us, we count on them to keep us comfortable. We expect them to help. At the very least, we expect them to follow the Hippocratic Oath they took when they became doctors and do no harm.”

“Preach it, Brian!” Lauren cheered from her bed, watching with a look of admiration on her face.

On the TV screen, Brian’s eyes flashed with a steely glint of fury. “But these doctors did harm. They harmed our bodies, and they harmed our souls,” he said, putting his hand over his heart. “Nick and I both have physical scars from what they did to us-”

Nick glanced down at the small mark beneath his collarbone, all that remained of the ICD that had once been implanted there, and he pictured the much larger, raised, pink line upon which Saoirse lay. His scars had healed well over the past ten months, but they would always be a part of him, visible reminders of the pain he had suffered and the trauma he had survived.

“-but those are nothing compared to our emotional scars, the ones we wear on the inside. Those scars will never fully fade. They’ll stay with us forever. Because of these four monsters, we’ll have a much harder time trusting medical professionals. We'll always wonder, What's their ulterior motive? What are they trying to get out of this? What are they trying to take from us?

Brian wasn’t exaggerating. In spite of how wonderful the staff working in the maternity ward had been and how well they had treated his family, Nick still felt a twinge of anxiety every time one of them walked in to check on his wife or baby. He had refused to let them take Saoirse back to the nursery, insisting that she remain in the room with Lauren and him at all times. He knew he was being overprotective and paranoid, but he didn’t want to risk something bad happening to his little girl. He had already lost one daughter. He couldn’t lose another.

“The only thing that will make Nick and me breathe a little easier is knowing these monsters are behind bars, that they'll never hurt anyone else the way they hurt us. So I'm asking you,” said Brian, now looking back at the judge with tears in his eyes. “No, I'm begging you to please give them the maximum sentence, punish them to the full extent of the law, and prevent them from doing any more harm. Thank you, Your Honor.”

When he walked away from the podium, Lauren turned to look at Nick. “Wow,” she said softly. “That was powerful. Did your publicist write that for him, or-?”

Nick shook his head. “No. I’m pretty sure he did it himself.” He, too, was impressed with Brian’s statement. But would it work?

Before the judge handed down his sentence, he offered the four defendants an opportunity to address the court. “Your Honor, Mrs. Henault would like to speak on behalf of Mr. Gravel, Dr. Gravel, Dr. Henault, and herself,” said the lead defense lawyer.

The cameraman came in for another close-up of Dani as she stood up in her shapeless orange jumpsuit. She was shaking like a leaf, her hands trembling as they clutched the piece of paper on which she had prepared her statement. She cleared her throat, then started to speak.

“Good afternoon, Your Honor. On behalf of my husband Rob, my friend and former colleague Elizabeth, and her brother Patrick, I want to say we are deeply sorry for what we have done.”

“They don’t look sorry to me,” said Lauren, rolling her eyes. Nick nodded in agreement. Next to Dani, Elizabeth sat with her arms folded over the front of her matching orange jumpsuit and the same smug expression she had worn on her face the entire time Brian was talking. Patrick and Rob sat at either end, still staring down at the table. Dani was the only one to show any emotion.

“It may be hard to believe, but we’re not bad people,” she insisted. “At one point or another, we all dedicated our lives to taking care of other people, dead or alive. Rob and Elizabeth became doctors so they could heal those who were sick or hurt. Patrick helped his father tend to people who had passed away, as well as the loved ones they left behind. And I pursued a career in nursing, providing critical care to people who needed me. I loved being a nurse, Your Honor, and I was good at it. My patients appreciated me. When they were afraid or in pain, I put them at ease. When they were dying, I helped them transition into the next world with comfort and dignity.”

Nick shook his head in disgust, remembering the woman who had needlessly died in the bed next to his. He now knew her name: Stephanie Gale. While Patrick had been found guilty of abusing her dead body due to the discovery of his semen inside her during the post-mortem examination, there had been no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dani or one of the others had murdered her. By embalming her body, Patrick had ensured that all traces of toxins in her system were washed down the drain, which left behind only circumstantial evidence - not enough to secure a conviction.

“I never meant to hurt or kill anyone,” Dani continued, her forehead creasing as she arranged her face into a look of contrition. “After I lost my last nursing job, I felt like my life was meaningless. I just wanted to have a purpose again. I wasn’t planning on kidnapping anyone, but when Nick Carter walked into the bar that night, I saw a perfect opportunity to fulfill my need to be needed… and I took it. I didn’t intend to do any lasting harm to him; I just wanted to get closer to this guy I’d been a fan of for so long. I wanted him to depend on me. I wanted to become not just his caretaker, but also his friend. But I went too far. The inner demons I’ve been dealing with for a long time took over and compelled me to do things I now regret. What began as harmless fun turned into a much more dangerous game. I acknowledge that my actions almost cost Nick his life, and I apologize for that.”

“Yeah, you sound real sincere, evil bitch!” spat Lauren, struggling to sit up straighter in bed.

“You need some help, babe?” Nick offered, reaching out to her.

Lauren waved his hand away. “Nah, I’m all right. Just irritated. The judge better not be buying that steaming pile of bullshit she’s trying to sell. ‘Harmless fun,’ my ass! She just admitted she hurt you for her own sick amusement. That is so fucked up!”

Swallowing hard, Nick nodded. “I know.”

“But I would like to remind the court that my actions are also the reason Nick is still alive today,” Dani was now saying. “I could have left him to die. If I had, his body likely would have been cremated and never discovered. But instead, I sacrificed my own freedom to set Nick free. I brought him to safety. I called the authorities. I kept him alive until help arrived. I did those things because, at the end of the day, I cared about him, and I didn’t want him to die.”

“Oh yes, what a hero you were, dragging my half-dead husband down to the beach to make it look like he’d magically washed ashore,” Lauren snapped back at the TV, her tone biting and sarcastic.

“You tell her, babe,” Nick said with a smirk, loving his wife even more.

The camera zoomed in closer on Dani’s face, capturing the tears that were glistening in her dark eyes as she continued tremulously, “I hope you will take these acts of repentance into consideration, Your Honor, as you decide my sentence today, and I respectfully and humbly ask you for leniency. I don’t deserve to spend the rest of my life behind bars. I am a nurturing, compassionate person at heart, Your Honor, and there’s a lot I can contribute to society. Please give me the chance to do some more good in this world to make up for my crimes,” she pleaded, clasping her hands together. “And, finally, to Nick and Brian: While I know there are no words that can take away the pain I have caused you, I pray that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me someday.”

Nick snorted through his nose, knowing it would take him a long time to reach a place of forgiveness.

“Thank you, Your Honor. That’s all.”

When Dani sat back down, Lauren shook her head. “So much for speaking on behalf of all of them,” she muttered. “She barely even mentioned the other three; that was all about her. What a self-centered cunt. If he doesn’t give her a life sentence, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

In spite of the anxiety Nick felt watching the hearing, he couldn’t help but laugh. “It’ll be okay, babe,” he assured his wife. “I don’t think any of them are gonna get off easy.”

Sure enough, when the judge handed down his sentences, Nick was not disappointed.

Rob, who had successfully fled to the Bahamas only to be caught coming back for his unfaithful wife, had been convicted of two counts of aiding and abetting a kidnapping, false imprisonment, and practicing medicine without a license. He now faced forty years behind bars - the maximum prison sentence for his particular crimes, but still the shortest of the four.

Patrick was sentenced to fifty years in prison to pay for his crimes, which included kidnapping, false imprisonment, and abuse of a dead human body. If he lived long enough to serve the entire sentence, he would be ninety by the time he was released.

To both Nick and Brian’s relief, Elizabeth was given a life sentence for attempted murder. Yet even as the judge condemned the so-called “Queen of Hearts” to spend the rest of her years behind bars, her face betrayed no emotion. She shed no tears and showed no signs of remorse, remaining stoic until the bitter end.

Finally, it was Dani’s turn to hear her fate. As she stood before the judge, he stared down at her from his bench and said, “Mrs. Henault, I have been doing this job for a long time. In my career, I’ve presided over more criminal cases than I can count, and I’ve just about heard it all. Nothing much fazes me anymore. But every once in a while, a case comes along that manages to shock me. Congratulations - yours is one of those cases.”

“Ooh, baby, he’s gonna let her have it,” said Lauren gleefully, leaning forward with a look of anticipation, her eyes fixed upon the television.

“I am, quite honestly, shocked and appalled that a nurse, someone who, according to your definition, dedicated her life to taking care of people, could be so callous and cruel,” the judge continued, frowning at Dani over the top of his wire frame glasses. “By your own admission, you used your medical expertise to torture Mr. Carter for ‘fun’ and entertainment, never once considering his feelings. A simple apology is not enough to make up for the physical and emotional trauma you and your co-defendants inflicted upon him and Mr. Littrell, nor can any number of good deeds undo the damage you have done.”

“Damn straight,” muttered Nick, looking down at the scars on his chest, where his newborn daughter was still sound asleep.

“You had the gaul to call yourself a compassionate person who can make positive contributions to society. Well, guess what? I don’t believe you,” the judge said bluntly, causing Lauren to laugh. “You’re a pathological liar, Mrs. Henault. You lied in my courtroom when you told me you never intended to kidnap anyone the night you met Mr. Carter at the bar. No normal, law-abiding citizen carries around vials of drugs capable of subduing people to the point of unconsciousness. The fact that you did demonstrates premeditation. Maybe you weren’t planning on kidnapping Nick Carter that night, but you and your husband were obviously planning to abduct someone.”

Nick placed his hand flat on his chest next to Saoirse’s head, feeling his heart pound as he thought about the role fate had played in what had happened to him. Had he not gone into that particular bar on Halloween night, he probably never would have met Dani. He had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. One bad choice, one chance encounter, had changed everything.

“You’ve been found guilty of kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of thirty years in prison, plus false imprisonment, for which you may serve up to five more years,” the judge summarized, “but your conviction for the attempted murder of Mr. Carter trumps all the other charges. I therefore sentence you to life in prison, with the possibility of parole.”

As tears poured down Dani’s cheeks, Lauren applauded. Sitting next to her, Nick didn’t know how to feel. A part of him was relieved that it was finally over, yet another part of him knew it would never really end. Even if his captors were never granted parole, they would continue to pop up in his nightmares and creep into his waking thoughts whenever he let his guard down.

But he couldn’t keep dwelling on what had been done to him. Yes, he had almost died, but he had also been given another chance at life. He couldn’t take it for granted by letting the past get in the way of his future. He knew he needed to put it behind him, let go of the pain, and move on with his life, not only for his own mental health, but for the sake of his family. Odin and Saoirse deserved better than a father who was haunted by his own demons.

“Hey, are you okay?” asked Lauren, her smile fading as she looked over at him. “You haven’t said anything yet.”

“I don’t really know what to say right now,” Nick admitted with a shrug, “but yeah, baby… I’m good.” He reached out his hand, and she wrapped hers around it, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Together, they watched as Dani, Elizabeth, Patrick, and Rob were escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs. Then the camera cut to Brian, who was being hugged by Leighanne and Baylee. I’ll call him later, thought Nick, knowing Brian would best understand how he was feeling. But that call could wait until Saoirse woke up.

As his newborn daughter sighed in her sleep and nestled deeper into his chest, Nick glanced down and smiled. Beneath her warm weight, his heart felt whole again.

The End


Chapter End Notes: