My name’s Marcus Williams. I’m serving eight years for armed robbery. I was twenty-three when the judge handed down my sentence. I was twenty-four when my wife, Ellie, died thirty-six hours after giving birth to our daughter, Destiny. And I was twenty-four when a stranger—a biker named Thomas Crawford—decided my newborn wouldn’t end up in foster care like I had.
I deserved prison. I robbed a store because I owed money to the wrong people. Nobody was hurt, but I terrorized someone who didn’t deserve it. I don’t pretend I’m innocent. But my daughter? She didn’t deserve the fallout. My wife? She shouldn’t have died alone while I was locked away.
Ellie was eight months pregnant when I was arrested. She collapsed in court during my sentencing—early labor, chaos, and me trapped in a cell, unable to be there. She died without me. I found out through a chaplain: sixteen words that broke me.
Three days later, CPS took Destiny. I had no family to turn to. And then, two weeks later, a visitor showed up: an older man with a gray beard, a leather vest, and my daughter in his arms.
“I’m Thomas Crawford,” he said. “I was with your wife when she passed. She made me promise to protect Destiny.”
Thomas had been where I was—young, in prison, losing a wife, losing a child to the system. He couldn’t save his son, but he could keep this promise.
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