First of all, don’t judge him.

Breno was—by all accounts—a decent man. He worked hard, earned his money honestly, loved his tiny child like the sun itself, and had… well, a wife. A wife he adored. Did everything for. Would’ve walked through fire for.

The only issue?

She was dead.

Well—technically—he killed her.

To sum it up: she cheated on him, he saw red, and the rest was a blur of bad decisions and a kitchen utensil that probably wasn’t meant for that. He was impulsive, revolting even. He hated himself. Every single day, he marinated in guilt and shame inside the rusty, stinking shoebox they called a cell.

Yep, he got locked up.

And the kid? Shipped off temporarily to grandma’s house with a hastily packed bag and an even more hastily written custody order.

But Breno had a mission. He trained every day in that hellhole like a sweaty Rocky Balboa with unresolved trauma. Push-ups on the cold cement, sit-ups beside a leaky toilet—whatever it took to survive long enough to get out and see his baby again. His little angel. His reason for breathing and not committing more murder.

Seven years. That’s what they gave him. He’d only done two so far and was already halfway to talking to the walls.

So when the guards told him his child was coming to visit?

It was like Christmas, Easter, and a tax refund rolled into one.

He was already crying by the time the kid walked in.

They sat across the table, plastic chairs squeaking like rats in heat.

Breno took the child’s tiny hands in his, his eyes wide and watery and slightly deranged.

“Hey... hey, don’t cry, my love,” he whispered, brushing a thumb across their sticky little cheek. “Papa’s gonna get outta here real soon, okay? And when he does…”

He leaned in, eyes wild with a strange intensity.

“…we’re gonna get the biggest ice cream in the whole damn world. One of those monstrous ones that come in buckets and require a forklift.”