He kept going as if she hadn’t spoken. “I told you I set the fire at Sentinel Defense’s warehouse. That Eddie, the sole security guard there, died. That I never meant for anyone to get hurt.” The words tumbled out now, a confession held back too long. “But I didn’t tell you the whole truth.” He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes haunted. “Yes, Sentinel Defense Solutions was shipping faulty body armor to troops in Afghanistan. My unit. My friends. I knew what they were doing. Had proof. Went through proper channels.” His voice turned bitter. “Nobody cared. Not the military. Not the media. Not the government. Meanwhile, soldiers were dying. My brothers.”
He began pacing, a caged animal trapped by memory. “So, yeah, I broke into their warehouse. That much is true. Just wanted to find more evidence, expose them. But when I told you Eddie was asleep in the back office and I didn’t know, I lied.” The pain in his voice was unbearable. “He was ex-military too, justdoing his job. He caught me sneaking around, taking pictures. We fought. I knocked him out, then decided to set a small fire as a distraction while I escaped.”
“But it wasn’t small,” Maggie whispered.
“No.” His face twisted. “I didn’t know there were accelerants stored nearby. Whole place went up like kindling. I went back for Eddie and carried him out.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “It was the blow to his head that ultimately killed him, not the fire. I went back in for the other three guards, but I was too late. The fire was too hot, burning too fast. I barely got back out. Brett Holloway, Tom Becker, and David Park all burned alive.” His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t just make a mistake. I didn’t just get caught up in a protest gone wrong. I killed four men because I was afraid of getting caught.”
Her stomach lurched. “Why didn’t you tell me any of that before?”
“I couldn’t. You’d have stopped writing. Anyone would.”
“You don’t know?—”
“Yeah, I do. You’re not the first penpal I had through the program, but all the others stopped after a few letters. You kept writing. And I couldn’t risk losing that lifeline.”
Maggie stared at him for a long moment, her thoughts spinning like the wheel of a car stuck in mud. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because you deserve the truth.” He finally turned to face her. His eyes were wet and red-rimmed. “Before you decide if I’m worth loving.”
She took a step backwards. She wasn’t even aware of doing it until she saw the devastation cross his face.
“Yeah, now you understand.” His voice cracked, and he turned away again. “I’m not the man you think I am.”
Words stalled in her throat.
Four men.
Not just one accident, but four deaths on his conscience. She couldn’t reconcile this revelation with the gentle soul who bottle-fed kittens and kept every pinecone or stick his dog brought him.
But murder was murder, wasn’t it?
Except...hadn’t she written to him knowing he’d killed someone? She’d accepted that from the beginning. The details were different, more devastating than she’d imagined, but the core truth remained the same: Anson had made a terrible mistake—one that haunted him every day of his life.
She forced herself to breathe. To think. “Is that why you won’t let me see your scars? They’re not just burn scars to you. They remind you of what you did.”
He nodded once, a jerky movement that looked like it cost him.
“So you wear them like a hair shirt,” she said softly. “As punishment. Keeping them hidden from everyone but yourself, where they can hurt only you.”
His silence was answer enough.
She moved to cross the distance between them, but he flinched away. “You should go.”
“Anson—”
“Please.”
It was a soft, fractured plea that she couldn’t ignore. Not with that look in his eyes—like a man being torn apart from the inside out.
She took a step back. “Fine. I’ll go. But not because I’m afraid of you or because I think you’re a monster.”
His face twisted with disbelief.
“I’m going because you need time,” she continued. “Time to decide if you’re brave enough to be loved. Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not your scars. Not even what happened that night. It’s about whether you believe you deserve forgiveness.”
Bramble rose from his bed, whining softly as he followed her to the door. At the threshold, he hesitated, looking back at Anson, torn between them.
“Stay with him.” She bent down to kiss the wolfhound’s big head. “He needs you more than I do right now.”
