Chapter 12 - THE SERGEANT WHO NEEDED SOMEONE TO HATEDaniel avoided Claire for a month.
Then he called.
Same bar.
Same table.
No audience.
He had read everything.
The altered intelligence.
The original route.
Ironfall.
Thomas's recordings.
Evelyn's testimony.
Daniel finally understood.
Claire had approved an operation.
She had not approved an ambush.
Still, he admitted something painful.
“I wanted you to be guilty.”
Claire looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because Voss was easy to hate.”
Daniel stared into his drink.
“But you…”
He swallowed.
“You were the voice I remembered.”
For fourteen years, whenever nightmares dragged Daniel back beneath that destroyed vehicle, he remembered Claire telling him:
I'm not everyone.
She represented survival.
Learning that she had approved Ironfall shattered that memory.
Daniel had wanted one villain.
One clean explanation.
Instead he discovered a truth far messier.
Claire had made a decision based on lies.
Thomas had chosen to return.
Everett had hidden secrets while trying to expose worse ones.
Evelyn had been condemned while protecting people.
Nothing was clean.
Daniel placed an old Iron insignia on the table.
Ten bars.
“Rebecca found it among Thomas's things.”
Claire touched it.
Daniel stood.
“I forgive you.”
Claire's eyes filled.
“You don't have to.”
May you like
“I know.”
That was why it mattered.
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