“My father was too vindictive for that. His will stated that in the event of Bertram’s death, my uncle would inherit his fortune. The estate, Westbury Abbey, renamed after it came to my father through marriage, became a symbol to me of his hatred. It’s owned by my uncle, who’s not a bad fellow, but extremely negligent. While I was busy gambling and being a right bastard, my uncle was traveling abroad for years and has allowed the estate to go to hell. And I’ve done nothing to save it. I was too busy being wicked.”

“What did your father say to you that day after Bertram was born, when he called you into his study?”

“He told me the shameful story of my birth. Informed me that he was going to will everything of my mother’s to Bertram. And reiterated the refrain I’d heard my whole life: I was bad and stained. A symbol of sin. And the punishment he administered so liberally was for my own good. To stamp out the wickedness of my origins.”

“And so you began to hate yourself, punish yourself for a crime you never committed. Your birth wasn’t your fault. You can’t take the blame for the break it caused between your father and mother.”

“Everything that happened after that day is my fault. The depraved path I chose to tread.”

“It’s never too late to choose a new path.”

“Jax Smith told me that. But I’ve been down here in the darkness too long, Viola. I don’t know any other way to live.”

He brushed her hair away from her cheek. “I’ve been broken ever since that day in the study with my father. I have no idea how to become whole again. My soul is heavy with the weight of my misdeeds. I have anger wrapped like a lead weight around my neck, bowing my head toward the earth until I can’t see the sky.”

“You’re not broken.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “You only think you are. You champion your sisters, you love them dearly. And they love you in return. They want your affection, your pride, and your encouragement. All of which I’ve seen you give them over the last weeks.”

“I want to believe that I can be a better man, a better brother. But I’ve been bad so long.”

“Your father beat that message into you, over and over again. Hearing that you were sinful made you believe it was so. But it’s just a story you’ve told yourself so many times that it became your reality. You walk down the same shadowy path in your mind every single day and you end up in a big deep hole. Maybe if you read those letters your father wrote to you, you’d be able to find your way back into the light.”