With shaky hands, I took it as he explained, “My sister used to send me tins of baked goods before I deployed. She slipped this note inside one of them. It was Christmastime, just before my last deployment. Before I left the Navy.”

C,

I know you’re strong and tough. I know you’re fearless. A warrior. A champion for justice. I know you’re all of these things, but I still worry about you. I can’t help it. I pray for you and our brothers’ safety every morning and every night. I pray that God will shield and protect you. Maybe one day you’ll even pray it, too.

Love you,

Bianca

Beneath her note were a few verses of scripture: Psalms 27 and 91. Familiar words. I read them in silence, fighting back the sob clawing its way up my throat as I handed the note back to him.

“She was the one who needed this. She was the one in danger, and I never knew it.” His voice was raw, thick with guilt. “I never prayed for her because I didn’t pray.” A single tear slipped free, but he barely seemed to notice. “I couldn’t forgive myself for that. But I kept this with me even when I didn’t feel I deserved safety or protection after letting her down. I didn’t even know she was in love. I didn’t know anything. I was stuck in my own war, my own hell, and I didn’t know.”

I reached for him, pulling him against me, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could.

“You have to forgive yourself. You know she would want you to. You have to.” My voice broke as I cried. “It wasn’t your fault.”

How did he not see that? How did he not realize?

“Please,” I whispered.

He buried his face against my neck, his body tense, the note pressed between us. “I asked for forgiveness last night,” he murmured, his free hand stroking my hair. “This note brought me to you and Colin, so . . . I—I did.”

“You need to forgive yourself, too, though.”

His breath hitched against my skin before he whispered, “I’ll try.”

We stood like that, wrapped in silence, until I felt his body shift, his tension hardening into something else.

“There’s not much more to tell you,” he said, reading my thoughts. “You already know we went on the hunt after she died. Took the life of the man we believed to be her killer. What you don’t know is that when we were arrested, my father used his connections to keep us out of prison.”

He pulled back slowly, blinking away the moisture in his eyes. His lashes were damp, dark, and impossibly thick. He deserved so much more than what the world had given him.