When he saw Lena wearing Michael's name openly, it felt as though the past had walked into his present.
Instead of facing it, he tried to control it.
He used his authority to make her remove the tag.
He told himself it was about military standards.
It wasn't.
It was about his own shame.
He wanted the reminder hidden. He wanted the past to disappear beneath Lena's uniform just as it had remained buried beneath years of paperwork and silence.
“I punished you for something that belonged to me,” he admitted.
That was the first time Lena saw him accept responsibility without trying to protect himself.
But she was not ready to forgive him.
The truth did not erase the humiliation of that morning.
An apology could not restore twenty years.
Chapter Six — The Tag Returned
Carter handed the identification tag back.
Lena hesitated before taking it.
The metal felt strangely heavy.
Twenty years earlier, those same hands had removed the tag from her father's body. Months later, those hands had placed it in an envelope and sent it to her mother.
Now those hands were returning it.
Lena closed her fingers around the metal.
Then she asked what she had really come for.
“What happened after he went back?”