Chapter 17 - The Unbroken Truth
"What was Project Icarus, Daniel?" Evelyn asked, her voice steady but cautious.
Daniel let out a long, heavy breath and sat down heavily across from her at the table. He didn't look away. He didn't try to dodge her eyes.
"Icarus was an autonomous defense drone system we designed four years ago," Daniel said slowly. "It was meant for search-and-rescue in war zones. During the initial field test, the navigation software malfunctioned due to bad sensor data. The prototype crashed into an uninhabited test building."
"Did anyone get hurt?"
"No," Daniel said firmly. "Nobody was anywhere near it. But Owen wanted to hide the failure from the military board so we wouldn't lose our funding. I refused to cover it up. I signed an internal report admitting the software was flawed and took full personal responsibility for the delay. That report cost us a twelve-million-dollar contract."
He looked directly into Evelyn's eyes, his expression completely raw.
"Mercer tried to use that against me then, just like he's trying to use it now. He thinks if he can convince you I'm a liar, he can tear us apart."
Evelyn looked at the letter in Daniel's hand. Then she picked it up, walked over to the woodstove—even though it wasn't lit—pulled out her matchbook, struck a flame, and set the paper on fire. She watched the black ink curl into gray ash inside the iron stove.
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"He doesn't understand," Evelyn said, turning back to Daniel. "Mercer thinks everyone operates on secrets and fear because that's how he lived his entire life. I didn't fall in love with a perfect man, Daniel. I fell in love with a man who stayed to face the truth."
Daniel stood up, crossed the room, and pulled her tightly into his arms, burying his face in her hair as the last bit of Mercer’s desperate lie burned away into nothing.
