“Full disclosure?” I repeated, surveying him. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was a double-edged sword. I had been waiting sixteen years to know who I really was, why my father had been hiding, and why the man I loved felt the need to use me to get information about my father. However, I feared learning the truth may change my perception of everything. Sometimes ignorance was bliss. I just prayed this wasn’t one of those situations.

“Yes,” he reiterated. “No more secrets. No more lies. Just the truth from this moment forward, regardless of the consequences. You deserve that much.” He stared at me, catching my gaze, regret covering his demeanor. I wondered how difficult it must have been for him to keep his existence a secret from me for all those years. I didn’t know what to think, but I knew the only way to move forward was to learn to trust my father again. And the only way to do that was to finally learn the truth.

“What about all the talk for years that it wasn’t safe for me to know?”

He picked up the knife on the serving tray and sliced a piece of cheese, placing it on a cracker and handing it to me before preparing one for himself. “At the time, I thought that was true. However, things have been brought to my attention, making me think it’s no longer safe for you not to know.”

“How can I be sure you’re telling me the truth? I’ve heard so many stories. I don’t know which way is up anymore.” I placed the cracker on the plate in front of me, feeling sick to my stomach.

“I wish I had told you everything years ago.” He took a deep breath, his shoulders dropping slightly. “If I had, maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult for you to trust me now, but there were reasons for it.”

Straightening my spine, I strengthened my resolve. I went there for answers and I refused to let my apprehension get in the way of them.

“The embassy fire?” I asked in an even tone.

“Was not me.”

“Then who was it? How come you left for Liberia right before it happened? It looks suspicious–”

“Serafina,” he interrupted, “I joined the army the day I turned eighteen. I left my house and rode my bike thirteen miles to the nearest recruiting center. My parents didn’t want me to go into the army, or any branch, but I had wanted to be a Ranger as long as I could remember and nothing was going to stand in my way. I wanted that Ranger beret and I was lucky enough to spend many years wearing it. I love the army. I love my country. I devoted my life to protecting it, so much so that my superior officers noticed I had a knack for seeing things no one else could. Before I knew it, I was working in Army Counterintelligence. I was thrilled. But my ability to see things no one else could ended up being my downfall.”

I scrunched my eyebrows. “How so?”

“I started noticing patterns. Our weapons were being used against us. Our intel was being used against us. Someone on the inside was betraying their own country for profit. For months, maybe years, I tried to find out who, but I was always one step behind whomever it was. Then, one day, I thought I caught a lucky break. I unscrambled an encoded message confirming the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia would turn his head and allow a large stockpile of our weapons to disappear in trade for a substantial amount of diamonds.”

“Blood diamonds?”

“Most likely. The civil war in Sierra Leone was winding down, but there was still a great deal of corruption in the area, and Liberia borders Sierra Leone. I was permitted leave to go to Liberia to see if I could stop the arms deal, or at least find out who was behind it all, without causing an international incident. When I got there, I went to the embassy to speak to the ambassador about what was going on, but whoever was behind these deals, whoever the traitor was, beat me to it.”

“It was a setup?” I asked, staring at my father’s forlorn expression, recalling Charlie’s words from just a few days ago.

Swallowing hard, he didn’t answer. He simply continued with the story I could sense he had been wanting to share with me for years. His gaze was fixed on the bookcase behind me, as if he were watching a movie of what really happened and was simply narrating it for me.

“I remember walking in the front doors of the embassy, immediately halting in my tracks. There were no staff members at the front desk and the reception area was empty. As I made my way through the entry area, I heard a loud voice giving a speech about a circle of trust.” He tore his gaze back to me. “That was something I used to do in the field whenever I had new team members. It was a way to make them remember we had to work as one cohesive unit.”

He shook his head, almost like he was frustrated that he didn’t see the signs of it being a setup. “I stepped toward the source, trying to keep my presence unknown. The voice grew louder, more impassioned, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as I listened to my own words. I physically felt sick and had to fight back the nausea. This guy took what I said verbatim and was repeating it to a huge room full of frightened people.” His lower lip trembled and I could sense he was back in that room on that day.

He avoided my eyes, staring past me once more as the memory washed over him. “The smell of gasoline was overpowering,” he said, his voice soft. “I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but what could I do? It wouldn’t do much good for me to go in shooting. It was twelve against one. The odds were not in my favor. So I did what I thought to be the best tactical decision. I hid my presence in the hopes I could save at least one person, even if it cost me my life.

“As I watched those traitors terrorize their hostages, I mentally began to sort through all the intel I had amassed, wondering what I could have missed. That’s when it hit me this was part of the plan all along. This guy wanted me to find everything. He wanted me to go to my superiors to tell them what I found and ask for leave to come here. Then, when word of my trademark fire spread, they would put two and two together and name me as the culprit to this attack, along with all the arms deals I had been investigating. Hell, one of the first things you look for when trying to find the person responsible for a crime is to see who tries to ingrain themselves in the investigation. I had made myself into the perfect suspect.”

“So you hid? You abandoned your family? You watched as over sixty people were murdered and did nothing?”

“I didn’t do nothing, Serafina!” He ripped off the hat he wore that shielded most of his face. “Do you think this is the result of nothing?!” he bellowed passionately, gesturing to the permanent scars covering the left side of his body. “I tried to save them, but I couldn’t! By the time whoever was responsible made his escape, it was too late! The flames were out of control, bodies were on fire! Their screams and shrieks plague my dreams every night! Have you ever smelled burning flesh?!” he exclaimed, tears welling in his eyes.

I stared in shock, shaking my head.

“It’s scorched in my memory, Fi! Every day, I’m reminded that I failed to protect people from a monster. A real life dragon!” He reached for his glass with shaky hands, the trauma of that day all those years ago still wearing on him.

“I did everything I could,” he continued after sipping his wine. “In the end, the only person I could save was a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Someone must have shielded him from getting doused with the gasoline. His burns were minor but the smoke got into his lungs. He was barely breathing when I pulled him from the building. When I was about to go back and see if I could rescue anyone else, a convoy of Liberian soldiers pulled up. I knew it was probably cowardly of me to run, to hide from them, but I couldn’t risk being detained. At that point, my sole mission was to try to get home to you and your mother. I feared I would be painted as a monster and I couldn’t let you think that of me.”