Oliver asked to see Yoro.
Reed said no.
Not yet.
Oliver hated the answer, but this time he did not argue. The refusal was not punishment. It was protection. Oliver had already assaulted him once. Apology did not erase that. Real accountability requires waiting when the person you hurt is not ready to make you feel better.
So Oliver wrote instead.
The first letter was too long.
He tore it up.
The second sounded like a report.
He tore that up too.
The third began with the only sentence that did not feel like performance.
I believed a lie because it gave me somewhere to put my brother’s death.
He stopped there for almost an hour.
Then continued.
He did not ask forgiveness. He did not call Yoro brave. He did not excuse himself with grief. He wrote the facts as he now understood them: that he attacked Yoro, that Yoro had been ordered into a situation designed to frame him, that Miles had tried to protect him, and that Oliver would testify to the envelope, the mess hall confrontation, and anything else Reed required.
At the bottom, he wrote:
You do not owe me a response.
Reed delivered the letter.
Yoro read it in the witness room with his arms folded tight. When he finished, he set it on the table and stared at it.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked.
Reed answered, “Nothing.”
“Then why bring it?”
“Because the truth includes what he did after he learned.”
Yoro gave a bitter smile. “Great. He learned. I got lunch thrown at me.”
Reed did not soften.
“Yes.”
Yoro looked up, surprised by the bluntness.
Reed continued. “Some people will want to make this clean. They will say Captain Hart was grieving, you were brave, Vale was corrupt, and justice worked. That is not the truth. The truth is messier. You were harmed by the lie and by the man who believed it. Both matter.”
Yoro’s eyes dropped back to the letter.
“He thought I killed his brother.”
“Yes.”
“I thought saying it was an order would protect me.”
“Yes.”
“It made it worse.”
“Yes.”
Yoro exhaled slowly.
“What happens now?”
“Now you testify.”
“Against Vale?”
“Against the whole chain.”
That phrase sat between them.
The whole chain.
Not just the forged order. Not just the drained fuel. Not just the convoy route. Not just the envelope. Every hand that touched the lie.
Yoro folded Oliver’s letter once and slid it back toward Reed.
“I don’t want to keep this.”
Reed nodded.
But as he reached for it, Yoro put one finger on the page.
“Tell him one thing.”
“What?”
Yoro’s voice stayed quiet.
“I didn’t drain his helicopter to hurt him.”
Reed nodded.
“And tell him I’m not ready to hear him say he knows that.”