My Boarder Chopped Wood Until His Hands Bled — Then I Found Out Who He Really Was

Part 2

I couldn’t just leave him bleeding in the freezing snow.

By eight o’clock that evening, the fierce storm had buried our entire estate.

The house felt like a fragile ship lost entirely at sea.

In the drawing room, the fire roared brightly for the first time in three long years.

Tyler was fast asleep on the faded velvet chaise lounge.

Craig sat in a high-backed leather chair near the dancing flames.

He was staring intensely at the fire, his ruined hands resting in his lap.

The bleeding had finally stopped, but the skin was torn, raw, and painfully tight.

I walked into the room carrying a chipped enamel basin and a half-empty bottle of my father’s worst whiskey.

I didn’t ask for his permission.

I pulled a small wooden stool close to his chair and sat down.

“This is going to burn,” I said.

“I imagine it will,” Craig replied softly.

I poured a generous splash of the amber liquid over a clean cotton strip.

I reached out and took his left hand in mine.

He flinched the moment my cold fingers touched his wrist.

I pressed the whiskey-soaked cloth to his torn, blistered palm.

He hissed sharply through his teeth, his jaw locking hard enough to crack a tooth.

His fingers curled instinctively, trying to pull away from the intense pain.

I held his wrist in an absolute, iron grip.

“Keep still,” I murmured, my head bent entirely over his hand.

“Unless you want a serious infection to take the fingers entirely.”

Indeed, “then how will you manage your precious accounts?”

I meticulously dabbed the dirt and rust from the edges of his torn skin.

“I know you are a liar, Mr. Miller.”

“I know your coat costs more than the roof over my head.”

“What I do not know is why you let Tyler fix the glass, or why you chopped the wood.”

Craig looked directly into my eyes.

“I think you are trying to prove to yourself that you are not entirely useless without your vast money,” I added softly.

The absolute truth of it hit him so hard he visibly gasped for air.

He stared at me, completely stripped of all his arrogant defenses.

“My entire life has been built on managing what people think of me,” he whispered rawly.

“I built a massive fortress so high no one could ever look down on Tyler.”

He leaned forward, closing the small distance between us.

“But standing in that freezing scullery with you, I realized the fortress is just a tomb.”

He gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“I am a man who is incredibly tired of lying.”

I knew I was standing precariously on the edge of a dangerous precipice.

I finished tying the knot on his clean bandage.

The next morning, the crushing reality of our debt arrived in the form of Mr. Jenkins.

The cruel magistrate pushed his way inside, demanding the money we owed.

When Jenkins raised his heavy hand to strike me for my insolence, Craig stepped rapidly out of the shadows.

He gripped Jenkins’ wrist with bone-crushing force and pulled a heavy gold object from his pocket.

When the magistrate saw the engraved crest on the ring, all the color instantly drained from his face—who was this man really?