Chapter 1 - The Golden Boy’s Mask
Spencer didn’t flinch. He didn’t drop his gaze, either. Instead, a condescending smirk curled the corners of his mouth—the exact same smirk he used when he closed an overpriced short-position or convinced our father to pick up his bar tab at the club.
"What do you do out there?" Spencer chuckled, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe of my hotel room. He adjusted the platinum links at his French cuffs, letting them catch the harsh corridor light. "You stand in dirt, Griffin. You take orders from guys with high school diplomas, you drive trucks, and you play hero for Uncle Sam while the rest of us run the actual economy. Let’s not romanticize it."
The air in my chest turned to freezing iron. "I buried three men from my squad before I turned twenty-six, Spencer."
"And that’s tragic. Really, it is," he replied smoothly, checking his reflection once more in the glass across the hall. His tone possessed that effortless, glossy cruelty only the deeply privileged can manage without raising their pulse. "Mom’s right, you know. Tomorrow isn’t about your trauma. It’s about my future. Do you have any idea who Victoria’s family is? Richard Kensington doesn't just manage capital; he sits on boards that influence congressional spending. Her grandfather is old money royalty. They don’t want to look across the reception hall and see a walking recruitment poster reminding everyone about roadside bombs and body bags."
He stepped closer, stepping just over the threshold of my room. He reached out, his soft, manicured fingers lightly catching the lapel of my civilian utility jacket.
"Wear the silk dress, Griff," he whispered, lowering his voice into a faux-intimate hush. "Mom had it altered for you. If you put on that absurd costume with the brass buttons and the parade ribbons, you aren't just embarrassing yourself. You’re embarrassing me. And frankly, if you insist on playing the martyr, we already told the event coordinator to move your place card to table twenty-two."
I looked down at his hand on my jacket. "Table twenty-two?"
"The back corner," Spencer said without a shred of hesitation. "Behind the floral column, near the service kitchen doors. Where the sound system echoes so badly nobody can hear anything anyway. So make your choice. You can be my sister, sitting three rows back in decent silk, looking like an actual woman. Or you can be Captain Ramsey, sitting behind a ficus tree next to the waitstaff."
He patted my collar twice, turned on his Italian leather loafers, and walked down the hallway.
I didn't answer him. I didn't yell. In the Corps, when an enemy exposes his flank through sheer arrogance, you don’t warn him. You let him march straight into the kill zone.
I closed the door, slid the deadbolt into place, and walked across the cheap carpet to the bed.
The navy blue silk dress lay across the quilt like a dead thing. Limp. Spineless. A garment engineered to apologize for the shoulders beneath it.
Beside it hung the heavy black canvas garment bag. I unzipped it in one deliberate, clean stroke.
The scent of dry-cleaned wool, brass polish, and starch hit me—clean, sharp, and uncompromising. The midnight blue tunic stood tall on its wooden hanger. The scarlet piping along the collar was like a line drawn in red ink across a pristine ledger. High on the left breast, above the rows of service ribbons, sat the Silver Star. The medal Tommy Hayes never got to see me receive.
I reached out and ran my thumb over the cold, five-pointed star.
*Table twenty-two,* I thought. *Behind the ficus.*
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"Sleep well, Spencer," I murmured into the quiet room. "Tomorrow, you get exactly what you asked for."
***