Chapter 4 - The Patriarch's Salute
The silence that swept through the garden was total.
Spencer took a nervous step down from the altar, his smile freezing into a grotesque mask. "General? Sir, the ceremony is about to begin..."
General Arthur Kensington ignored him completely.
He moved with the deliberate, heavy cadence of a combat veteran who had long since stopped caring about civilian formalities. The guests watched, wide-eyed, as the patriarch of the family—the former Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps, recipient of the Navy Cross, and one of the most feared men in the United States defense sector—marched straight toward the disgraced daughter hidden behind the flower urn.
My instincts kicked in before my conscious mind could process it.
I stood up. My heels clicked together. My chin came up, my shoulders squared, and my arms locked at my sides in flawless position of attention.
General Kensington stopped three paces in front of me. His steel-gray eyes moved down my uniform, taking in every detail with ruthless efficiency: the alignment of the gig line, the crispness of the trouser seams, the polish on the belt buckle.
Then his gaze locked onto the left breast of my tunic.
He stared at the Silver Star. Then his eyes drifted to the unit citation ribbon beneath it: the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
The old man’s jaw twitched. A look of fierce, unadulterated recognition washed across his weathered face.
Slowly, without a word, General Kensington raised his right hand, bringing his fingers to the brim of an imaginary cap in a crisp, razor-sharp military salute.
A collective gasp echoed across the lawn.
Margot stood up from her seat in the front row, her mouth opening in shock. Spencer looked as though he had been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.
I snapped my right hand up, fingertips grazing the edge of my eyebrow, returning the salute with textbook precision.
"Captain Griffin Ramsey, sir," I barked out, the habit of a decade taking over.
General Kensington dropped his hand, a rare, genuine smile cracking his leathery face. "Sangin Valley, 2018," he said, his gravelly voice carrying across the silent rows of guests. "You were the platoon commander who held the eastern ridge when the fuel convoy was ambushed."
"Yes, sir."
"You pulled three men out of a burning MATV under heavy machine-gun fire and directed close air support while bleeding from a shrapnel wound to the shoulder," the General continued, his tone ringing like a bronze bell across the pristine lawns. "One of those men was my nephew, Lieutenant David Kensington."
The entire garden seemed to stop breathing.
Spencer looked like he was about to vomit on the floral runner. Margot gripped Emmett’s arm so hard her knuckles turned chalk-white.
General Kensington turned his head and looked down the lawn at Spencer, who was trembling at the altar, then turned back to me. His eyes were cold as flint when he glanced at the hidden corner where I had been placed.
"Who seated you back here?" Kensington demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low rumble.
"It was the seating arrangement provided by the groom's family, sir," I answered evenly.
General Kensington scoffed—a dry, disgusted sound. He extended his elbow toward me.
May you like
"Nonsense," the General barked. "No recipient of the Silver Star sits in the weeds at a Kensington gathering. Victoria, take your place at the vestibule. Griffin, you're walking with me. You're sitting in the front row, front and center, right where you belong."
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