What did you do?
This is illegal!
Vera, we need to talk.

His confidence crumbled into panic. By afternoon, his lawyer begged Sterling for negotiation. I answered from my grandmother’s dining room table, Maddox and Brinn eating cookies nearby, finally safe under her guardianship.

“Counselor,” I said evenly, “you’ve confused the facts. The accounts frozen were mine alone. The house? Sold to my grandmother for fair market value – completely legal. Abandonment? Derek signed consent for every deployment.”

Sterling added, “Your client committed parental alienation, misused military funds, and moved his mistress into a soldier’s home. Should I continue?”

The line went silent. Finally: “What does Captain Holloway want?”

I answered without hesitation: “I want my children protected. I want the divorce Derek initiated. And I want him out of the house in seventy-two hours, or I press federal charges.”