Downstairs, I heard laughter. Ethan’s booming confidence. The atmosphere of a family rallying around its designated star. The irony stung. He’d just been promoted to lead the integration team for the very military tech project that I now supervised. He had no idea. None of them did.

At 0900 sharp the next morning, I would step into Westbridge Innovations, dressed in full uniform, to lead the review as the Pentagon’s primary liaison for Project Vanguard—the same program Ethan bragged about over dinner.

I unzipped my bag and pulled out the uniform: crisp midnight blue, medals aligned with precision, insignia gleaming. My hands moved methodically. Tomorrow wasn’t about proving anyone wrong. It was about showing up fully, with authority, in a language that couldn’t be brushed off.