Chapter 1: The Camouflage of Mediocrity
I am Shiloh Kenny, thirty-two years old. To the census bureau, I am a single administrative assistant living in a one-bedroom apartment in D.C. To my mother, Janet, I am a “useless filing clerk” who squandered her potential and failed to secure a husband.
Nobody thought a family barbecue in the humid, manicured suburbs of Virginia would end with the sound of snapping bone.
Two hours before the ambulance sirens cut through the heavy afternoon air, I was sitting in my nondescript sedan at the end of my mother’s driveway. The deep, gravelly voice of a former Navy SEAL host on my podcast was discussing the discipline of silence—the tactical advantage of being underestimated. It was the only world that made sense to me anymore.
I looked at the house, a two-story colonial with a lawn so green it looked synthetic. It screamed “middle-class American dream.” The driveway was a Tetris game of Ford F-150s and oversized SUVs, their bumpers plastered with patriotic stickers that most of the drivers didn’t truly understand.
I reached for the volume knob and killed the engine. Silence filled the car, heavy and suffocating.
I took a breath, holding it for a four-count, then releasing it. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. This was the ritual. I had to peel off the operator—the Tier 1 specialist who analyzed threat vectors, breach points, and kill zones—and put on the costume of Shiloh. The mousy, thirty-something spinster who supposedly filed paperwork for a logistics company.
It was the heaviest armor I ever had to wear.
