Part 2The Blood on His Medals

The moment I cleared the guard shack at base housing, I began working my way through my contacts—lawyers I had known through my father’s old staff, civilian litigators who handled federal torts.

Austin hadn't bluffed.

Every single call played out the exact same way. A warm initial greeting, an awkward pause the second I mentioned the names involved, a sudden clearing of the throat, and a polite, hurried excuse. Nora, I value your family, but my hands are tied. This comes from the top.

I pulled onto the curb outside the civilian administrative building, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. I was preparing to liquidate my mother’s legacy trust to retain an elite firm out of Washington D.C. when two figures crossed the asphalt toward my car.

Austin and Hailey. He was guiding her by the elbow, his posture protective, his stare frosted over.

"Have you come to your senses yet, Nora?" he asked through my rolled-down window.

"I told you already. You sign the waiver, and everyone walks away with their dignity intact. I can still file the paperwork for Vivian to receive the Distinguished Service Cross. A full-dress funeral. Taps. The whole garrison in attendance."

"Over my dead body," I hissed, looking directly at Hailey’s downturned face. "As long as I have breath in my lungs, none of you will ever have peace."

"Nora Mercer!" Austin’s voice dropped into a register reserved for court-martials. "Think about your father. He’s lying in the critical care ward at the military hospital. His pension, his specialized nursing care, his honor—all of it depends on the continued grace of this command."

A cold dread spread outward from my chest, paralyzing my limbs. "You’re threatening my father’s medical care? Arthur Mercer? The man who pinned your first captain’s bars on you?"

A flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes, but his jaw snapped shut, doubling down. "I didn't want it to come to this. You forced my hand. I made a sacred promise to Hailey’s father before he bled out in my arms. I promised I would protect her."

"Enough." The word left my mouth hollowed of all warmth. "For three years, you’ve hidden behind that dead soldier's memory. Whether this is about duty or whatever twisted obsession you have with playing her savior, you know the truth, and God knows it too."

I let out a ragged breath, releasing every scrap of devotion I had carried for this man over five years of marriage.

"Austin. We’re done. I want a divorce."

Saying it aloud tore something vital inside my ribs.

We had been the couple other officers pointed to—the star general and the colonel’s daughter, bound by shared grief and shared service. I thought we were bulletproof.

Everything had started rotting the day Thomas Adams was killed, leaving an eighteen-year-old Hailey behind. Austin had stepped into the breach with an intensity that crossed every professional and marital boundary. Calls at midnight because she had an anxiety attack. Long dinners where she hung on his every word.

The breaking point should have been the day I found him in the laundry room of our quarters, carefully rinsing her blood-stained delicates in the sink because she was 'too fragile' during her cycle. I had screamed. I had thrown things. I had demanded he see a therapist. And every time, he wrapped himself in the righteous armor of the grieving comrade: She’s an orphan, Nora. Show some grace.

My grace had bred a monster. Hailey had grown bolder, smiling at me across our dinner table, leaving subtle hints that she held Austin’s loyalty far tighter than his wife ever could.

I had endured it all to keep the peace. But not over Vivian’s corpse. Not over my father’s life.

Austin froze, caught off guard. As I threw the car into reverse, he lunged forward, his fingers digging into my upper arm through the open window. A crack of genuine panic broke through his composure.

"Nora, wait. You’re blowing this completely out of proportion! We can compromise. I will guarantee your father’s care personally. You just sign the waiver and let this drop. Please."

I wrenched my arm from his grip with enough force to scrape my skin against the door latch.

"I’m not negotiating with you, Austin. Not on the divorce, and not on the trial."

"I am saving my father. And I am avenging my sister."

I hit the gas, leaving him standing in the exhaust fumes.

Behind me, his roar scraped against the damp concrete: "Nora! You will regret this!"