Chapter 2 - THE ROOTS OF THE SHADOWDominic’s arm slowly slipped off my shoulders. He stepped back, nearly tripping over his own chair, his eyes darting frantically between Gunny Vance and me.
"No... no, there's a mistake," Dominic stammered, forcing a nervous, ugly laugh that died instantly in his throat. "She's just... she's my sister. She does logistics! She sits in an office in Georgia! She told Mom she does paperwork!"
"Paperwork," Gunny Vance echoed, his voice dropping into a dangerous, glacial register. He finally broke his salute, turning his hard glare toward my brother. "Private Carter—excuse me, Corporal Carter. You think a major holding an active combat transport command rating spends her days filing invoices?"
"She... she never wore a uniform when she visited," Dominic whispered, sounding less like a newly promoted Marine and more like a terrified child caught in a lie. "Dad always said the Air Force was the easy way out. He said Viv took the desk job because she couldn't hack real field command."
Hearing our father's words thrown out like a shield made my chest tighten, but I kept my face smooth.
For ten years, our father—a retired Army colonel who lived and breathed green-suit propaganda—had treated my Air Force career as a consolation prize. To him, if you weren't carrying a rifle through the mud, you weren't a real soldier. He had spent my entire life convincing Dominic that my quiet demeanor and civilian clothes meant I was weak, risk-averse, and subordinate to the men in our family.
I had let them believe it. I had swallowed the condescension at Thanksgiving dinners, smiled through their patronizing toasts, and kept my mouth shut when my mother referred to my classified deployment ribbons as "cute little pins."
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Because true power doesn't need to shout.
Until tonight.
