Chapter 18 - Shadows Fall
Three days later, the post had returned to a semblance of normal routine, though the atmosphere was fundamentally transformed. The lazy, entitled culture that had poisoned the 1st Battalion was gone, replaced by a fierce, undeniable sense of pride and discipline.
I sat in my new office in the headquarters building, reviewing training schedules for the upcoming joint exercises with the 82nd Airborne, when a soft knock sounded at the door.
"Enter," I said.
Sergeant Major Vance stepped inside, holding a small, unmarked manila envelope. His face was uncharacteristically grim.
"What is it, Vance?" I asked, setting my pen down.
"We got a package delivered to the back gate, ma'am," Vance said, laying the envelope on my desk. "No return address. Security scanned it for explosives—it's clean. But the contents... well, you need to see it."
I picked up the envelope, slit the top open with my finger, and pulled out a single sheet of heavy cardstock paper and an old, faded photograph.
The photograph showed a group of young officers standing outside a barracks in Germany back in 2005. Among them was a much younger David Thorne, smiling broadly—and standing right beside him, with her arm draped casually over his shoulder, was a woman whose face made my blood run instantly cold.
My mother.
Colonel Eleanor Ellison—a woman who had vanished from my life twenty years ago, leaving behind nothing but a locked metal box and a legacy of military ambition that I had spent my entire career trying to live up to or escape.
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Written on the back of the photograph in neat, elegant handwriting were words that made the room spin:
“You think you defeated him, Mara? He was just the prologue. Welcome to the family business.”
