Chapter 3 - THE SILENT WITNESS AT THE HEAD TABLEColonel Grant Mercer slowly pushed himself up from his chair at the head table.
At sixty-two, his back was slightly bowed from decades of carrying rucksacks and command responsibilities, but his eyes were still as sharp as shattered glass. He ignored the major general beside him, bypassed the microphone, and walked down the raised stage steps with heavy, measured strides.
His polished low-quarters clicked rhythmically against the tile as he approached our table.
Vivienne turned with an expectant, sycophantic smile, holding out her hand to greet her husband as he walked toward her. “Grant, darling, I’m so glad you’re here. That dreadful woman—your junior officer—was making a scene, so I simply cleared her place setting to maintain the dignity of your table—”
Grant walked right past his wife. He didn't even glance at her.
He stopped two paces away from me, squared his shoulders, and raised his right hand in a crisp, immaculate, regulation-standard military salute.
I snapped my heels together and returned the salute with mathematical precision.
The entire ballroom gasped. A high-ranking colonel does not initiate a salute to a junior captain in the middle of a retirement gala—especially not while ignoring his own wife of thirty years.
“Captain Vey,” Grant said, his deep voice carrying an unyielding, gravelly authority. “Are the orders present?”
“They are, Colonel,” I replied evenly.
Caleb finally stood up, his face flushing a mottled, ugly crimson. “Dad, what is this? Why are you saluting her? She just threw a tantrum because Mom told her she didn't fit in with our social circle! She’s wearing civilian-grade attitude in a room full of generals!”
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Grant slowly turned his head to look at his son. The look in the old veteran's eyes was not disappointment; it was absolute, freezing disgust.
“Sit down, Caleb,” Grant commanded, the tone razor-sharp. “Before you find out that you don't even have the legal right to stand in this room.”
