Chapter 7 - Packing in Record Time
The atmosphere inside the house transformed from a smug family holiday into a frantic, chaotic evacuation zone within seconds.
Priscilla was crying hysterically, throwing clothes into designer suitcases while throwing venomous glares in my direction every time she walked past me in the hallway. My mother was frantically wrapping leftover turkey in aluminum foil while muttering prayers under her breath, completely bewildered by how quickly their comfortable, parasitic arrangement had imploded.
Gregory was led out to the porch in zip-ties, where he was forced to stand in the freezing snow while the military police verified his identity against local arrest warrants for unrelated corporate fraud—a delightful little bonus detail that Elizabeth’s intelligence team had conveniently dug up while pulling his background file that morning.
I stood by the kitchen island, sipping a cup of hot chamomile tea that Elizabeth had personally ordered one of the MPs to brew for me.
My father walked into the kitchen, his shoulders slumped, looking twenty years older than he had an hour ago. He stopped a few feet away from me, his eyes red-rimmed and pleading.
"Charlotte," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Please. Talk to the General. We're your family. We made a mistake. We didn't realize... we didn't know."
I took a slow sip of my tea, looking him straight in the eye.
"You didn't care to know, Dad," I replied quietly. "For seven months, you watched your daughter grieve a husband you barely acknowledged, while treating my house like a hotel and my life like an inconvenience. The moment it became convenient to throw me out into the cold so Gregory could have an office, you didn't hesitate for a single second."
"We're your parents," he repeated, sounding pathetic.
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"My husband gave his life for something bigger than any of us," I said, setting my mug down on the counter with a soft clink. "And the moment he was gone, you tried to strip away the only piece of him I had left. Get out of my house, Dad."
He swallowed hard, the final remnants of his patriarchal authority shattering completely. Without another word, he turned around and walked out of the kitchen, dragging his heavy coat behind him.
