“Oh, please,” Caroline scoffed, waving her hand dismissively.

“Don’t try to scare me with your bureaucratic jargon.”

“You’re a clerk.”

“My friend just checked the public directory and saw who you work for.”

I knew she was lying.

The alert on my secure phone had been for an attempted hack into my personal, encrypted service record.

That required more than a simple public directory search.

It required an IP address from this very house, and someone trying to bypass federal firewalls.

“Evelyn,” my father said, his tone authoritative.

“You will drop whatever foolish inquiry you have started.”

“Nathan is going to be family.”

“His success reflects on this family.”

“I will not have you sabotaging his future out of some petty household grudge.”

I looked at my father’s stern, unforgiving face.

He had never asked about my deployments.

He had never asked about the medals in the velvet-lined box in my drawer.

To him, I was the daughter who failed to secure a wealthy marriage.

“The discrepancies in Nathan’s travel logs and operational expenses cannot be dropped,” I said clearly.

“They are part of an ongoing audit.”