I bought curtains at thrift stores, drank coffee from a chipped mug, and spent Saturday mornings helping Sophie build forts out of fallen branches near the fence. My civilian profile listed me as an administrative support specialist.

That description was accurate in the same way that calling a hurricane a change in weather is accurate. The rest of my service history required clearances that Grant Caldwell’s money would never buy.

Travis knew none of that. My sister Natalie had known only fragments, because I’d spent years teaching my family not to ask questions I wasn’t permitted to answer. She knew I’d served. She believed I’d spent most of it behind a desk. And that was the version of me she had apparently handed to her husband as entertainment.

Natalie stood beside Grant in an expensive summer dress, arms folded tight beneath her chest. She didn’t look frightened by Travis’s threat. She looked pleased that the attention wasn’t on her. That hurt more than the gloves had.

Travis took one step forward.

I dropped the gloves back onto the grass. The leather landed between us.

“I warned you,” I said.