CHAPTER 3
I stood motionless at the defense table, my posture rigid and flawless, gently patting Samuel and Owen's shoulders to keep them calm as the drama unfolded around us.
My eight-year-old twin boys didn't cry. Raised with the quiet resilience I had subtly instilled in them since birth, they looked up at their father with calm, perceptive eyes.
"Mom," Samuel whispered softly, gripping my hand tight. "Is Dad going to jail for lying to us?"
"Your father is facing the consequences of his choices, sweetheart," I replied gently, keeping my voice steady and completely devoid of malice.
General Vance turned toward me, snapping his right hand up to his brow in a crisp, sharp military salute that made every civilian in the courtroom gasp.
"Colonel Evelyn Hollis," General Vance declared loudly, his voice reverberating through the room. "Department of Defense Directive 804 is officially executed. Your active-duty intelligence cover is formally concluded."
"Colonel?!" Adrian screamed, his eyes bulging out of his head as he stared at me as if I were a ghost. "You're... you're a Colonel?! You bake pie! You organize charity bake sales in McLean!"
"The charity bake sales were a fantastic cover for monitoring foreign logistics attachés, Adrian," I replied smoothly, unbuttoning my crimson red jacket to reveal my official military identification credentials pinned beside my gold insignia.
"For twelve years," I continued, stepping toward the center aisle, "you assumed my silence was submission. You thought my quiet demeanor meant I was ignorant, weak, and easily replaced."
"When I agreed to let you act as the public face of Hollis Transit Systems," I added, looking him dead in the eyes, "it was under the strict condition that the firm served national defense supply chains during regional crises."
"Instead, you allowed your greed to blind you," I said, my voice cutting through his panic like a forged steel blade. "You sold classified East Coast port access routes to a foreign shell company owned by your mistress's family."
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Paige let out a sharp, pathetic sob, dropping to her knees beside the spectator rail as federal marshals moved in to secure her phone and luxury handbag as evidence.
Adrian's mouth opened and closed like a fish suffocating on dry land, his arrogant world completely vaporized in less than ten minutes.
