“TAKE OFF THAT UNIFORM!”—A Wealthy Brother Shoved His Soldier Sister Into a Medal Display, Until a Four-Star General Arrived and Saluted Her! Then Their Late Father’s Secret Envelope Exposed Something the Millionaire Had Spent Years Trying to Bury...

"Cover!" Evelyn yelled.

She took three steps back and fired a full burst from her carbine directly into the electronic locking mechanism of the blast door. The sparks cascaded like fireworks; Holloway lunged forward, kicking the door with all his weight.

The steel barrier gave way with a deafening screech.

The first assassin turned, raising his weapon, but Evelyn put three rounds through his center mass before his finger could squeeze the trigger. Holloway engaged the second operative, wrestling him to the ground in a brutal flurry of close-quarters strikes that ended with the sickening crack of breaking bone.

The third operative—the one holding the cannula—lunged toward Richard’s throat, aiming to plunge the needle home.

Evelyn didn't hesitate. She threw her empty carbine straight into the man's face, catching him flush across the bridge of his nose, and closed the distance in a single heartbeat. Her father's Colt 1911 cleared the holster and pressed against the man's temple.

"Drop it," she whispered with deadly calm. "Or your brains become part of the wallpaper."

The man froze, his hands trembling as the heavy syringe clattered onto the linoleum floor.

Evelyn shoved him backward into Holloway’s custody and dropped to her knees beside Richard’s gurney. The monitors were flashing frantic yellow warnings, but the flatline alarm hadn't sounded yet. Her brother’s face was pale as chalk, his lips blue, but his eyelids fluttered as the chaos in the room penetrated his fading consciousness.

"Richard... Richard, look at me!" Evelyn pleaded, ripping off her tactical gloves and taking his cold hand between hers. "I'm here. Vance failed. The vault at Arlington is open."

Richard’s eyes opened slowly, glazed with heavy sedatives and internal bleeding. When he saw her uniform, a broken, bloody smile crossed his lips.

"Evie..." he rasped, his voice barely audible beneath the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator. "You... you always were... the real soldier..."

"Save your strength," she choked back tears, the adrenaline leaving her body in violent shudders. "The surgeons are coming. We're getting you out of this."

"No time..." Richard whispered, coughing up dark blood that spilled across his chin. "Dad... Dad wasn't running from them... he was waiting..."

"Waiting for what, Richard?"

"The Chesapeake... node..." Richard gasped, his grip tightening with surprising, desperate power. "The platform forty miles off Cape Charles... that's where the kill-switch lives... Vance's father is transmitting the files to Russian intelligence tonight... to erase the paper trail... they're going to frame you, Evie... frame Dad..."

Richard's monitor emitted a single, agonizingly long beep. His eyes rolled back, his body shuddering once before going entirely limp.

"Richard!" Evelyn screamed, throwing her weight across his chest as the hospital trauma team finally burst into the room. "Richard, don't you dare die on me!"

"Captain, step back!" the chief surgeon shouted, pulling her away. "He's gone into cardiac arrest! Charge the paddles to three hundred!"

Holloway grabbed Evelyn’s shoulders, dragging her back from the gurney as the defibrillator discharged with a heavy thud.

"Evelyn," Holloway said, his voice deadly serious, cutting through her grief like an artillery shell. "He gave us the location. Cape Charles. The offshore node. If that data goes live to the Kremlin, your father’s name will be marked as the greatest traitor in American history, and your brother died for nothing."

Evelyn wiped the blood from her cheek, her eyes turning from tears to absolute, merciless stone.