They were using my rank and my service as a prop in their fake morality play, and something inside of me went very still. My silence hadn’t been de-escalating the situation, it was only leaving my name undefended while they carved it up. They were even framing the money from my family’s death as evidence of my greed, and I couldn’t allow that.
I called Silas and told him I was done being quiet, and he told me that was a good decision. The next day, an invitation arrived for the annual family reunion at a steakhouse in Houston, and I realized it was the perfect battlefield. My parents would be there, along with all the relatives they had been lying to for the past several months.
I clicked reply and told them I would be attending, then spent the next few days gathering hard evidence. I contacted a friend from my unit who was now a paralegal to help me pull public records on Tyler’s failed business. She found default notices, tax liens, and enough financial wreckage to prove that his own recklessness had ruined them.