Not dramatic. Not urgent-looking. Just a plain envelope, her name typed neatly on the front, as if it were nothing more than a routine administrative matter. But the moment she saw the insignia in the corner, something old and cold had stirred in her chest, something she had spent years burying under routine and distance.
She hadn’t tried to ignore it. People like her knew better than that.
Now she was here, sitting under fluorescent lights, surrounded by uniforms and rank and expectation, while a man named Commander Elias Rourke paced slowly in front of her like he was rehearsing a performance he had already perfected in his head.
He was good-looking in the way that authority sometimes passes for attractiveness—sharp jawline, precise posture, a voice that carried easily across the room without ever needing to rise. His uniform was immaculate, every detail exactly where it should be, as though he had been assembled rather than dressed.
Behind him, at the defense table, three men sat in matching uniforms, their expressions hovering somewhere between boredom and mild amusement. Lieutenant Carson Hale, Petty Officer Marcus Dillard, and Sergeant Nolan Briggs. Decorated, respected, and—if the charges were to be believed—responsible for something that had never been meant to come to light.
