Chapter 2 2

Frankie stood in the cool, damp air of the underground garage.

She was dressed in a perfectly tailored, minimalist black suit. The cut was sharp, hiding the lean, dangerous muscle of her body, yet subtly projecting the rigid posture of a soldier.

She checked her watch. It was twenty minutes past their agreed departure time.

Her jaw tightened. The silence of the garage was suddenly broken by the harsh ringing of the spare phone she kept in her car.

She answered it.

"Mrs. Alexander?" The voice belonged to Domenic's executive assistant. He sounded breathless, his words rushing out in a panicked tumble. "I am so sorry to call you. Mr. Alexander asked me to relay his deepest apologies."

Frankie's expression didn't change. "Where is he?"

"There was an emergency," the assistant stammered. "Ms. Diaz's mother... she twisted her ankle at their Hampton estate. Mr. Alexander had to rush over to handle the medical arrangements."

A twisted ankle.

Frankie felt a cold, bitter laugh rise in her throat, but she swallowed it down. Her stomach contracted, a hard knot of absolute disgust forming in her core.

Domenic was missing the return of her parents' remains-national heroes who died for their country-because his mistress's mother had a minor sprain.

Frankie didn't say a single word. She simply pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call.

She walked past the row of Domenic's flashy sports cars and stopped in front of a matte black Range Rover.

She pulled open the heavy door and slid into the driver's seat. Her movements were brutally efficient, devoid of any hesitation.

The engine roared to life, a deep, guttural growl that echoed off the concrete walls.

Frankie threw the car into gear. The Range Rover shot out of the Manhattan garage, merging aggressively onto the highway, tearing straight toward Washington D.C. Hours later, as the heavy gray dusk began to settle over the capital region, she approached the heavily fortified outer perimeter of Joint Base Andrews.

Concrete barricades zig-zagged across the road. Heavily armed guards in tactical gear stood at the checkpoint, their hands resting easily on their assault rifles.

A guard stepped forward, holding up a gloved hand to stop her vehicle.

Frankie rolled down her window. The cold wind whipped her dark hair across her face. She didn't offer a driver's license.

Instead, she reached into her inner jacket pocket and pulled out a solid black card embedded with a specialized, encrypted military microchip.

She handed it to the guard.

The guard swiped the card through a heavy-duty mobile scanner.

The machine beeped once. A solid, blinding green light flashed across the screen, indicating the absolute highest level of security clearance.

The guard's eyes widened. He looked from the screen to Frankie's face.

He instantly snapped his heels together. His spine went rigid, and he delivered a razor-sharp, textbook military salute.

Frankie's muscle memory took over seamlessly. She snapped her own heels together and returned the salute with equal, sharp precision, honoring the uniform she had once bled for.

The heavy steel gates rolled open. Frankie drove the Range Rover into the restricted zone, a place where not even the richest billionaires in New York could buy their way in.

She parked near the edge of the massive tarmac.

The sky overhead was gray and heavy. The deafening roar of jet engines vibrated through the soles of her shoes and rattled her teeth.

A massive C-17 Globemaster III transport plane was touching down, its tires smoking as they hit the runway.

Frankie stepped out of the car. She walked toward the tarmac, leaning into the fierce, biting wind generated by the plane's engines. Her posture was as straight as a pine tree, unbending against the gale.

The rear cargo ramp of the C-17 slowly lowered.

Eight Special Forces operators, dressed in full dress uniforms, marched down the ramp in perfect, solemn synchronization.

Between them, they carried two heavy wooden urn boxes.

Each box was draped tightly in the American flag.

Every officer on the tarmac snapped to attention. Hundreds of hands rose in a synchronized, silent salute. The atmosphere was so heavy with reverence it felt hard to breathe.

Frankie walked toward the urns. Her boots clicked rhythmically against the concrete.

When she stopped in front of the boxes, the tight control she had maintained all morning finally fractured.

A hot tear broke free, tracking a burning path down her cold cheek.

She reached out. Her hand, calloused from years of gripping a tactical rifle, trembled as her fingers brushed the coarse, heavy fabric of the stars and stripes.

The operators holding the urns looked at her. Their eyes were filled with an intense, raw mixture of absolute awe and profound grief. They knew exactly who she was.

Frankie closed her eyes. The wind whipped around her, but in her mind, there was only silence.

She stood there, delivering a silent, Special Forces-level debriefing to the parents she would never speak to again.