Chapter 1

The world snapped back.

One moment, there was nothing, a cold, empty void.

The next, Sarah Miller gasped, eyes flying open.

She was in her old bedroom, the one in the small off-base house she and Mark had rented years ago.

Sunlight, weak and pale, filtered through the thin curtains.

The date on her phone screamed at her: June 14th.

The day the letter arrived. The day everything started to unravel.

Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat.

Her son. David.

The memories flooded back, a tidal wave of grief and horror.

David' s scholarship, the prestigious ROTC one he' d worked so hard for, the one that was his ticket out, his dream.

Stolen.

Redirected by his own father, Sergeant Mark Jenkins, to Kevin Lewis.

Kevin, the sneering, entitled son of Brenda Lewis, the woman Mark had secretly built a new life with on Fort Apex.

Sarah remembered the public shame, Mark and Brenda painting her as unhinged, a scorned wife.

She remembered David' s face, hollowed by betrayal, the light dimming in his eyes.

The relentless bullying from Kevin, day after day.

Then, the awful silence from David' s room.

The note.

His death.

Suicide.

Sarah' s own spirit had shattered then.

Consumed by a grief so vast it blotted out the sun, falsely accused of disturbances, threatened with losing what little support she had.

She remembered a blur of despair, then a screech of tires, a blinding flash... and then nothing.

Until now.

She was back.

June 14th.

A second chance.

A raw, desperate hope surged through her.

This time, David would live.

This time, she would fight.

She scrambled out of bed, her mind racing.

The scholarship letter. It would arrive today. Mark would try to intercept it.

Not this time.

She had to get to David. She had to stop Mark.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a drumbeat of fear and fierce determination.

This was not a dream. This was real.

She remembered the pain, the humiliation, the utter desolation.

It fueled her.

She would not be the broken, grieving woman who faded into oblivion.

She would be a mother fighting for her son.

For his future. For her dignity.

The betrayal was a fresh wound, stinging as if it had just happened.

Mark, her husband, the man she had supported through his military career, sacrificing her own ambitions to be a stay-at-home mom.

He had chosen another woman, another family, and thrown his own son away like trash.

The injustice of it burned.

David, her intelligent, sensitive boy, deserved so much better.

He would get it.

She would make sure of it.