Introduction

My life was perfect. I had a loving husband, Andrew, and our bright, energetic five-year-old son, Caleb. We lived happily in Chicago, a normal American family.

Then, in a screech of tires and a thunderous crash, a low-slung, obscenely yellow Lamborghini, driven by rich kid Barney Hughes, stole them from me. One moment they were alive, the next, crumpled on the asphalt.

But the nightmare didn' t end there. Barney' s father, a powerful real estate magnate, bought off the police, made surveillance footage vanish, and had my family' s bodies illegally cremated.

Every lawyer I approached laughed me out of their office, warning of "professional suicide" against the Hughes empire.

I lost my job, and then Barney sued me for harassment. My world crumbled.

One night, Barney and his thugs broke into my home, beat me mercilessly, shattered every photo of my family, then committed the ultimate desecration: they opened the box of ashes, the stolen remains of my husband and son, and dumped them over my head. "Buy yourself a new kid or something. Get over it," he sneered, before urinating on the floor beside me.

How could this happen in America?

How could a family of heroes, dedicated to service, be murdered and then have their memory so brutally insulted by a corrupt system?

Lying broken on the floor, covered in dust and urine, I suddenly remembered two Medal of Honor recipients and an old promise: "The United States Army does not forget its own." I packed the medals and made a silent vow. My fight had just begun.