Chapter 6 - IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM AFTERWARD, I FOUND OUT THEY’D BEEN PLANNING TO STEAL FROM ME FOR FAR LONGER THAN I KNEW**
I didn’t make it to the after-party the donors insisted on throwing for me.
My legs gave out in the lobby.
The combination of seventy-two hours awake, multiple combat stressors, the slap, the adrenaline crash, and the sheer emotional weight of arresting my own family finally caught up with me.
I woke up in a private room at Walter Reed. An IV in my arm. Heart monitor beeping softly. A vase of white roses on the nightstand that I immediately asked the nurse to take away.
Agent Hale was sitting in the chair beside the bed, flipping through a file.
“Welcome back,” he said, closing it. “Concussion. Mild. Severe exhaustion. Dehydration. The doctors say you’ll be fine. Just sleep. For a week, preferably.”
“Did they talk?” I asked, my voice rough.
“Nolan rolled over in the car on the way to booking,” he said, grimacing. “Sang like a canary. Tried to blame everything on your dad and Celia, of course. But he gave us everything. Bank accounts in the Caymans. Shell companies. The whole nine yards.”
He hesitated.
“There’s more, Elise. Stuff you need to know. Stuff that… changes things.”
He opened the file again and slid a single sheet of paper across the blanket to me.
It was a life insurance policy.
$5 million.
On my life.
Taken out two years ago.
Owner: Warren Valor Foundation.
Beneficiary: Warren Valor Foundation general endowment.
My blood ran cold.
“I don’t remember authorizing this.”
“You didn’t,” Hale said quietly. “Your father forged your signature. The medical examiner they bribed signed off that you’d had a full physical and were in perfect health. The premiums have been coming out of the general fund every month.”
He let that sink in.
“Nolan told us the original plan wasn’t just to get you to sign over the fund tonight. If you’d refused—and they always assumed you would—they were going to wait a few months. Arrange a ‘tragic accident’ during your next deployment. A training mishap. An ambush gone wrong. Something that looked like combat. They’d collect the $5 million. The restricted fund would pass to the foundation as your next of kin. Another $14 million. Total take: $19 million. Enough to cover the embezzlement, pay everyone off, and still have plenty left over.”
I stared at the policy. At my forged signature at the bottom.
They hadn’t just been planning to steal from veterans.
They’d been planning to kill me.
My own father. My own sister.
They’d decided my life was worth $19 million.
And they’d been waiting two years for the right moment to cash in.
Hale reached over and gently took the paper from my shaking hand.
“You’re safe now, Elise,” he said. “We’ve got 24/7 protection on you until the trial. They’re not getting within a mile of you. Ever.”
I closed my eyes.
I’d faced down terrorists, IEDs, sniper fire, men who’d wanted me dead in a dozen different countries.
None of it had hurt half as bad as this.
Because this time, the people who wanted me dead had taught me to ride a bike. Blown out my birthday candles. Held my hand when my mother was dying.
May you like
And all along, they’d had a price tag on my head.
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