Kyle Mercer. My stepbrother.
“What the hell is this circus?” he bellowed, his voice cracking and echoing through the sudden, suffocating silence of the hall.
The security detail hesitated, paralyzed for a microsecond by the sheer, drunken audacity of the intrusion. Kyle’s gaze locked onto mine, burning with a jealousy that had fermented for twenty years in the shadow of my success. He pointed a shaking finger at me.
“You think a little pin makes you better than me, Becky? You think you’re a hero?”
My blood didn’t just run cold; it turned to ice water. I saw the movement before I could process the intent. He charged.
He moved with the clumsy, terrifying momentum of a falling boulder. Before the nearest Marine could intervene, Kyle had scrambled onto the stage. He didn’t aim for my face. He didn’t aim for the new insignia on my collar.
His fist drove straight, with every ounce of his pathetic, resentful weight, into my stomach.
The sound was dull. A wet, sickening thud that I felt in my teeth. The world didn’t go black; it went white. The air was ripped from my lungs, leaving nothing but a jagged void. I collapsed, my knees hitting the polished floor with a crack that was lost in the roar of the crowd.
Pain, hot and visceral, exploded through my core. As I clutched my abdomen, I felt a warmth—sticky and terrifying—pooling beneath me. I looked down and saw the dark, spreading stain on the white floor.
“CORPSMAN! GET A CORPSMAN UP HERE!” General Keller’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well.
