I had heard my title spoken in secured situation rooms, on the rain-swept decks of carriers, inside classified briefing spaces where every word was measured and nothing was ever accidental.

I had heard it spoken with respect, with panic, with disciplined compliance, and occasionally with bitter resentment. But I had never heard it like this.

Never beneath a canopy of chandeliers. Never while wearing clearance-rack navy chiffon. And never in front of my father, who stood frozen at the head table, his mouth slightly open, stripped of his vocabulary.

Liora didn’t wait for the shock to pass. “Twenty-one months ago,” she said, “my career in the Navy was nearly destroyed. I was targeted by a fabricated report and a sealed investigation I was never meant to survive.

One senior officer stepped out of the chain of command and put her own standing between me and the people trying to erase the truth.”

A low ripple of shock moved through the wealthy crowd. My father’s face drained to the color of old parchment. Griffin whipped around to stare at me hard enough that his drink sloshed over his cuff.