Linda nodded and adjusted her collar.

“We don’t need a ring,” Linda said.

“We just need the graduation photographs for the country club newsletter.”

They stood in the middle of the lobby, radiating absolute confidence.

They hadn’t seen me in fifteen years.

A semester of elite college tuition cost exactly forty-five thousand dollars, and they had chosen that over my life.

Now they were here to claim a top-tier military officer as their own personal asset.

I tightened my grip on the brass railing.