Claire. Are you safe? I just cracked the ledger on the Vance Veteran Initiative. The raid wasn’t about the clearance. You need to see what they’ve been doing with the ghost contracts.

Chapter 4 — Ghost Contracts

By 14:00, my shattered apartment looked less like a crime scene than a forward operating base.

A digital forensics team swept my servers for anything Harrison’s men might have tried to plant. Rachel Mercer sat at my dining table, her briefcase open, redacted documents spilling across the glass.

Every page made my five-year marriage look like a planned espionage operation.

“They didn’t just use your clearance for luxury travel, Claire,” Rachel said, tight with disbelief, pushing a thick ledger toward me. “The Vance Veteran Initiative — the charity Patricia parades around the globe — is a front.

It’s a front for ghost contracts.”