My Father Told Me to Pretend We’d Never Met at the White House—Then General Vance Announced I Oversaw His Defense Contract Review

No company collapsed.

There was simply another file requiring careful work.

And after everything, ordinary responsibility felt less like an anticlimax than a reward.

EPILOGUE — TOMORROW WOULD BE ORDINARY

The blue mug sat beside my brass nameplate when the office began emptying.

Daniel had gone home.

Vance was in another building.

Trevor had not called again.

Arthur had not called at all.

Mercer Defense Tech’s independent review continued somewhere I no longer had access to.

I did not know the final recommendation.

That was the point.

The process could not be independent if I waited outside the door for updates.

So I stopped waiting.

I closed the second folder.

Put it in the completed stack.

Then opened the third.

There was a date on the first page.

I checked the page behind it.

One day off.