“My ex-wife is having a psychological break. Breach it!” he ordered. He thought I was a helpless, lonely civilian. When he saw who was waiting inside, he collapsed in screaming…
PART 1
On the exact day my divorce became legally official, I carried out one silent, merciless decision.
I revoked a top-secret security clearance. Not an ordinary building access code. Not some civilian emergency authorization.
It was the Level 8 Global Access Pass my arrogant mother-in-law had been abusing for years, walking through elite Pentagon security checkpoints as though military clearance was something she had inherited through her family name, never bothering to question where it had actually come from.
For five miserable years, Edna Vance had constantly reminded me that I was nothing more than a low-ranking civilian, a peasant who had no real place within her supposedly aristocratic military dynasty.
Yet whenever she needed access to my heavily encrypted systems, she never once treated me like an outsider.
First-class flights to so-called “peace summits.” Lavish, indulgent galas in Geneva. Private communication channels designed to leave no trace. Enormous, unauthorized defense stipends that she proudly defended as a “diplomatic necessity”—while my flawless security systems quietly wiped away every filthy digital trace she left behind.
So, after the judge brought down the gavel inside a sterile Washington D.C. courtroom, officially ending my marriage to Commander Bernard Vance, I returned to my secured penthouse. I activated my encrypted terminal and methodically removed Edna from every server connected to my identity, under my private intelligence codename: Almira.
I foolishly assumed that would finally close the last poisonous chapter.
I had no idea it was merely the spark that would set everything ablaze.
Later that night, exactly at 22:00 hours, my secure sat-phone began to vibrate.
Bernard.
For one brief moment, I thought about allowing the call to disappear unanswered. But one dark, spiteful part of me wanted to hear the fear in his voice one final time.
I picked up.
“Aurora, what the hell did you just do?!” he shouted, his voice overflowing with fury. “My mother was completely humiliated in front of the entire Joint Chiefs!”
I remained motionless in my living room, slowly rotating a glass of scotch in my hand while the brilliant Capitol lights glittered outside my reinforced windows.
“You’re going to have to be considerably more specific, Commander,” I answered, my tone calm and cold as ice.
“She tried to enter the Global Defense Summit in Berlin,” he growled. “Her credentials triggered a red-level threat… and armed guards physically dragged her outside like some common criminal.”
For the first time in years… I smiled, without feeling even the slightest obligation to apologize.
“Maybe it’s finally time she used a clearance she actually deserved.”
Silence swallowed the line.
A few seconds later, Bernard spoke again. His voice had fallen into a deadly, carefully restrained register—the precise, frightening tone he used whenever he was breaking an enemy target during interrogation.
“Aurora… don’t start a war you don’t have the firepower to finish.”
I slowly set my crystal glass down on the desk.
“Bernard, the war officially ended at 0900 hours this morning. You’re simply discovering now that your precious command codes were terminated along with it.”
I ended the call. Then I placed an impenetrable hard block on his frequency.
That night… I slept more deeply and peacefully than I had in ten years.
Until exactly 04:30 the next morning.
A deeply unnatural and terrifying sound ripped me from sleep. A sharp mechanical whine. It wasn’t a knock. It wasn’t a doorbell.
It was the unmistakable noise of a breaching charge being firmly attached to the reinforced steel of my front door.
My heart immediately began pounding. I struck the bedside console with my palm and brought up the external security cameras.
There he was.
Bernard stood in the hallway outside my penthouse, dressed from head to toe in black tactical gear, his sidearm secured at his hip. He was doing everything possible to conceal the manufactured panic flashing across his face.
Around him stood a four-man tactical entry unit in balaclavas, their assault rifles raised and ready. The team leader was crouched directly outside my door, connecting the explosives.
Bernard lifted one stiff finger toward the reinforced steel.
“Breach it,” he commanded coldly. “My ex-wife is experiencing a severe, violent psychological episode. We need to neutralize her and enter immediately.”