I put the phone facedown.
“Mason, listen carefully.”
“No, you listen.”
“I need you to stop talking.”
He stood fully now.
Chair scraping.
The young Marines stiffened.
Maddox took half a step, then stopped because I lifted two fingers.
Not yet.
My brother leaned over the table.
“You know what I think? I think you heard some story somewhere. Maybe dated somebody important. Maybe carried somebody’s bag. And now you’re borrowing a call sign because you can’t stand that I became the one thing in this family Dad is proud of.”
There it was.
The real motive.
Not cruelty for fun.
Not just ego.
A son trying to keep the only crown he believed he had.
A boy who had spent his whole life thinking I abandoned him, now terrified the one place he mattered had known me first.
I could have cut him down.
I knew twenty-seven sentences that would have ended his pride permanently.
