Chapter 3 - The Corporate Shield
The revelation changed the shape of the investigation entirely.
By mid-afternoon, I sat in a secure alcove with a encrypted terminal, pulling up corporate registries and financial disclosures that the public never saw. What I found was startlingly mundane yet deeply corrupt: Aegis Global wasn't just managing luxury influencer trips; they were using inflated civilian supply contracts as a tax shelter to subsidize marketing campaigns and high-profile social media sponsorships.
And my family was right in the middle of it.
According to the internal logs, Tiffany’s entire Caribbean cruise—down to the cocktails by the pool and the private catamaran charter—wasn't paid for out of my parents' savings. It was a fully funded corporate promotional junket provided by Aegis Global to court influencers with family ties to military procurement officers.
They hadn't just skipped my graduation for a vacation. They had been packaged as marketing assets.
My phone buzzed on the metal desk. It was an email notification, not a text.
Subject: Urgent Media Inquiry regarding Lieutenant Clara Evans
I opened it. It was forwarded from the academy's public affairs office. A reporter from a major national defense blog was asking for comment on a press release issued an hour ago by Aegis Global.
The headline of their press release read: "Rising Military Stars and Digital Creators Unite: How Modern Families Bridge Duty and Influence."
Attached was a photograph of my mother and Tiffany smiling beside the pool, alongside a carefully worded statement quoting my mother praising Aegis Global's "unwavering support of military families," explicitly mentioning my graduation and my assignment to the Joint Strategic Assessment Group.
They had used my name, my commission, and my graduation to boost a corporate PR campaign—all while sitting by a pool thousands of miles away.
The anger that flooded through me wasn't hot or chaotic; it was cold and structural. They hadn't just ignored me; they had monetized my absence.
Before I could close the browser, Colonel Vance walked into the alcove, holding a printed copy of the same press release. He tossed it onto my keyboard.
"Your mother's public relations team is very efficient, Lieutenant," Vance said quietly. "They managed to leak your new assignment to a defense blogger thirty minutes before you even logged into our secure network."
I looked up, my face burning. "Sir, I had nothing to do with this. I didn't tell them where I was assigned."
"I know you didn't," Vance said, leaning against the partition. "But it proves something much more dangerous. Whoever is running the logistics fraud at Aegis Global has direct access to high-level personnel tracking data. They knew your exact assignment before your clearance paperwork was even fully processed."
He tapped the press release with a finger.
May you like
"Which means your family isn't just vacationing with a corrupt contractor, Evans. They've been positioned as human shields for an ongoing federal investigation."
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