Chapter 7 - Arthur Strikes BackMy father’s first attack came through the press.

His second came through the courts.

His third came at 2:16 in the morning, when a black sedan tried to run my car off the West Side Highway.

I saw the headlights in the rain.

Too close.

Too fast.

My driver, a retired Navy chief named Ron Alvarez, swore once and jerked the wheel. The sedan clipped our rear bumper. Metal screamed. The city blurred sideways. For half a second, the Hudson River flashed black beyond the guardrail.

Then Alvarez recovered.

The sedan vanished into traffic.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You okay, Commander?”

My heart was pounding, but my voice stayed calm.

“Did you get the plate?”

He smiled without humor.

“Dashcam did.”

By sunrise, Agent Keene had the footage.

By noon, the sedan was traced to a shell security contractor used by Vale Maritime subsidiaries.

By evening, Arthur’s attorneys claimed I had staged the incident for sympathy.

That was my father’s genius.

He never needed people to believe him completely.

He only needed them to doubt me slightly.

Meanwhile, Vivienne appeared on a morning talk show wearing cream silk and grief like perfume.

“My sister has suffered,” she said, eyes shining on cue. “We all wanted to help her. But Celeste has always rejected love. Our father is devastated.”

The host nodded sympathetically.

No one asked why Vivienne had torn my shirt open in a ballroom.

Preston chose a different route.

He called.

I stared at his name on the burner phone for three rings before answering.

“Celeste,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“Start with an apology.”

He sighed. “Still dramatic.”

“Still morally empty?”

There was a pause.

“You don’t understand what’s at stake.”

“Twenty-seven sailors almost died.”

“And thousands of employees will lose jobs if you burn everything down.”

There it was. The shield men like Preston always raised when their crimes became expensive. Workers. Families. Innocent people.

“You should have thought of them before falsifying steel certifications.”

His voice hardened. “You have no idea how business works.”

“I know how drowning works.”

Silence.

Then Preston lowered his voice.

“Dad won’t go down alone.”

Something in his tone made me sit straighter.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should ask your admiral friend how clean his hands really are.”

The line went dead.

I took the phone to Reed.

He listened to the recording twice, expression unreadable.

“Arthur is trying to divide us,” I said.

“Yes.”

“But Preston sounded confident.”

Reed looked toward the window.

Rain streaked the glass, turning the city into gray ribbons.

“There was an internal Navy procurement review after the Halcyon disaster,” he said. “My name was on the approval chain for equipment transport. Arthur may try to argue I helped cover up the failed components.”

“Did you?”

His eyes met mine.

“No.”

I believed him.

But court was not built on belief.

Three days later, Arthur filed an emergency motion to block my mother’s trust amendment. His petition called me mentally compromised, emotionally vindictive, and vulnerable to manipulation by Admiral Reed, whom he accused of using me to shield himself from military scrutiny.

The hearing was scheduled for Monday.

Arthur wanted to drag my scars, my service, my grief, and my sanity into open court.

He thought humiliation would break me the way it had when I was twenty-one.

But he had forgotten something.

Back then, I had been alone.

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