Chapter 8 - THE FIRST MERCER
The original Logan Mercer had died three years before the Syria ambush.
The man who humiliated me was Owen Price, reconstructed and trained to use Mercer’s identity.
He believed becoming Mercer rescued him from a criminal record and gave him a military career.
Colonel Voss offered him a life.
Then used that life as leverage.
Owen shot Daniel because refusal meant legal erasure.
Again, explanation without excuse.
The original Mercer’s death had been hidden because his service profile was valuable.
Owen inherited rank, reputation, and access.
The name tag I tore from his chest was more than cloth.
It was the identity he feared losing.
That was why my words broke him:
I remember your name.
He had spent years trying to become it.
Then Owen revealed the real purpose of the mess hall phrase.
No one serves women here.
It came from the first continuity facility, where female officers were denied food until they accepted replacement assignments.
The phrase was a psychological key.
One woman had resisted longer than anyone.
Colonel Sarah Mitchell.
My mother.
May you like
Officially dead twenty years earlier.
Read Chapter 9 to discover why Victoria’s mother had been erased.
