Chapter 3 - THE BET THAT STARTED IT
Two nights before the attack, Braddock sat inside the noncommissioned officers’ lounge with three soldiers.
He placed fifty dollars on the table.
“She’ll be gone before the end of the month.”
One soldier frowned.
“Monroe?”
“She can’t pass the recovery assessment.”
“She was injured on duty.”
Braddock laughed.
“So were plenty of people who didn’t turn it into a performance.”
He claimed Ava used the wheelchair to gain sympathy.
He said commanders protected her because someone important had intervened.
He was partly correct.
An official medical order protected Ava from being forced into activities that could damage her healing leg.
But it came from Army doctors, not her father.
Braddock saw the restriction as a challenge to his authority.
He had already pushed Ava during physical rehabilitation.
He ordered her to stand before she was medically cleared.
When she refused, he wrote that she lacked motivation.
A physical therapist overturned the evaluation.
Braddock became furious.
Then Ava submitted a formal request to review missing equipment from the unit supply room.
Braddock’s name appeared on several authorization forms.
He assumed she was trying to investigate him.
The fire extinguisher attack would serve two purposes.
It would break her composure.
And it would make her appear emotionally unstable in front of witnesses.
He told soldiers it was harmless initiation.
No one stopped him.
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Not until Jonah stepped forward.
👉 Braddock believed Ava’s complaint threatened only his career—but the missing equipment connected him to a much larger investigation.
