Chapter 4

At 4:00 PM.

I checked the time and opened the door to the house.

I only wanted to retrieve the urn containing the ashes of my late father, a decorated war hero.

My father had made the ultimate sacrifice at the border years ago, and his body was never fully recovered.

His comrades could only gather the blood-stained soil and a few bone fragments from the blast site.

That urn was my only connection to him in this world.

The moment I stepped inside, a pungent, foul animal odor hit my nose.

Chloe had somehow brought a Ragdoll cat into the house.

It was tearing across our leather sofa.

Asher's pleasing laughter echoed from the study.

"Do you like it, Chloe? Is this okay?"

My heart sank as I rushed into the study.

The urn with the military star emblem that used to sit on the altar was gone.

On the floor sat a pink litter box.

The Ragdoll cat had just jumped inside, scratching the sand to relieve itself.

The gray-white "sand" used to cover its waste was actually my father's ashes.

Asher stood nearby.

He was holding the shattered base of the ceramic urn.

My mind went completely blank, my vision blurring.

"Asher... what did you do?"

Asher turned and saw me.

Without a care, he kicked the broken base of the urn aside.

It hit the wall and shattered completely.

"What are you screaming for?"

"Chloe's cat had diarrhea, and we didn't have any litter."

"I saw this old jar in the study filled with some gray dust. I didn't know what kind of garbage it was."

"So I used it to help out."

Chloe walked in, pinching her nose.

She was spraying perfume in the air.

She looked at the ashes on the floor with utter disgust.

"Asher, why does this dust smell so musty and cheap?"

"It stinks. Even my cat barely wants to step in it."

"Is this some kind of toxic waste?"

Tears streamed down my face. I violently flipped the pink litter box over.

I fell to my knees, desperately gathering the ashes mixed with cat waste.

Asher walked over and grabbed me by the collar, hauling me up.

"Are you losing your mind?"

"It's just a pile of worthless dust, and you're making a mess of my house!"

"Chloe's cat is terrified because of you. Can you even afford to compensate her?"

Chloe stepped directly onto the scattered ashes.

Under her shoes, the ashes were ground into fine powder, sinking deep into the floorboards.

Seeing my father's heroic soul subjected to such unspeakable humiliation.

Every ounce of my strength was drained.

I wrenched myself free from Asher's grip.

I pulled a secure military communicator from my inner pocket.

Asher didn't even see it clearly. He just mocked me from the side.

"What, are you going to throw that brick at me?"

I ignored him.

I pressed a high-level emergency code.

"General, my medical leave is over."

"Also, I am reporting an assault on a military family."

"And the desecration of a fallen hero's remains."