Chapter 3 - The Sins of the Past
"Drop the phone, kid, or your mother paints the wall," the massive assassin commanded with a thick, menacing accent.
Daniel slowly raised his empty hands, subtly sliding his right foot toward a heavy cast-iron skillet resting on the dining table.
"Please do not hurt him, he knows absolutely nothing about our past!" Sarah screamed desperately, tears streaming down her bruised face.
In a split second of pure adrenaline, Daniel grabbed the heavy skillet and hurled it violently across the small room.
The solid iron struck the assassin squarely in the jaw, causing his silenced weapon to discharge a bullet harmlessly into the ceiling.
Daniel tackled the disoriented killer, punching him fiercely in the face until the massive man finally went completely limp.
He scrambled off the floor and pulled his shaking mother into a desperate, tight embrace.
"Mom, you need to tell me exactly what is going on right now," Daniel demanded, holding up Arthur Sterling’s gold phone.
Sarah stared at the billionaire’s device with absolute horror, her trembling hands covering her pale mouth.
"Arthur Sterling is my biological father, Daniel, which legally makes him your grandfather," she confessed, her voice breaking with decades of hidden pain.
"Why would you ever run away from a massive billion-dollar empire to live in absolute poverty?" Daniel asked in pure disbelief.
Sarah quickly started packing a small duffel bag with their emergency cash and fake passports she had secretly hidden beneath the floorboards.
"I did not run away from my father, Daniel, I ran away from the absolute monster I foolishly married," she explained rapidly.
She grabbed Daniel’s shoulders, looking deeply into his confused eyes with a terrifying intensity.
"Your father is Victor Vance, the ruthless head of the largest organized crime syndicate in this city."
Daniel stumbled backward, his entire perception of his identity shattering into a million tiny, irreparable pieces.
He had always been told his father died a hero in a tragic car accident before he was even born.
"Victor wants the Sterling empire, and he needed Arthur out of the way to legally claim it through you," Sarah cried softly.
Before Daniel could even process the horrific truth, the walls of their cheap apartment violently shook from a massive explosion downstairs.
Thick black smoke began pouring through the floorboards, completely trapping them in the burning room.
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The locked front door was suddenly kicked entirely off its rusty hinges by three heavily armed mercenaries.
Leading the deadly strike team was Marcus, the hospital manager, holding a military-grade assault rifle with a sickeningly triumphant smile.
