CHAPTER 5 – THE MAN THEY BURIED TWICE
The church exploded into chaos.
Gunshots shattered the stained-glass windows as Richard's men dragged Ethan's mother toward a waiting helicopter.
"Mom!" Ethan screamed.
She looked at him with tears streaming down her face but shook her head.
"Not me... your father!"
Those were the last words Ethan heard before the helicopter lifted into the storm.
Clara grabbed Ethan's arm and pulled him behind a stone pillar just as bullets tore through the walls.
"You can't save her yet," she cried. "Richard wants you alive."
"Why?"
"Because he still doesn't know where Michael hid the original ledger."
"The ledger?"
"The one that can destroy every politician, judge, and billionaire who helped him."
Ethan suddenly remembered something.
The old homeless man.
Before losing consciousness, he had slipped something into Ethan's coat pocket.
His shaking hands searched every pocket until he found it.
A tiny brass key.
On its side was engraved a single number.
214.
Clara gasped.
"Safety Deposit Box 214."
Within an hour, Ethan arrived at an old private bank that had closed years earlier.
The manager recognized the key immediately.
"No one has opened this box for thirty years."
Inside was no money.
No jewelry.
Only a thick medical file... and a recent photograph.
Ethan's heart nearly stopped.
The photo showed a gray-haired man sitting in a wheelchair on the balcony of a secluded mountain estate.
The date printed on the back was...
Three days ago.
The man in the picture wasn't dead.
It wasn't a memory.
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It was Michael Carter.
His father was still alive.
