CHAPTER 5 – The Bullet That Changed Everything
Glass exploded across the living room.
The boy instinctively dropped to the floor as another gunshot ripped through the front window.
His father shoved him behind the overturned dining table.
"Stay down!"
Outside, black-clad men surrounded the house from every direction.
They weren't there to arrest anyone.
They were there to erase everyone.
His mother crawled toward the kitchen, desperately reaching for her phone.
"No signal..."
His father wasn't surprised.
"They've jammed everything."
Another bullet punched through the wall inches above the boy's head.
His father glanced toward the back door.
"We've got thirty seconds."
He pulled up a loose floorboard beneath the old rug.
The boy stared in disbelief.
A narrow tunnel disappeared into darkness beneath the house.
"I built this twenty years ago," his father said.
"I always knew this day would come."
Before they could climb inside, the front door exploded inward.
The masked men stormed into the house.
"Target located!"
Without hesitation, the father stepped into the open.
He raised both hands.
"I'm the one you want."
The leader lowered his rifle.
"Finally."
The father looked back at his son.
"No matter what happens next..."
"Never stop looking for the truth."
Then he slammed the trapdoor shut from above.
The boy screamed.
"DAD!"
His mother dragged him deeper into the tunnel as tears streamed down her face.
"You have to keep moving!"
The tunnel ended nearly half a mile away beneath an abandoned church.
When they finally emerged, police cars and ambulances raced toward the burning house in the distance.
The boy collapsed to his knees.
His father had sacrificed himself.
Or so he believed.
Just then, his mother's phone vibrated.
One new message.
Unknown Number.
Only five words.
"He's alive. Don't trust anyone."
Attached was a security camera photo taken less than thirty seconds earlier.
It showed his father...
Handcuffed.
Still alive.
Standing beside the masked gunmen.
But what froze the boy's blood wasn't that his father had survived.
It was the man standing next to him.
The leader of the armed team slowly removed his mask.
The boy recognized him instantly.
He wasn't a stranger.
He wasn't a soldier.
He was the respected judge who had declared the father's death twenty years earlier.
May you like
And he smiled directly into the camera...
As if he knew the boy was watching.
