Chapter 13 - Ghosts of the Past
Three days after securing the European alliance, our private jet touched down in a secluded, fog-shrouded valley in the Pacific Northwest. While the international summit had solidified my dominance over the global syndicates, there was a loose end much closer to home—a ghost from my past that Carl’s letters had hinted at, but never fully explained.
My parents' car crash on Route 9.
For over a decade, I had lived with the agonizing belief that their deaths were a tragic, random accident. But as I read through the deeper classified files contained within Carl’s private digital vault—files unlocked only by my biometric thumbprint as his legal heir—I discovered a horrifying truth. Their deaths hadn't been an accident at all. They had been murdered by a rogue faction within the federal intelligence apparatus that wanted my father’s research on encrypted financial tracking systems—the very architecture that Carl later used to build his empire.
The car carrying Marcus, Elena, and me pulled up to an abandoned logging camp nestled deep in the damp, pine-scented woods. According to our intelligence feeds, Arthur Pendelton—the retired intelligence director who had ordered the hit on my parents twenty years ago—was living in self-imposed exile in a cabin just past the treeline.
"Are you sure you want to do this alone, Oanh?" Marcus asked, cutting the engine as the rain began to patter softly against the roof of the car. "We can storm the cabin in two minutes. Pendelton is old, retired, and completely unprotected."
"No," I said, opening my door and stepping out into the chilly mist. "This isn't a military operation. This is personal."
I walked down the overgrown dirt path alone, the dense canopy of pine trees swallowing the sound of my footsteps. The wooden cabin appeared through the fog, a faint yellow light glowing from its single front window. My heart hammered against my ribs, not with fear, but with a cold, righteous fury that had been burning inside me since I was seven years old.
I walked up the wooden porch steps and pushed the front door open without knocking. The door creaked loudly on its hinges, echoing in the small, dusty living room.
An elderly man with silver hair and weathered skin looked up from a rocking chair by the fireplace, freezing in place as he saw me standing in his doorway.
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"Who... who are you?" Pendelton stammered, his eyes widening in sudden, unadulterated terror as he stared at my face—a face that looked hauntingly like the man he had ordered assassinated two decades ago.
"My name is Oanh Vance," I said, stepping into the light, my voice as cold as ice. "And I’ve come to talk about my parents."
