Chapter 5 - THE SINS OF THE FATHER
Gunfire shattered the quiet highway, a deafening staccato of violence. Before the three mercenaries could even properly shoulder their rifles, I squeezed the trigger of the SIG Sauer three times in rapid succession. My hands, hardened by years of competitive marksmanship before the accident, did not betray me. Two of the men dropped instantly, clutching their chests as the heavy 9mm rounds found their marks.
The third man dove behind the open door of the SUV, returning fire. Bullets chewed into the dirt around us, kicking up rocks and mud.
"Get down!" I roared, shoving Rebecca and Sammy deeper into the drainage ditch. I lay flat on my stomach, my useless legs dragging behind me, and carefully lined up my sights on the tiny gap between the SUV's door hinge and the chassis.
I fired once. The bullet ricocheted perfectly, striking the man in the leg. He screamed, stumbling backward, exposing his torso. I fired twice more, silencing him permanently.
The ensuing silence was heavy, ringing in my ears. I kept the gun aimed at the vehicle for ten agonizing seconds, waiting for any movement. Nothing.
"Are you hit?" I asked, looking back at Rebecca, who was clutching Sammy underneath her.
"No," she gasped, her whole body shaking. "We're okay."
"Help me to the car," I commanded.
She hauled me up, grunting under my weight, and practically carried me to the idling SUV. I threw open the driver's side door, dragging the dead mercenary out onto the asphalt. I hauled myself into the driver's seat. Driving a car without the use of my legs was nearly impossible, but I had no choice. I reached under the steering column, ripped off the plastic panel, and exposed the wiring. Using the barrel of the gun, I jammed the brake pedal down so the car would stay in gear, using the emergency handbrake as my only method of stopping, and my right hand to operate the steering wheel and the gas pedal with a spare piece of pipe I found on the floorboard.
Rebecca buckled Sammy into the back and jumped into the passenger seat. I slammed the gas pedal down with the pipe, the engine roaring in protest as we tore off down the dark highway, leaving the carnage behind us.
We drove in silence for thirty minutes, the heater blasting, slowly thawing our freezing bodies. The adrenaline began to fade, replaced by a deep, hollow exhaustion. My mind kept circling back to the revelation of Elias.
"Tell me everything," I said, my voice hoarse, keeping my eyes locked on the road ahead. "How did Elias survive the fire twenty years ago? Why did he hide? Why didn't he come to me?"
Rebecca stared out the window into the darkness, her reflection pale and ghostly. "Because your father wasn't just a ruthless businessman, Ethan. He was a monster. The Caldwell empire wasn't built on smart investments; it was built on blood, extortion, and the hostile takeover of vulnerable rivals. Elias found out. He discovered a hidden ledger that proved Arthur Caldwell was responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen people who stood in his way."
The words hit me like physical blows. My father had been a cold man, distant and demanding, but a murderer?
"Elias confronted him," Rebecca continued, her voice trembling with the memory of a story she had undoubtedly heard a hundred times from the man she loved. "Your father didn't flinch. He told Elias that power requires sacrifice, and that if Elias tried to expose him, he would destroy him. That night, the fire broke out in the east wing. Where Elias slept."
"I started that fire," I whispered, the crushing guilt of twenty years suffocating me. "I was playing with a vintage lighter in the library beneath his room. The curtains caught... I couldn't stop it. I ran."
Rebecca turned to look at me, her eyes filled with profound sadness. "No, Ethan. You didn't start the fire. Your father's men did. They knew you were in the library playing. They used you as the scapegoat. They set the fire, locked Elias's door from the outside, and made sure you were seen running away. They wanted Elias dead, and they wanted you burdened with the guilt so you would be pliable, traumatized, and easy for Arthur to mold into his perfect, ruthless heir."
My hands gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned. The entire foundation of my life, the trauma that had driven me to become a billionaire, the self-hatred that fueled my ambition—all of it was a meticulously crafted lie by my own father.
"Elias managed to break the window and jump into the lake," Rebecca said softly. "But he was badly burned. He knew that if he revealed he was alive, Arthur would just try again, and this time, he might kill you too to tie up loose ends. So Elias let the world believe he burned to ashes. He watched you grow up. When Arthur died of a heart attack five years later, Elias thought it was safe to return. But then he realized Marcus had taken Arthur's place. Marcus knew the secrets. Marcus was continuing the legacy of blood."
"So Elias became a ghost," I murmured, staring blindly at the road lines flashing by. "He protected me from the shadows. And when Marcus finally made his move on me with the car crash, Elias sent you into my house to watch over me."
"He was trying to find proof of the neuro-inhibitor Dr. Aris was giving you," Rebecca cried quietly. "He needed hard evidence to take to the feds to bring Marcus down and save you. But Marcus found him first."
From the backseat, a small voice broke through the heavy grief filling the car.
"My dad wasn't scared," Sammy said firmly. I looked at him in the rearview mirror. The six-year-old boy was sitting perfectly straight, his jaw set in a way that mirrored Elias so perfectly it made my chest ache. "He told me that Caldwell men don't cry when they get hurt. They get angry. And then they win."
I stared at the mirror for a long time. The sins of my father had destroyed my family, killed my brother, and left me crippled in a wheelchair. I had spent eight months weeping in a garden, believing my life was over.
But I was done crying.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small, silver pillbox Dr. Aris had given me, the one containing the white pills I was supposed to take every twelve hours. I rolled down the window and tossed the entire box out into the rushing wind.
"We need a safe place," I told Rebecca, my voice cold, devoid of any weakness. "A place Marcus doesn't know about. A place where I can sweat this poison out of my system."
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"Where?" she asked.
"The one place my father told me never to go," I replied, pressing the makeshift gas pedal harder. "The original foundry where Caldwell Industries was born. It's been abandoned for thirty years. It's time to go back to where the rot started, and burn it all out."
