CHAPTER 6: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LIES
CHAPTER 6: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LIES
Daniel's private jet landed in Atlanta just before sunset.
No media.
No motorcade.
No corporate welcome.
Only one black SUV waited beside the runway.
Ji-hoon opened the door.
"We've arranged security."
Daniel nodded absentmindedly.
His attention remained fixed on the small envelope inside his jacket.
The copy of Ethan's application.
He had read it more than fifty times during the flight.
Every achievement.
Every award.
Every volunteer activity.
Every line reminded him of years he could never reclaim.
Across town...
Maya had not stopped crying.
Not loud sobs.
Quiet ones.
The kind that came from realizing your entire life had been built on a lie.
She spread everything across the dining table.
Her returned letters.
Daniel's unopened letter.
The fake newspaper clipping.
Old photographs.
Dates.
Addresses.
She suddenly noticed something she had missed for twenty-five years.
The engagement announcement she had received at the Han estate carried no newspaper name.
No publication date.
No issue number.
Only a headline.
It wasn't a newspaper clipping.
It had been professionally printed.
Specifically...
For her.
She covered her mouth.
"Oh my God..."
Ethan looked over her shoulder.
"It was fake."
She nodded slowly.
"They planned it."
Thousands of miles away in Seoul...
An elderly woman sat alone in a private nursing suite overlooking a garden.
Former Han family matriarch...
Madam Sun-hee Han.
Ninety years old.
Her memory faded in and out.
Most days she remembered almost nothing.
Today...
She remembered everything.
A nurse adjusted her blanket.
The old woman suddenly grabbed the nurse's wrist.
"Daniel..."
"Ma'am?"
"My son..."
The nurse smiled gently.
"He's in America."
The old woman's cloudy eyes widened.
"No..."
She whispered.
"Don't let him find the girl..."
The nurse frowned.
"What girl?"
"Maya..."
Tears rolled down the old woman's wrinkled cheeks.
"I lied..."
"I lied..."
"I lied..."
At that same moment...
Daniel's SUV stopped quietly across the street from Maya's yellow house.
The lights inside were still on.
He could see silhouettes moving through the curtains.
One belonged to Maya.
The other...
His son.
Daniel rested one trembling hand on the door handle.
Twenty-five years of longing stood only forty feet away.
He took a deep breath.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
Instead...
He answered.
An elderly female voice whispered weakly through the speaker.
"Daniel..."
His heart stopped.
"Mother?"
"I did it..."
"What are you talking about?"
"I kept you apart..."
Daniel felt the world tilt beneath him.
His mother continued, struggling for every breath.
"The letters..."
"I destroyed them..."
"The engagement..."
"It was never real..."
"Maya came..."
"You begged for her..."
"I sent her away..."
Daniel could no longer breathe.
Across the street, Ethan stepped onto the front porch, unaware that his father was watching from the darkness.
At that exact second, Daniel opened the SUV door.
Father and son locked eyes for the very first time.
Neither spoke.
Neither moved.
The distance between them was only a quiet suburban street.
May you like
Yet it had taken twenty-five years to cross.
To be continued...
