I couldn't think straight.
Too many emotions crashed into me at once, piling up until they blurred together into something raw and overwhelming. Fear sat at the center of it all. Not the fleeting kind that comes and goes, but the deep, paralyzing kind that tightens your chest and makes every breath feel heavier than the last.
Mrs. Lina's gaze didn't help.
She wasn't looking at me the way she always had. There was no warmth in her eyes now, no softness, no motherly reassurance. What stared back at me was sharp, calculating, and dangerous. The kind of look you don't forget once you've seen it.
Questions swirled endlessly in my head, each one louder than the last, but none of them made it past my lips. Fear kept them locked inside. Fear of what she might say. Fear of what she might do. Fear that the woman standing in front of me wasn't the woman who raised me.
But no matter how afraid I was, I needed answers.
If Mrs. Lina had been hiding something this massive, something that rewrote everything I thought I knew about her, then what else was buried beneath the surface? What else had been kept from me? From all of us?
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, until I couldn't take it anymore.
"How… how is this possible?" I finally asked. My voice shook, my body trembling despite my effort to stay still. "Mrs. Lina…"
It was obvious how affected I was. I didn't need to look at my hands to know they were shaking. I could feel it in my knees, in my breath, in the way my heart hammered against my ribs.
"It's obvious you'd be trembling," Mrs. Lina replied calmly. Her voice was nothing like the one I'd grown up with. The warmth, the gentle affection, all of it was gone. "Anyone would be. This must have come as quite a shock."
Shock.
The word felt insultingly small.
"Shock?" I echoed, my eyes widening. "I just found out you're an assassin."
The words tasted strange in my mouth, unreal, like I was saying them about someone else.
"And not only that," I continued, my voice gaining strength as fear slowly gave way to something else, "you've been hiding a secret room filled with weapons and surveillance equipment under the same roof where children sleep."
Something rose inside me then. Hot. Sharp. Empowering.
Anger.
Anger at being lied to. Anger at being kept in the dark. Anger at the thought that all of this, every single dangerous secret, had existed right beneath our feet while we lived our normal lives upstairs.
"And the bounty," I added, my trembling no longer fueled by fear alone. "What happens when bounty hunters show up? When hitmen and assassins decide to collect it?"
My fists clenched.
"What happens to us?" I demanded. "To the kids?"
The words came out harsher than I intended, but I didn't take them back.
"We'd be in danger."
For a moment, Mrs. Lina said nothing. She simply stared at me, her expression unreadable.
"I would never let that happen," she said at last.
Her voice was firm. Absolute.
Then she turned away from me and walked toward one of the black metallic chairs positioned near the desk. She sat down slowly, as if the weight of everything had finally settled on her shoulders.
"I suppose I owe you an explanation," she said. "Sit down, Henry. You'll need to hear this properly."
She gestured to the chair beside me.
I hesitated.
My anger still simmered beneath my skin, refusing to cool, but curiosity and necessity won out. I needed to know. About her past. About this place. About why she'd chosen now of all times to reveal the truth.
After a moment, I sat.
"First," Mrs. Lina said quietly, "thank you for listening."
The warmth returned to her voice, faint but real, like embers reigniting after being nearly extinguished.
"It's not like I hate you," I said, surprising myself. "At the end of the day… you're still my mother."
The words came out softer than I expected. A faint smile tugged at my lips, and just like that, the anger that had flared so violently began to dissipate.
Mrs. Lina smiled too, relief flickering across her face.
But it vanished just as quickly.
Her expression hardened, and the air in the room shifted.
"America," she began, her voice steady and serious, "the land of the free and the home of the brave. Your generation grew up believing in those words."
She looked at me, her eyes sharp.
"But it wasn't always like that."
I leaned back slightly, tension creeping back into my shoulders.
"There was a time when this country was at war with itself," she continued. "Political conflict. Power struggles. Corruption at every level."
Her hands clenched at her sides.
"The common people suffered. Endlessly."
She stood abruptly, the movement so sudden it startled me.
"No matter what methods were used," she said, pacing slowly, "embezzlement, nepotism, backdoor deals, nothing worked. The war dragged on, and the suffering only grew."
She stopped and looked directly at me.
"They needed a solution."
She turned back to the desk, rummaging through the piles of documents until she pulled out a sleek black card and held it up.
"One man believed he had one."
She handed the card to me.
I took it, my fingers brushing against the cold surface, and immediately recognized the emblem.
AAO.
The same symbol I'd seen yesterday. The same card carried by the leader of the men who attacked me.
"Calvin Rutherford," Mrs. Lina said. "That was his name."
My breath caught.
"An agency," she continued, "designed to handle what the government couldn't. Or wouldn't."
"By dirty work…" I began slowly.
"Yes," she interrupted. "Assassination."
The word landed like a gunshot.
"The American Assassination Order," she said. "The AAO was formed for that purpose."
My body stiffened, fear flooding back into my veins. My mind struggled to process the weight of what she was telling me.
"At first, it was a small group," she went on. "Elite men and women operating in the shadows, answering only to Calvin. But secrets never stay buried forever."
She returned to her chair.
"When the government discovered them, they had a choice. Destroy the organization… or control it."
I swallowed.
"They chose the latter."
The implications hit me all at once.
"The AAO became government-funded," she said. "Legalized. Hidden in plain sight. Now, they take contracts from anyone who can afford the price."
Everything began to click.
The thugs. Their confidence. The card.
And her.
I stood suddenly, my chair scraping against the floor as I moved to the desk. I searched through the papers until my fingers landed on the bounty poster.
At the top, the silver AAO emblem gleamed mockingly.
"That bounty," Mrs. Lina said quietly, stepping closer, "is new."
I turned to her sharply.
"New?" I asked. "You mean someone recently put this on your head?"
She nodded.
"Why?" I demanded. "Why would anyone do that?"
She didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know who issued it," she finally said. "And that's the problem."
My confusion deepened.
"That's why," she continued, meeting my gaze, "I need you to take it down."
I stared at her.
"Me?"
Before I could protest, she turned back to the desk, pulling out a brightly colored flyer. Blue accents. A university campus. Bold white letters.
BITE.
I read it twice.
Then again.
"A university?" I asked slowly.
She looked at me with unwavering seriousness.
"You're going to attend it."
The room fell silent.
I searched her face for any sign of hesitation, any hint that this was some elaborate joke.
There was none.
And in that moment, I realized something terrifying.
My life, the one I thought I understood, had just ended.
And whatever came next… had already begun.