"My mother risked her life to get me out. I was in the hospital for half a month before I woke up. When I opened my eyes and saw her, I could not recognize her. She was a bag of bones. We returned to our hometown, and my mother married an old German."

That man was an asshole. He drank and beat Tristan and his mother and Tristan. Soon he also lost all of his money. And he got himself seriously injured in a DUI.

When Tristan was in the last grade of senior high school, the last year of high school, he got the phone call and went to the hospital. He unplugged the oxygen pipe tube himself.

His mother didn't have to be tortured by this asshole anymore. However, her life had done too much damage to her physically and mentally. She had Alzheimer's disease at the age of 50.

"This is what happened to your brothers. Some of them are known, and some of them are unknown to you."

Donald's face was as gray as ashes. He moved mechanically to the couch and sank onto it. He seemed to be taking a long time to digest the facts.

He raised his head and asked in a husky voice, "So you came back to take revenge?"

"Right."

"The money was split by David Wagner and Harry Jackson. One used it as startup capital for his business and rose again; the other used it for bribing his way through political circles. They lived a good life. I was full of hatred when I thought of it."

"David Wagner, I killed him personally."

Tristan looked at his hands and said to himself, "That villain's blood was red too. He was a coward. He begged for his life."

"Harry Foster was cunning and suspicious, but he had his weakness: his daughter. Besides, everyone has greediness. All I can do is feed it. After David Wagner, I thought it was too easy for them to just end their life with a bullet."

When Tristan said this, his face was calm, but underneath lurked instability.

Donald was shocked and also sympathetic, "You are ruining yourself."

Tristan laughed, "I will be ruined with them."

"I took revenge and also achieved something that takes other people decades or a lifetime to achieve. Of course, everything has its cost. For this, I am prepared."

After his father died, Tristan had lost confidence in this world. And his wife's death took away the last shred of warmth from his life. He was desperate, and he initiated his revenge.

Tristan didn't expect Kate's entrance to bring back his d.e.s.i.r.e for life again.

When he thought of her, he felt warm, as if there was a gentle hand stroking his hard and cold c.h.e.s.t.

Donald asked with hesitation, "You reached out to Jessie because you wanted to hold something against me?"

Tristan's eyes looked depressed. "I did have that idea."

"But she is a nice girl, I cannot do that to her. Besides, I cannot allow myself to use my emotions as tools for revenge."

This was the only innocent part of Tristan's heart. Perhaps subconsciously, he still had some inhibitions. The emptiness meant hope. And he wore the ring for eight years to remind him to protect the last piece of unsullied heart.

Donald was full of guilt inside. His daughter being in this mire was entirely his fault.

It was good then. He must pay for what he did.

He gave it some thought. It seemed difficult for him, but he strangely made the decision, "Let me think about it. I will help you to get off."

Tristan said with indifference, "I am not coming to ask for your help today. I just wanted to catch up with you."

He lifted the photo again, "I am curious. Why is this photo in your office drawer?"

Donald's face turned gloomy, and he said with sorrow, "I wanted to remind myself not to do anything I would regret. I want to stick to justice and never indulge any evil d.e.s.i.r.e or sin."

Tristan laughed lightly, and his tone was sarcastic, "You have become a good civil servant at this cost."

The cost was his father's life and the happiness of his entire family.

A few minutes later, Tristan walked out of city hall.

When his eyes swept across the road lights, he seemed to see his teenage self from twenty years ago, who was lanky, with stubborn eyes and a heart full of hatred and struggle.

At that time, he was fresh out of the hospital. When he uncovered the gauze on his mother's face in the inn bathroom, he collapsed. He took a knife and wanted to fight those people who did this.

His mother cried and held him tightly to stop him. She grabbed a fruit knife and pointed it to her c.h.e.s.t to force him to give up the thought.

She said revenge was a dish that should be eaten cold.

So he took twenty years.

Or probably all his life.

Before returning to the villa, Tristan parked his car by the sea for some time.

He squatted at the beach, took out the photo he took from Donald's office and flipped his lighter on.

One of his hands blocked the wind as he ignited the picture. He stared at it. Its corner coiled up as it turned into ash and flew away in the wind.

Tristan murmured in his heart, "Dad, Mom, you can have peace now."

After Tristan returned home, he saw Kate sitting on the couch holding a book. Her soft profile was breathtakingly peaceful and elegant.

She heard his footsteps and turned back. Her eyes had the satisfaction of long expectations.

Tristan walked a few steps but then stopped and stood there, watching her walking toward him, her eyes carrying anxiety.

Tristan opened his arms to hold her, hugged her tight, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Why are you sitting up so late?"

"I can't fall asleep."

"You cannot sleep when I am not here?"

She didn't reply but leaned her head against his c.h.e.s.t. He stroked her smooth hair gently and muttered, "Kate."

"Yes?" Her voice was soft and seemed to travel directly to his heart and then to his mind.

"Kate."

"Lulu."

"I missed you."

He got the illusion that he was thirteen years old again and had just crossed three decades to come back.

It was a long journey. So he missed her so much.

He lifted his face and checked Kate's big eyes. Her eyes were clear and pure, like a place that had never been contaminated by this world. He bent down to kiss her lips.

At the same time, under cover of night, a car parked by the yard of a house. A gray-haired man in his fifties walked out of the car. He was deputy director of L.A.PD Roger Kane.

The person in the house had been waiting for him. "You have time to come today."

"Yes. I had some time and came to see how you are."

Roger swept his eyes around the house and said, "You have kept yourself here for months. It is time for you to get some fresh air."

"No hurry. Come see this." The young man took out a stack of paper from the drawer.

"After a deep investigation, the boss behind the scenes of Ocean Dew Private Club was Tristan, as expected. It was under cover of a private club, but in fact, it was a place for trading money and power.

Besides face-to-face trading, there was another innovative form of trade. Each room displayed some art collections. Most of them are private collections of government officials. And they are mostly counterfeit.

The bribers bought the counterfeits at a price for genius items, and thus the bribes were carried on in secret. The private club had strict management. We worked very hard to get the cooperation of a newly employed staff and got to know what was going on there. This is the list of part of the guests she sorted out."

Roger scanned every name, and many of them were familiar to him. He frowned. When he came to the end of the list, he was surprised, "Him too?"

The young man nodded, "It was said that every item in his collection, he had a counterfeit. He kept one and 'sold' the other one."

Roger paused for a while and then said gravely, "This was an unexpected finding. Tristan is powerful and influential. He developed a network so wide and dragged so many people in."

The young man said, "To be clear, he didn't drag them in. He just followed the course. He got them into the same network."

Roger nodded, "Now it is not just a case of just him and Chasin. It involved…"

He didn't finish his words, but they both understood and looked away to the window.

The night was pitch dark, but they could still see dark clouds roaring in the sky.

The city was going to have a heavy storm.