Chapter 16 Blood Never Forgot #4
A man shouted.
Gunfire exploded in response.
Eva nearly screamed as she lowered herself through the window.
Inside—
More shots.
Then silence.
She dropped into the flower bed.
Pain shot through her ankle.
She didn't stop.
Barefoot.
Pajamas.
Tears streaming.
She ran.
Two houses.
Mr. Willis.
Exactly as Terrence taught her.
Behind her, the David house remained dark.
Then another burst of gunfire shattered the night.
Eva stumbled.
"No."
She kept running.
"Terrence."
She reached Mr. Willis's porch and slammed both hands against the door.
"HELP!"
Lights came on.
"HELP ME!"
Inside the David home, Terrence lay near the upstairs hallway.
Blood spread beneath him.
His gun remained several feet away.
Footsteps approached.
A masked man looked down.
"He's alive."
Another voice answered from downstairs.
"Finish it."
The man raised his weapon.
Then sirens sounded faintly in the distance.
Fast.
Multiple units.
The attacker froze.
"Police."
Another man cursed.
"Move!"
They ran.
No finishing shot.
No time.
Within seconds, the intruders disappeared through the backyard.
Terrence remained on the floor.
Barely conscious.
His fingers moved weakly.
Toward the family photograph that had fallen from the hallway table.
The glass had shattered.
Tan's face remained visible beneath the cracks.
Terrence tried to breathe.
"Son..."
Across town, Tan slept beside Amari.
His phone sat charging on the nightstand.
The engagement ring was hidden inside a locked box several feet away.
At 3:06 a.m., the phone began ringing.
Tan didn't hear it immediately.
It stopped.
Then rang again.
Amari stirred.
"T."
Nothing.
The phone rang a third time.
She reached over.
The screen glowed.
MAMA
Amari sat up.
"T."
She shook him.
"Your mom's calling."
Tan's eyes opened.
"What?"
"Your mom."
He reached for the phone.
3:07 a.m.
Three missed calls.
His heart instantly tightened.
Nobody called at three in the morning with good news.
He answered.
"Mama?"
He heard crying.
Not normal crying.
Sobbing.
Tan sat upright.
"Mama?"
Amari turned on the lamp.
Eva tried to speak.
"Tan..."
His heart pounded.
"What happened?"
"They..."
Her voice broke.
"They shot your daddy."
The world stopped.
Tan didn't breathe.
Didn't move.
Amari stared.
"What?"
His voice barely worked.
Eva sobbed.
"Somebody broke in."
"Your daddy..."
"He's been shot."
Tan was already standing.
"Where are you?"
"Ambulance."
"They're taking him to Mercy."
"Is he alive?"
Silence.
"MAMA, IS HE ALIVE?"
"Yes!"
She cried harder.
"Yes, but..."
Tan didn't hear the rest.
He grabbed clothes.
Gun.
Wallet.
Keys.
Amari was already dressing.
"T, I'm coming."
Tan looked at her.
Everything inside him had changed.
The man who saved him.
Raised him.
Loved him.
His father.
Somebody had tried to kill his father.
Amari moved toward him.
"Tan."
He stared past her.
For one second, he wasn't thirty-something.
He was five.
Standing in the middle of a street.
Terrified.
Looking for someone to save him.
Then training replaced shock.
"Call Travis."
"Okay."
"Call Ella."
"Okay."
"My grandparents."
"I will."
Tan grabbed his jacket.
Amari caught his hand.
He looked at her.
Her eyes were full of fear.
But steady.
"I'm with you."
Tan squeezed her hand.
“Let’s go.”
Miles away, Jin's phone vibrated.
One message.
Target hit. Police arrived early. Status unknown.
Jin stared at it.
Unknown.
He typed:
Find out.
The response came.
Working.
Jin walked toward the penthouse window.
Los Angeles spread beneath him.
Somewhere in that city, Tan was receiving the worst call of his life.
Jin imagined his reaction.
Shock.
Anger.
Grief.
Good.
Angry men made mistakes.
Behind Jin, the silent television screen reflected his face.
For a moment, something almost like regret surfaced.
He pushed it away.
This wasn't about revenge.
He told himself that.
It was survival.
Legacy.
Control.
The Lee empire belonged to him.
He had built it.
Protected it.
Expanded it.
Tan had no right to return after decades and threaten everything.
Blood didn't get to walk back into your life simply because it shared your name.
Jin's jaw tightened.
Funny.
He wondered whether Terrence David would've agreed.
Probably.
And that irritated him most.
At 3:29 a.m., Tan's SUV tore through Los Angeles toward Mercy General Hospital.
Amari sat beside him calling family members.
Travis answered on the second ring.
"What's wrong?"
Amari struggled.
"Travis..."
He immediately became alert.
"What happened?"
"Your dad's been shot."
Silence.
Then—
"What?"
"Home invasion."
"Oh my God."
"He's alive."
"I'm coming."
The call ended.
Ella answered next.
When Amari told her, she screamed.
Then started crying.
Tan gripped the steering wheel.
Harder.
His knuckles whitened.
Amari ended the call and reached toward him.
"T."
He didn't respond.
She rested her hand against his arm.
"He's alive."
Tan stared through the windshield.
"For now."
"Don't."
"Somebody went into his house."
"I know."
"They sabotaged the alarm."
"Your mom said that?"
"She said the panel never went off."
Tan's police mind was already working.
Too quickly.
Too personally.
"That wasn't random."
Amari looked toward him.
"T—"
"Nobody robs a house at three in the morning with multiple shooters and disables communication first unless they planned it."
His voice became colder.
"They went there for him."
Amari's stomach twisted.
"Who?"
Tan's eyes darkened.
"I don't know."
But another thought already existed.
Golden Meridian.
The dragon.
The Lee name.
The national television interview.
His past.
He refused to connect them without evidence.
Still—
Something deep inside him whispered that this was no coincidence.
Tan drove faster.
The hospital lights appeared ahead.
His phone buzzed again.
A message from Eva.
Emergency surgery. Hurry.
Tan swallowed.
Amari reached for his hand.
This time, he held on.
The engagement ring remained locked inside his apartment.
The proposal waited.
The future waited.
Everything waited.
Because somewhere inside Mercy General Hospital, Terrence David—the man who had stopped his car for a frightened five-year-old and changed the course of his life—was fighting to survive.
And Tan Lee David was about to learn that blood could reach across decades.
That buried families could rise from the past.
That love created weaknesses enemies were willing to exploit.
And that somewhere in the darkness, a brother Tan had spent most of his life searching for had already found him first.