Chapter 122: Chapter 122

"If I were her, I would have made sure that single bullet nailed his vicious heart," Jack spoke with his jaw clenched.

Andy leaned his back to his chair. He took a deep breath and composed himself to ask.

"And why is that?" Andy managed to speak with calmness in his tone. He stared at the young man's face, trying to see any signs of deception he would try to pull a trick on them.

"Because that son of the Devil made Brianna live in hell almost every day of her youth," Jack replied with anger. "She was trained to be a killer machine, with the motivation that she would be able to avenge her parents' death. She drowned more than her fingers in a single hand as Charles made her hold her breath in the water with her ankles chained beneath the waters to a huge stone. She would have to unlock the chains in time to make it out to the surface and breath. The first few times she didn't make it, she drowned only to be rescued, breath again, and restart the training."

The three men in front of Jack Foster could not believe what they were hearing, but Lucien, who was watching them from where Anna was, through a portable screen, was holding his chest in pain to her Anna almost died a few times even when she was still young.

Lucien wanted to crush whoever did such an evil thing to Anna, but he will have to wait until she has recovered. And he couldn't even leave Anna to join the conversations in the study room as he was wary she would wake up while he was gone. Even though the doctors told him she wouldn't be awake for about a day or two.

"That was only one of her tough training. She was also trained to survive the dark with traps shooting bows and arrows at her. She had to sharpen her senses in the dark to detect where her enemy could be and quickly estimate the angle of her position to avoid the arrows hitting her."

Jack continued. He stared at the empty glass of water subconsciously. Enzo realized that the young man, telling them such an interesting story, might be thirsty about a person they all feel concerned about, so he handed Jack Foster a fresh glass of water.

"That saddest part is the fact that after she successfully passes a set of survival training, a new set would be presented and for her to accomplish as well. There was a time when she gave up; she must have been too exhausted that she firmly disobeyed Charles Anderson, but she was threatened to get shot right in her forehead. Charles said that she is useless for not doing her best to avenge her parents, so she should just die. And that she wasted so much of Charles Anderson's time and resources, so he would rather shoot her by himself."

Jack felt his anger intensify. The more he recalls about B's sufferings from Charles' hands; Jack hates the man deeper into his core.

"Who is Charles Anderson?" Andy asked with so much confusion. Leon and Enzo seemed to know; he was the only one who didn't, as what he could notice with how everyone was reacting.

"The man who took Brianna in after her parents died," Jack spoke with extreme hatred that could be discerned from the sound of his words.

Andy, Enzo, and most especially Leandro did not fail to notice the cutting acidity in Jack Foster's voice as he darted a sharp glare at the old Michaelson.

"Be careful, boy," Enzo warned Jack.

But the latter just scorned and replied with anguish.

"Why? Would you give the same orders you did to do with Brianna's parents?" Jack sneered. "Did you know that you are the face that made her survive every training, no matter how deadly they came? She even became numb and almost like a robot from all the pain she had to go through? Why did you have to leave a girl alive but alone? Witnessing her train and go through a lot of unimaginable ways to survive makes me wish she just joined her parents died the moment they did. At least, she will be together with her family. No pain, no suffering. That would have been way much better than having her around die again and again."

Jack became emotional, pounding on the table with his fists clenched.

"What are you talking about?" Leandro asked; his eyes widened in great shock as Jack seemed to ask him all the questions he had just said. "Are you saying I killed her parents?"

"Didn't you? Didn't you give the orders to silence them?" Jack asked back. He tried to scrutinize Leandro Michaelson's reactions, facial and all, to see if he would be faking any of it. But the more he perused, the more he was convinced that the old man was genuinely stunned.

Leandro was half stricken and more than half provoked that he was used to instigate anger in a young child's heart and mind. He even fears that hatred had deeply rooted into her soul already, but he had no choice. He did not know about it. There was nothing he could do then, but it might be different now.

"I don't even know them until this friend of mine told me he knew Anna and her family," Leandro did not take offense at Jack's provoking questions at him.

Jack was wise enough not to accuse the old Michaelson.

"That was what Charles told Brianna almost every time she would want to quit. And even before that, your name with your picture as her target in the shooting range, Charles Anderson would always drill the words in her mind that she needed to learn how to shoot with precisions on fatal points to make sure she doesn't miss and make her parents proud. Get their deaths avenged, and they would be resting in peace knowing their daughter found justice for their death." Jack was beginning to feel his suspicions earlier about the Michaelson being innocent were starting to come to light. But if not Leandro Michaelson, then who?

"Wait a minute," Andy raised a hand to get everyone's attention. "You mean to say, the man she shot in the video clip earlier was the man named Charles Anderson?"

Leandro and Jack answered in unison. Enzo was almost to join the chorus. He just quickly bit his tongue when he heard his Master replied already, along with the young man.

"Yes."

Andy looked at Leandro. His eyes were still confused.

"How did you know about this man?" Andy asked Leandro.

"I asked my men to check on everything we could find about Anna after that incident of her visiting the enemy's lair," Leandro answered with pride. He was proud not of his men for digging something; he was proud of how Anna was a kickass when she was doing her job. Even when she jumped to cover Lucien in the basement where their captive managed to blow a bomb, then when she went on a mission all by herself and still nailed it with beyond impressive victory. "I believe an extraordinary person like Anna would not just pop out of nowhere. I asked for her family background everything or anything they could dig about her. But so far, we only found her data along with the information my men were able to find about the place she invaded," Leandro signaled for Enzo to get him a glass of water.

Jack was startled to realize that his firewall on Charles' files was still penetrated. But he did not say anything. He doesn't care about Charles Anderson. He was just a little bothered that Brianna's name was in it. He should have erased her name. He should do it before the date gets leaked.

"We found out that Anna is one of Charles Anderson's mercenaries. The top ranker. But we don't know why she turned her back on his boss, and she even went there, to their safe house to pay them a visit and deliver her warning message personally," Leandro continued.

Andy reached for the laptop, and after a few touches in it, here and there, he moved the screen where Jack and Leandro could clearly see. Then he asked.

"Is this the man, you both call Charles Anderson?" Andy frowned; his questioning and anxious glances bounced from Jack to Leon and then to Enzo, as well. To Andy's great consternation, the three gave a positive answer confirming his question to be yes.

"So you mean, this man took Little Liz in the whole time she was missing?" Andy asked again.

This time, it was Jack's turn to feel lost.

"Who? Who was missing? Little...what?" Jack was dazed.

"Brianna," Andy replied with eagerness. "Her mom's name is Elizabeth, and she looked just like her mom, so we all called her Little Liz when she was a toddler. Well, that was the years we were able to see her," Andy explained. Then he asked again.

"Again, you mean, this man, Charles whatever, was the man who took her in and raised her to be a mercenary?"