Chapter 363: Full-Circle Moment

Ethan continued watching as the vision carried him further into Victor’s past.

By this point, Victor had already made a name for himself in Brooklyn. He had started to establish himself in the criminal underworld and was raking in cash. That was when he met the woman who seemed to be Ethan’s mother.

Unlike the other women Victor surrounded himself with, she was different.

She was difficult to convince despite being young and homeless. Victor eventually stopped trying to force her into the same role as the others. Instead, he began giving her money without expecting anything from her.

Perhaps that was what made things different between them.

They spent more time together, and eventually, they fell for each other.

Their relationship became genuine, and before long, the two of them had a child.

Baby Ethan was brought into the world.

Victor should have been happy.

Instead, he was terrified.

He was afraid of what he might do to his own son.

Victor had grown up with an abusive father, and the last thing he wanted was for Ethan to experience the same kind of childhood he had. He didn’t trust himself to raise a child without eventually becoming the very thing he hated.

So Victor did what he thought was necessary.

He pushed Ethan’s mother away and returned to sleeping with other women, continuing to live the same scummy lifestyle he had before.

Ethan’s mother didn’t know the real reason.

As far as she was concerned, Victor had simply returned to being a cheating asshole.

She loathed him for it.

Victor gave his son his surname and provided Ethan’s mother with a house, but he refused to settle down with her. He also told her that she couldn’t remain around him and continue working for him.

She left.

Rather than depending on Victor or any more of his handouts, she decided to raise her son alone. She tried to find work and provide for Ethan herself, refusing to accept anything else from Victor.

But raising and providing for a child alone wasn’t easy, especially with a drug addiction.

Eventually, she found herself with nowhere else to turn.

She returned to selling herself.

Ethan was still only a child at the time.

He had no idea what was happening around him.

He didn’t understand why his mother was always struggling, why she was constantly disappearing, or why the woman who birthed him seemed to be slowly falling apart.

And before Ethan even understood what was happening, she was dead.

He was alone in the world.

The sight seemed to hit Victor harder than anything else Ethan had seen in the vision. The death of the woman he had once loved broke something inside him. But instead of making him kinder, it made him crueller, and it seemed to do the same to his son.

Victor had already abandoned the woman he loved.

Now, after her death, he even abandoned the son they had brought into the world.

He stayed away.

He watched from a distance.

Ethan, meanwhile, was taken in by his neighbours.

They had been close to him for years and had already spent a great deal of time looking after him. Aunt Clarissa had recognised that Ethan’s mother wasn’t exactly in a position to properly care for him, and she had done what she could to help.

Before long, Mark and his family became Ethan’s real family.

They were the people who were there for him.

The people who fed him, protected him, and actually cared about him.

Victor watched it all from a distance.

Ethan stared at the scene unfolding before him.

’So the creep watched me most of my life, but never thought to speak to his own son.’

The bitterness in his thoughts was obvious.

He continued watching his own life unfold through the eyes of another, seeing pieces of his childhood that he had never known existed. Little did Victor know that one day, he would cross paths with the boy he had abandoned.

It would be a full-circle moment.

Unfortunately, when that day finally came, it wouldn’t be a happy one for either of them...

-

Almost a decade passed.

Ethan was seventeen, had dropped out of school, and was running amok alongside Marcus Reed.

The two were inseparable.

They had made quite a name for themselves on the streets as a pair of young ruffians who were reckless, troublesome, and surprisingly dangerous.

At least for small-time crooks.

Though they didn’t want to remain small-time forever.

’Mark wanted to be one and done. I just wanted enough money to become big-time.’

Ethan felt his stomach knot as he watched the memories unfold.

’I think I know where this is going...’

His entire life seemed far more intertwined than he had ever realised.

It was almost as though someone had been watching his life from above, following every twist and turn while finding some cruel amusement in how everything eventually came together.

Back then, Ethan and Mark had their eyes on a big-time brothel owner who was rumoured to have a large amount of cash.

They had been watching the man’s establishment for some time.

Every week, he made a large cash drop, which was naturally when they planned to strike.

The robbery itself went smoothly.

As young and wild as they were, Ethan and Mark were good at what they did. They knew how to fight, they were skilled thieves, and they were both daring enough to attempt things most people their age wouldn’t even consider.

It wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.

But they were good at it.

From Victor’s perspective, however, the robbery became far more interesting.

One night, he was driving home when he received a call informing him that one of his cash drops had been robbed. Victor immediately turned the car around, grabbed his gun, and rushed toward the scene.

He knew how he would have escaped if he had been the one robbing himself, and he used that knowledge to predict where the thieves would go.

It didn’t take long.

He spotted one of the two figures running away with a duffel bag in hand.

Victor immediately pursued him.

"Stop!"

The thief froze.

Victor raised his pistol.

"Drop my money!"

The figure was clearly unarmed, and Victor had him cornered.

At the time, Ethan believed they had gotten away with it. He had his mask pulled up off his face, despite Mark warning him to be more careful.

Ironically, his recklessness was what saved his life.

The moment Victor got a clear look at him in that alley, he froze.

His eyes widened.

’Ethan?’

There was no mistaking it.

Victor recognised his son, and even though he had abandoned him, he had spent years watching from a distance. The woman he had once loved had left her face in him.

He couldn’t pull the trigger or kill his own son.

Having been ahead of Ethan during their escape, Mark had heard Victor’s yell and doubled back when he realized his friend had been caught. Victor had been so shocked by seeing Ethan that he had momentarily forgotten there were two thieves.

Mark immediately pounced on him.

The two struggled over the gun, both ironically wanting to protect the same person. Victor tried to wrestle the surprisingly strong teenager away, but he was caught off guard.

Bang!

The weapon went off, and Victor suddenly felt the impact.

He stumbled backwards, clutching the bleeding wound as the reality of what had just happened finally registered.

Ethan watched as Victor’s younger self struggled to remain standing, blood pouring from his wound. Even though Ethan was only watching the memory, he could almost feel the man’s pain.

That’s when things took a somehow even darker turn.

Ethan’s younger self stepped forward.

He calmly walked over to Mark and took the gun from his friend’s hand.

Victor stared at him, and Ethan stared back.

The injured man immediately began begging for his life.

He swore he didn’t care about the money anymore and promised he would let them go and wouldn’t say anything. The man almost seemed trustworthy, but Ethan couldn’t take that risk.

If Victor survived, he could report them.

And even if he didn’t, Ethan couldn’t know whether the man would eventually come after them. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.

So Ethan made his decision.

He raised the gun.

Victor stared into his eyes.

For a brief moment, father and son looked directly at each other; neither of them truly understood the significance of that moment.

Victor knew he was looking at his son.

Ethan didn’t know he was looking at his father.

Then Ethan pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The bullet struck Victor directly in the face, destroying his right eye and leaving him motionless on the ground. That’s when the vision suddenly went dark, and Ethan was left floating in darkness once more.

Just like that it was over, and he was unsure what to think or believe.