ENTANGLED STRINGS OF PAST

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

AIDEN

"Uncle is fine, Aiden" Terry called while walking in.

"She is gone"

Words left my throat unknowingly.

He stopped.

"What...how ..how can she?" he couldn't frame his words.

She just disappeared like fog in the mirror.

One moment she was in front of me and another moment I lost her.

Again.

"Come on! Let's go! Just hasn't gone far. Let-"

"Terry"

"Let's just go and get her. She-"

"Terry!" I interrupted him...

"She is gone! She left this fucking file to tell me she is not coming back!" I showed him the Pendrive.

"So what are we gonna do now? Let her go...Just like this?"

"I don't know" I scrubbed my hand over my face.

I wasn't able to think of anything!

"How's uncle now?" I asked him.

"he..he is fine. Resting at the bar" he mumbled.

"Let's go to get the answers to the goddamn questions!" I shoved the pendrive into his chest and walked past him straight towards the only person who could finally calm down the storm of questions swirling inside me.

"I was waiting for you, son" he was sitting at the bar holding a half-empty bottle of scotch

"Is left. Didn't she?" he said without looking over at me.

"Yes,"

He laughed a little, with tears still rolling down his eyes.

The man I grew up looking at. The man who never showed emotion, not even in front of me was crying his heart out.

"It's all my fault. I turned her into this"

"What happened, uncle? I want the truth, please"

He looked into my eyes.

"Sit down, son. This one is a long story."

Terry and I sat beside him.

"It all started when I left New York when you were fifteen. I heard that the biggest drug lord at that time, Alberto Francis, died. I and Francis were old rivals but when he died I went to Manchester to pay my gratitude to the dead man. When I got there, they told me that he died of cardiac arrest but I heard some rumor that someone killed him. The most shocking part was that they said it was a fourteen-year-old kid. It was a shameful death of their great leader so they were trying to hide the reason but in the back of the world, they were desperately finding that kid.

I was included in that too. I wanted to find that kid but not to kill him, I wanted to know who was that kid who has so much guts to kill that goddamn Francis. It took me a few months to find that the kid was in Boston in some Orphanage. But when I found him, I was shocked. It wasn't him, but a girl. An innocent girl who had no idea what she had done" he paused to take a sip from the bottle

"Hazel?"

"Uh hn, hazel. I followed her for a few days to confirm whether it was her or not. It was her. But I wasn't the only one who had found her. Francis's men also found her. It was a dark night when they were going to kill her but I saved her. But instead of thanking me, she just asked me why I saved her. Why didn't I let her die instead. I couldn't answer her. I left her at the orphanage and carried on with my life, I thought. But I was wrong.

After two days she showed up at my fight club there in Boston. I thought maybe Francis' men came back and she wanted protection but I was wrong about her.

"I want to become strong!" she said.

I laughed at her words and told her to go back. But she didn't. She came every night to the club fights. Every night I watched her getting beaten up, hoping she might not come back tomorrow. She didn't quit.

Even if her arms and hands were bruised or her face was swollen, she came back every fucking night.

Then one day I called her and finally asked what she wanted.

"I want to become strong!" she repeated.

"Why do you want to become strong," I asked further. " to kill all the demons torturing me to death" she said. There was one question that was bugging me since I saw her, so I asked her. "Why did you kill Francis?" she told me. She was just fourteen when her step mother sold her to a whorehouse. Just fourteen. There Francis brought her in the auction. The night when he was going to rape her, she couldn't take it anymore and took the kitchen knife and stabbed him. Repeatedly. Until he died right in front of her. She said all the memories from that night haunts her and she didn't want to hide under the bed like a lame little girl. She wanted to fight.

I saw something in her eyes, the same fire I saw in your eyes when you first came to me. I couldn't resist her anymore. I started training her. I didn't train any girls so she trained with other boys in the town.

In just two years, she became the best fighter in the town. She was the best in the gang. She was even capable of beating you."

he laughed and took another sip from the bottle.

"I was going to make her the leader of the gang in Boston but she refused. "Then do you want to just fight for the club?" I asked her. "Do you remember the night I told you about, sir?" she said ignoring my question. "I saved fifteen girls while running from that hell," she said and looked over at me. "That night i saw in their eyes what i wanted to do with my life"

I thought she wanted to save girls from the prostitution but her eyes spoke differently. She not only wanted to save the girls but to remove every motherfucker who forced the girls into hell. She created her own gang with her best friend. There I met jennet. Within a few days, with just a few members , she created this organization that saved the girls from the whorehouse. Jennet did all the tech work. She was the best hacker I had ever seen. After covering the main base of prostitution and human trafficking in Boston, Hazel came up with a plan to expand her reach more into the dark network of the mafia. According to the plan, Jennet hacked into the mafia leader's database to get the information about human trafficking, then the organization that she created with the criminals who she gave a second chance to be human again, worked to rescue the victims. Just in a year they save hundreds of girls and children, happily returning them to their homes. She just took a small step and created a huge effect on the system. Everyone was just talking about this secret organization, saving people. The underworld was shocked too. This was all risky, she knew too. They had the dark secrets of the mafia world that even the government was scared to unfold. Everything was going fine until one day I got a text from Jennet when I was in New York working with you. The text said, "save us please" that was the reason I had to leave you back then. I went back there only to find out that everything was gone. The main base was completely destroyed, bodies lying here and there but no sign of hazel or Jennet. I tried to find them, I swear I did but I couldn't. Those four years when i wasn't with you, i was trying my best to find them, but i couldn't. I couldn't" tears came running from his eyes.

"I promised them to always hold their hand but I let it go. I left her. I crushed her hopes"

My heart ached at his words.

I let her go too.

It wasn't her, it was me who left her.

"Don't repeat my mistake, Aiden. Don't leave her when she needs you the most. Don't let go of her hand" he said looking at me.

"There are always three sides of a story, yours, Mines and the Truth. You know yours, i told you mine, but the truth is hers"

"Go my boy, you know what to do"

I looked over Terry.

I know what to do now.