Chapter Fourteen: The damage Caused.

Somewhere far away, in a quiet town called Redwood Hollow, Tyler Ross could be seen working tirelessly in the kitchen. She scrubbed, mopped, and refused to rest. Beads of sweat dotted her face as she moved from task to task. Her mother, Clara Clarkson, stood silently nearby, observing her daughter with a heavy heart, sighing now and then. Her younger brother, Bob, sat on a stool eating crispy potato chips from a bag, watching the scene unfold in silence.

Soon Ana was done in the kitchen. She dished out the food, and Bob had just dug in, eating hungrily. But Clara couldn't eat. She looked up at Ana, tears in her eyes.

"Ana, unless you tell me how you settled that huge debt or what you've gotten yourself into I will not eat. I will starve myself to death," she said. "How could a young, fragile girl like you pay back that much money? We're talking about millions of dollars here. Who have you sold your soul to? Tell me, Ana," she cried, bursting into tears.

"I did not sell my soul to anyone."

"Then what did you do?! Tell me the damn truth, Ana!" Clara cried as she sobbed.

"Big Sis, why don't you just tell us the truth? After all, we're family, and we only have each other. If there's a situation you're already in, just tell us so we can play our part in protecting you just like you did for us," Bob said calmly.

"I, I'm fine. I swear I am," Ana replied, her voice cracking with frustration.

Clara suddenly stood up, shocking Ana. She rushed out of the dining room into the kitchen, grabbed a sharp knife, and came back, threatening to take her own life in front of them.

"If you're not going to tell me, I may as well end it all! First, it was your father. How dare he think of stealing from a mafia boss like Dexter? Then he left us in this mess. Oh, how we suffered! I was locked up in a rat hole with my son, and you were thrown into the street to settle such a debt. I begged Dexter to let me go and find another way, but he insisted it had to be you. And now you won't tell me what you've gotten into? I know that monster wouldn't have let us go without a hidden motive. He's a beast, he's the devil himself! He wouldn't have set us free in that grand finale without an evil reason. And you still won't tell me? Would you all continue to make me feel useless until the very end?!" she barked, sobbing.

"I stole!" Ana suddenly blurted out, and the room went silent.

"I stole something from the Lopez."

Clara's eyes widened, and the knife fell from her trembling hand. Bob quickly grabbed his iPad, typing frantically and scanning the internet. A moment later, he froze.

"You did what?" Clara yelled in disbelief. "The Lopez? Our old neighbor back in Chicago? The Lopez?" She said in a higher tone when the realization dawn at her.

"Mom, when Dexter got me, he was going to sell me into a sex slave market before coming back to give you two an unbearable death. But then I overheard him talking to his right-hand man, Victor, about stealing some codes from the Lopez before they could be launched."

She paused, gasping for breath between sobs.

"So I took the chance. I told him I could do it. That we used to be close to the Lopez family. That I knew how to get close again. I lied, Mom. I lied to buy time. I was desperate. I had to hold onto anything to stall for time. I couldn't let our family be wiped out. I just wanted to try anything. I didn't expect it to go that smoothly, but I got the codes. A_and no one recognized me from the Lopez. It was easy and smooth. And in exchange, he set us free."

Her voice cracked as she added, trembling,

"That's all I did. That's all, Mom. I swear it on my life."

Clara stared at her in disbelief as the knife clattered onto the floor. Bob immediately snatched up his iPad again, his fingers flying across the screen. He hacked into trending security feeds, encrypted news channels anything he could access. Moments later, his face turned pale.

"Oh no! Big Sis, we are done for!" he shouted.

Clara started to tremble. "Talk to me, Bob. What's the situation?"

"Big Sis stole the Lopez's evolutionary codes," Bob said, his voice hollow. "This isn't just sensitive tech. This is world changing. They're calling it the most groundbreaking invention of the century. Dexter's already being celebrated. He's getting international press, offers, even a White House invitation. Ana, you didn't just steal data. You gave the devil a throne."

Clara stumbled backward and collapsed into a chair, her body limp with shock.

"This isn't good, Ana. The Lopez family? You have no idea what you've done. This is huge. They're definitely not going to take this lightly. Big Sis, we could be in a much bigger problem. I don't even know what to say."

Clara felt dizzy and quickly found a seat before she fell.

"My God, Ana. The Lopez family? Oh my goodness, Ana, the Lopez's are the reason our life turned out like this in the first place."

"How do you mean, Mom?" Ana asked, confused. Bob echoed the same question.

"Years ago, there was a feud between Dexter and the Lopez's. It ran deep. Dexter hired a nanny one of theirs to assassinate their only son. But, Ana, you got in the way. You saw something. You said something. The nanny was exposed, arrested, and fired.

"After that, there was another attempt on his life again from Dexter, and you saved him. The repeated attempts on their son's life was what prompted the Lopez's relocation, and Dexter lost his opportunity.

Dexter got so angry that twice he could have won but you had gotten in the way, so he found us. He came for you to punish you for interfering. That's how your father met him."

Her voice began to shake as she relived the buried past.

"Your dad made a deal with Dexter. Promised to carry out some mission in exchange for our lives. He never told me what he was. He just did it. And we were spared.

"But even after that, they kept in touch. So when your dad lost his job and we couldn't pay your final year's tuition, he turned to Dexter again. Dexter helped but he wanted something in return. He asked your dad to watch his money. Then one day, he came to me and said your father tried to steal from him. That he was dead. And that we had to pay for his mistake."

Clara's voice broke, her heart in shambles.

"We've been paying for it ever since. And now you've gone back to the same Lopez family, to actually steal from them, Ana?

"If we had never gotten tangled up with them, your father would still be alive.

None of this would have happened."

"What do we do now, Mom?" Bob asked. "If the Lopez's find us, we're done for. What she stole from them wasn't just money it was glory. This is huge, Mom. I bet they're already going bonkers searching for her."

"They won't find me. As long as I stay hidden, they won't. He doesn't know anything about me not my real name, nothing. So we're good. As long as I stay off the grid."

"Are you going to stay hidden for the rest of your life, Ana?"

"Yes, Mom! Yes!" Tyler's voice cracked, sharp and trembling, but she didn't hold back. Her eyes glistened, her chest heaving as she faced the woman who had once held her hand through nightmares and who now looked at her like she was the nightmare.

"I would rather stay hidden and exist somewhere in silence than die as a sex slave! Than be paraded around as someone's possession while my body is stolen and my soul is crushed. I would rather vanish into nothing than watch our entire family be butchered while I'm shackled and helpless!

I would do anything Mom! Anything to save you and Bob!!"

Her voice rose with every word, thick with pain, defiance, and something that sounded like a desperate plea for understanding.

"So yes," she said, her voice suddenly quieter, broken. "I don't regret this decision."

She stood still for a moment, chest trembling.

Then, she turned.

And walked away.

Clara sank to the floor the second Tyler disappeared around the corner, her knees buckling as if the air had been ripped from her lungs.

She sobbed, loud, guttural, like her heart had been torn out and smashed against the ground.

Bob moved instinctively, wrapping his arms around her, trying to steady her shaking frame.

"Mom," he whispered, his own throat tight, fighting emotion as he held her. "Mom, don't be like this, we just sum mounted one huge mountain, we will come up with something later, we will be just fine."

But Clara wasn't listening to any of what he was saying.

She couldn't even breathe.

All she could do was cry, because the little girl she once rocked to sleep was now a woman forged by fear, fire, and impossible choices.

And the worst part?

She didn't know if Ana would ever be free from this web.