Nobody breathed.
The hooded figure lifted the metal case slightly.
“Take one more step,” he said, “and the whole city finds out.”
The father’s eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?”
The man laughed softly.
“You really don’t recognize me?”
Slowly, he lowered his hood.
The officer stumbled backward.
“No…”
The father’s face went pale.
Impossible.
The man standing there had officially died three years earlier.
The father’s younger brother.
The same man whose funeral they had attended.
The same man buried underground.
But he was alive.
And he was holding the case.
His eyes shifted toward the little boy.
“You told him I was dead?”
Silence.
The boy looked back and forth, confused.
“Dad… who is he?”
The father couldn’t answer.
Because the case slowly clicked open.
Inside wasn’t money.
Wasn’t weapons.
Wasn’t classified documents.
Only photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Photos of the boy.
Taken secretly.
Over years.
Then one picture slid out and fell onto the street.
The boy picked it up.
His hands started shaking.
“Dad…”
He looked up slowly.
“Why am I in a picture taken before I was born?”
