The Billionaire's Secret Identity

CHAPTER ONE

The ruins stared him in the face, unblinking; unwavering. It didn't attempt to honour his wish. 

That wish that was in itself a fantasy dream. A dream that would struggle to see the break of dawn in the supernatural world.

He stared back, eyes misting and hands trembling, at the darkened bricks. 

They had crumbled under the powerful fingers of moss; never to stand again but also, never to vanish. 

He had nothing to say; nothing more that had not been spat out ten years ago. His heart had rusted with the fire bell close to the star-shaped brick, having no need to cry out anymore.

Both of them had failed the family. They had vanished when they were needed most. They had left their duty to chase trivialities.

Who was to blame? The rhetoric sat sadly in his stomach, turning it and sending nauseating signs to his brain.

The murderers? Or the Fire bell? Or was he to blame? Something shifted in his chest. What was that? Guilt?

He shook his head and inhaled the tragic air around hungrily; the dust of his dead mother and sister.

Did they hate him for having gone away to train? His heart shook with tremor and his ribs responded with a deep pain that bent his posture.

He shed a tear, then another, until his face was covered. They were for all the regrets he had carried for ten years while training—in his job.

The punishment he had to bear for choosing to train as an agent with Famous Mr. Lee in the mountains rather than be with his family.

And to crown everything up, he had not been allowed to visit. He had to keep his identity hidden.

He scoffed bitterly, tasting some of the bitterness on his lips. 

Now, what was he left with it? He had been told to go home to visit his family.

He had smiled it off and headed home. But he wasn't sure he had made the right choice.

Could this place still pass as home? These ugly soot-stricken stones that had taken his parents' place?

A fragment of smoke whiffed into his nose blocking his thoughts for a moment. 

He must have imagined it. He was sure of it; that he had imagined everything.

The violent nightmares and wails of help that he heard every night were imagined. He had believed that his parents were here, hiding somewhere away from the news; waiting for him to come home.

But now that he had seen the ruins, the tired bricks on the floor, he was sure to have been hallucinating.

They were gone, somewhere. Maybe out of this world. Maybe burnt to ashes. Just maybe, he was breathing in their dusty remains.

They had—

“Help,” the sound echoed through the earth, passing its current to his thighs.

He froze, eyes and ears alert for information.

Was that his mom? Or Sarah? The very little girl he had carried in his arms; watched her grow and walked her to school?

His heart thrummed. What was that? He couldn't move. Not yet. He had to be sure he had not been hallucinating again.

“Help, please,” it came again. It was somewhere in the ruins. Was it behind it? He broke into a run, tracing the sound nervously.

Was that voice, Sarah's? He breathed heavily, rounding the ruins to see what was behind and also struggling not to faint with nervousness.

There was someone. No, people. They were doing something to someone—slapping and punching?

Someone was struggling? Sarah? He ran forward and witnessed, feet behind. 

But that was not Sarah. He shook his head. That was not her.

 That was a lady in distress, fighting frailty for her life. But getting multiple slaps in return.

Their belts were unbuckled; their manhood pointing like microphones to her.

What would three men be doing with a lady in distress?

But the question was unnecessary. He knew what men like them did.

“What's happening here!” He spoke up, his already reddened eyes deepening and nose blowing more steam than the already heated sun. Time stood still.

They all spurned to his direction, daggers in place, and feet facing his direction. 

Then they burst out laughing, their laughter echoing across the lonely street. The immobile thug laughed the loudest.

“Out here this late? Does your mom know?” He said, lighting a cigarette while tracking his body language. 

“Wanna join?” He snorted before sucking on it.

“Release her, now!” His diaphragm vibrated and his heart puffed as he caught sight of the fainting lady still in their hands.

“Or what?” They echoed, throwing their heads back in laughter, eyes glowing with the warmth of relaxation.

But their ringleader silenced them.

“You little brat, barely a man, trying to play hero? Go home before your mom calls the cops.” He seemed to have spoken from his nose; the words fell on each other.

Tony sneered. He had no time to waste with their taunts: either they let her go, or they’d die.

“Who’s that expression for?” The ringleader thundered, flinging his cigarette stick away. “How dare you?” He roared like a cub.

As if given the command, his underlings rushed for attack, each pulling out more daggers.

Tony smiled. He hadn't expected to put his training into practice so soon. 

His legs connected first with the first jaw that set its way to his face and blood and teeth spattered everywhere.

The victim was already falling to the ground, face downwards.

He quickly moved on to the next target; the fool who tried playing smart behind him with the dagger.

Within a minute he was spitting blood on the ground, too.

It was now the turn of the ringleader. This time, he didn't wait to be attacked first, he made the first attack. 

First, a punch on the head; that was for the disrespect they accorded his home. The second, which was the last, sent him crashing on the bodies on the ground.

He went for a third but held on.

The ringleader was mumbling something. “Please don't,” it came out muffled. “I was forced to kidnap her. It wasn't of my own doing,” he pleaded. “I was…” the rest was swallowed with his sobs.

Tony sneered and knocked him down with a single strike.

Then he noticed the collapsed girl, struggling to sit upright, eyes upturned and rolling too much. 

He helped her to her feet, putting her hands around his neck. 

Then he frowned.

Something was wrong. Her pulse was strange. 

She had ingested the potent aphrodisiac; if it wasn’t cleared within two hours, her body would explode.

His gaze darkened as he looked at the flushed skin on her body. He cursed under his breath, “Damn it.”