What Happens At The Ending Of Hero Of The Underground: A Memoir?

After being released from my three-year sentence, Zoe Sanders finally found me in an underground fight club. The moment she saw me, she grabbed me by the collar and punched me across the face, her eyes burning red with fury. "Henry Goldman, who gave you the nerve to disappear like this? "And what the hell have you done to yourself?" I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and laughed carelessly. "One punch, one hundred thousand. "If you’re still angry, feel free to keep going. I could use the money for this year’s rent." Her fists trembled uncontrollably, but her voice softened. "Come home with me... apologize to Ronald Green. "He’s always been kind-hearted. He already forgave you for framing him." Her gaze swept over the scars covering my body, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. "Look at yourself. Covered in blood like this... what’s the difference between you and a stray dog digging through garbage?" My body stiffened. Then I turned and walked away. What she did not know was this: In prison, blood and violence were the only ways I learned to survive. "Don’t forget," she shouted after me, "I’m still your fiancée!" My footsteps stopped. How could I forget? Three years ago, on the night of our engagement, Ronald drugged me and sent me to a black-market auction. I was stripped of all dignity and sold like merchandise. That night, I became the laughingstock of the entire city. And the person who signed the papers that sold me… was my fiancée herself.

My son is dying. That is the only truth that matters. Not that I am a half-blood with no pack standing. Not that my Crosser's Permit expired six months ago, and every night I fall asleep wondering if tonight is the night they come for us. Not that I mop floors and scrub blood off marble tiles in a hotel that belongs to the most dangerous wolf family in Silver Hollow, a city that does not officially exist, hidden inside Las Vegas like a knife inside a smile. My name is Tara De Leon. I was once a healer good enough to have been recruited by three different pack academies. Now I am invisible. A cleaning woman. A ghost in a uniform. I became invisible on purpose. Because invisible women survive. And survival is all I have left to give my son. Kai is seven years old. He has his father's jaw and my mother's eyes and a laugh that sounds like something the moon herself invented. He also has Fade Sickness, a supernatural disease that is slowly, quietly, methodically dissolving his wolf-soul from the inside out. Without the Blood Resonance Treatment, available only in Silver Hollow, available only to those with pack connections and pack money, he has maybe eight months. Maybe less. I would burn down every pack in this city to buy him one more day. I just never thought I would have to.

I gave Julian Marchetti thirty years of my life after the war ended. I built his empire, raised his children, and held the family together behind the scenes. But when he died, his will didn’t even mention my name. Half his fortune went to our children. The other half went to Lydia Carter, the daughter of the man who’d saved his life in Normandy. The same Lydia who’d stolen my identity.The same Lydia who’d built her entire life on the ruins of mine. All he left me was a single note, scrawled in his familiar handwriting. I loved you. We had thirty good years. But I owe Lydia. This is the least I can do. I dropped dead of a heart attack right there in his study, clutching that pathetic piece of paper. When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn in 1945, when the war had just ended This time I will not swallow my anger and suffer in silence; I will fight back. And I will take back every single thing that is rightfully mine.

For five years, I fought illegal matches in an underground cage ring to scrape together enough money to repay the massive high-interest loan I had taken out to treat my son Luca’s illness. Dragging my still-dislocated left arm, I rushed to tell the father and son the good news. Yet when I reached the door, I saw the capo who managed the cage arena bowing low before my husband, Vicenzo. “Underboss, Eva said she’ll repay the loan in a few days. Do we still keep pretending to pressure her?” Vicenzo idly spun the Browning in his hand, the diamonds set into it worth enough to buy the entire cage arena. “No need. She’s suffered enough these past few years. Even when she had two ribs broken a few months ago, she didn’t dare tell us.” Elena, his sworn sister, seated beside him, let out a soft laugh. “Vicenzo, what if she’s a spy sent by a rival family? After all, you are the underboss of the Carlini family. “Besides, Luca has been pampered since he was little. How could he live with someone who reeks of blood?” My six-year-old son wrapped his arms tightly around her neck and echoed her words. “I don’t want a woman covered in scars as my mommy. Just looking at her wounds makes me feel sick.” Then he turned to her and pouted. “Aunt Elena, I wish you were my mommy.” Vicenzo hesitated only a moment before looking at them indulgently. “Then we’ll test her for another six months. If she remains this obedient, I’ll officially let her become part of the Carlini family.” I watched the farce with cold eyes, because to avoid frightening Vicenzo, the ordinary librarian I believed him to be, I had hidden my identity as the principessa of the Moretti family. Also, to keep from being found by my family and my fiancé, the Don of the Carlini family, I had not touched a single cent of family money. Instead, I chose to earn it with my fists in places piled with the dead. So it seemed my endurance and sacrifice were nothing more than a taming game in their eyes.

On the day I receive my Distinguished Service Medal, I also receive word that my grandma has passed away. My superior grants me special leave to return to my hometown to mourn her death, so I rush to my ancestral home at once. But when I reach the ancestral graveyard behind the hill, I witness something that makes my blood boil. The graves of my deceased family members have been razed to the ground. Even my parents' graves have been brutally dug up. Their urns are now placed under flower pots filled with blooming red roses. Grandma's coffin has been pried open as well.Her body now lies strewn on the ground and has started to rot. I also see Lucy Stewart, my autistic younger sister. Melissa Abbott, my wife's assistant, orders Lucy around like a maid, forcing her to move heavy construction materials around. Enraged, I grab Melissa by the throat and throw her to the ground. "How dare you destroy my family's ancestral cemetery and make my sister do hard labor! Do you want to end up buried here too?" Melissa coughs up blood before crawling back onto her feet, her expression vicious and scornful. "I'm simply carrying out Ms. Fuller's instructions. She says that your ancestral cemetery is located in a good spot. It's also the perfect size to be turned into a private horse ranch and a garden for her future husband. "Ms. Fuller calls the shots here in Joverton City. Who the hell do you think you are, huh?" Resisting the urge to put an end to her life, I call up Eva Fuller, my wife. "I heard you call the shots here in Joverton City. Well, I shall put that to the test today!"

As a dive engineer, I need to go down into the shaft to retrieve a drill bit in order to speed up construction on the 800-million-dollar construction project before Independence Day. Little do I know that I've barely made my way down the shaft when I realize I don't have enough oxygen to last the journey. Amid my panic, I completely lose my sense of direction. So, I dig out my wireless radio in an attempt to communicate with my fiancee, Viola Jenkins. But all I hear is her laughter over the radio. "Aren't you all high and mighty, Elden? I'd like to see how long you can last underwater without oxygen!" Her first love, Ron Carey, adds, "Just sit back and watch the show, Viola! He'll definitely beg you to open the manhole cover for him when the time comes!" That's when I realize Viola and Ron have allied together to kill me. Not only have they closed the manhole cover, but they've also cut off my life-saving oxygen supply. After ensuring that the manhole cover cannot be moved at all, I begin crying for help weakly into the radio. "Hurry… Open the cover for me… I'm running out of oxygen…" Viola's contemptuous voice drifts from the radio. "It's only been five minutes. Why are you playing the pity card already? This is Ron's first time in a construction site, so he's inhaling some oxygen from the canister because he's already lacking in oxygen. You can wait for a while. "If you have the time to moan about the lack of oxygen, you might as well use it to retrieve the drill bit. Stop dilly-dallying around, Elden! You seriously think I'll keep you around if you don't pull your weight around here?" With gnashed teeth, I cover 65 feet downward in the shaft. With the last bit of oxygen in my lungs, I place my hands on the drill bit that's stuck in the deepest part of the shaft that can determine whether or not the 800-million-dollar construction project will be a hit or miss. I'd like to see if Viola and Ron will be able to reap the benefits from this project just by killing me off in the shaft!