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Amelia had known Frankie Bianchi for more than a decade now. When he gave her that job fifteen years ago, she had always been thankful to him. Though Shadow had changed a lot compared to how it was when it first started, she had already gotten used to that life and there was nothing else that she could do outside. She didn't know what she signed up for and when she learned about it eventually, it was too late to turn around and walk away from it.

She had learned to turn a blind eye about the things she heard within the walls of Shadow and just tried to live her life far from her son. She had already made the mistake of leaving him. She certainly didn't deserve having him in her life now. The moment she walked out on him, she lost her rights.

Amelia wished that for Damien's sake, she had been stronger, that she had made a better choice, that she had been more mature to make the right decisions in life. 

When Lawrence got married, she should have stopped seeing him, but she didn't. She was weak to let go of him. But after she gave birth and started living in the Park Mansion, she couldn't stomach the feeling of being ostracized and judged by everyone who was looking at her like she was an abomination. She didn't belong there with those people.

Choosing to part with her son was the worst decision that she had ever made. She felt like she died inside but she constantly told herself that it was better that way. She thought that Damien could grow without being ridiculed about his family. He could have the life that everyone would be envious about. 

But the longer that she was away from him, the worse that she felt. At times she was very weak and had to see her son, she saw how happy he was with his life. And she was reminded that it was good for him to stay that way. There was no need to scare him away and there was no point in showing herself at that time because Shadow must not know about him. The only choice Amelia believed she could make which was in the best interest for her son was to just keep her distance from him.

The minute that Frankie knew about Damien, his life had already been in danger. She just knew that he would turn it against her. And Amelia couldn't risk getting Parker to know about Damien too. Frankie was evil but he could somewhat still be reasoned. However, it was different with his right-hand man. Parker stole from his own boss and even planned to double-cross him.

Amelia couldn't allow Frankie and Parker to get near her son, so she decided to take Frankie's life. That night, she came to his house. The two struggled at first but with years of experience from being an agent, she definitely had the upper hand. However, just when she had ended his life, Parker appeared out of nowhere and caught her in the act. She escaped that night and Parker declared a hit on her.

That was how she became Shadow's first rogue agent.

~~~

"Ever since that night, I have been on the run. Parker stepped in and became Shadow's leader, replacing Frankie and had me on the hit list for a long time. I became the top priority of all the agents for a year. I thought I was going to die then. But I managed to escape them and fled to Mexico for a while. I still had one person I could trust inside but he couldn't really do anything else other than warn me. A year later, Parker retracted the hit from all the agents and only left it to a few top agents while he made everyone in Shadow to stop talking about me. If he, as much as, heard someone mention my name, he had them executed without questions."

With a cup in his hands, Damien processed all the information that Amelia was telling him. There were too many to absorb that night and everything just kept on piling up from one thing to another. He felt that he was about to have a headache. After taking a sip of the tea, he asked, "Why would he do that?"

She shrugged. "Parker was there that night because he was stealing something from Frankie. He did catch me red-handed but it was the same for him. He didn't say but I knew that he was there to get some important documents behind Frankie's back. He was probably afraid that everyone in Shadow would know about it and use it against him. The thought of me still being alive and knowing his secret probably made him extremely uncomfortable. I had to fake my death."

"Do you know his secrets?" he asked, but just when he did, a shattering sound came from Katherine's bedroom. Their heads snapped towards it and the two raced to her bedroom to see what was going on.

Damien swung the door open while his mother followed behind and they saw Katherine wiping the floor and picking up shards of glasses. "What happened?" he worried.

"Sorry, the glass slipped from my hand while I was going to get some water." Katherine looked up and saw Damien and his mother by the door. She wondered if the two of them had talked already. She had just woken up from a nap and was thirsty but because she hadn't eaten yet, she was feeling a bit lethargic therefore losing her grip of the glass.

He strolled towards her and helped her clean up the mess. "Are you feeling better? I'll get you some food or you can come out to eat if you want to."

"Yeah, I guess I could eat." She looked past Damien's shoulder and saw Amelia lightly smile at her. The latter didn't say anything but by the look on Amelia's face, it seemed as though she was thanking her. Katherine could only guess that the conversation between the mother and son must have been progressive.

"I'll go and heat up some food for you," Amelia offered before she closed the door to Katherine's bedroom and left.

Damien and Katherine washed their hands in the bathroom after cleaning up the mess and discarding the broken pieces of glass. It was quiet at first until she started, "I take it that you two have finally talked?"

He nodded, wiping his hands with the small towel and faced Katherine when she followed up with another question, "How do you feel?"

"Weird." He leaned against the counter and recalled what he and his mother just talked about earlier.

"Are you mad at her?"

"I don't know… Maybe… I'm not sure…" 

The two exchanged looks and did not speak for a while. And before Katherine could tear her gaze away from him, he reached for her hand and pulled her towards him. 

In the blink of an eye, Damien had his arms around Katherine's waist and embraced her so tightly she thought she would break. But she didn't pull away… Instead, she found herself returning his hug with just about the same strength.

"It's okay… You're okay…" she whispered.