Chapter One

He could see things clearly now; things he never wanted to accept when he was gone. Maybe it was better this way. To know that he won't be missed when hell comes looking for him again. After all the things he had done in the years he was away, it was foolish to think he would be going anywhere else.

He closes his eyes so he won't have to see the water when he takes his final breath. He was standing in the same place they had stood so many times before in their past. It used to bring him comfort. Now it only makes him more aware of everything he has lost.

His wife, his child, his brother. None of them had been willing to listen to him. He gave up his life once to protect them. Maybe now he had to give it up so they could be happy again.

You have got some nerve pretending to be dead all these years. I only wish that it had been the real thing.

The father that I loved died in 1991. Maybe it wasn't even real. Maybe it was just a part you were playing.

I just wanted to see if you were real. Now that I see that you are, I can kill you. I've got a real family, Robert. What do you have?

He takes a deep breath as he opens his eyes, letting the cold air wash over him. He takes the 8mm from his pocket and looks at it. It would only take a single shot to the head to make all of his pain stop. A single shot and his family could be happy again.

A single tear rolls down his already swollen eyes and he thinks of all the faces of the people he had been forced to kill. The families of the people who had died at his hands. The guilt was suffocating him. Had they really been as evil as he was told? What if they were just another casualty in somebody else's war? Justified or not, he still felt unworthy of the life he had been allowed to walk away from. What was his purpose now? Anna and Robin had been what kept him alive while he was forced into the life of an assassin. They had been what kept the good in him alive. Now what did he have left that had any meaning?

Ten months ago he had come home from hell and had the mistaken belief that his family would be happy to see him. At the very least, he had believed they would allow him to explain. Instead, he was living in a rundown apartment in a bad part of town, as alone as he was when he was gone.

The flashbacks and the nightmares had started right away. Sometimes he would go for weeks without sleeping at all. The images that replayed in his mind as frightening as they had been when they were happening. Guilt was his constant companion.

Weeks had gone by with no word from his family so he had tried to reach out to them again. To let them know that he still loved them and that he was sorry. They had not returned any of his calls.

Weeks had turned into months and that was when his heart began to harden. He began to retreat inside himself until the only thing he could feel was emptiness. This feeling wouldn't stop eating at him. The nothingness threatened to pull him into the void left where there was once love.

The more time that passed, the more hopeless his future begins to look to him. He begins to see life as belonging to other people. Does he even have a place in the world anymore?

Worthless. Insignificant. Meaningless. Unworthy.

There were days when just the thought of getting out of bed required too much energy. He doesn't know how to feel happy anymore. All that was left for him was a life full of suffering. He could still hear the words of their last fight replaying in his mind like a broken record. It had been four hours but it still felt like minutes. The pain still brought him to his knees.

"How could you not tell me that our daughter moved," he snapped. "You let me think that something terrible happened to her. How…How could you do that to me? I am still her father."

"If Robin had wanted you to know, she would have told you."

"So that's it then? Every good thing that I have ever done is just wiped clean because I made some bad choices? I'm just the guy who let you down now."

"Robert…"

"Don't okay. You don't have to apologize for how you feel. I guess I was just naïve to think that everything we have been through together would have meant something to you. That you would have noticed that I am trying to make things right with you? I don't know what else I can offer you Anna. You already have my heart. Just because you don't love me back, doesn't meant it is not still yours. I have nothing left to give you."

"Then why are you even here," Robin asks, as she joins her mother and father.

He swallows the lump in his throat as he looks at his daughter.

"No matter what you might think of me now sweetheart, I will always be your father and I will always love you. I hope you will be happy now. I won't bother you again."

There was no place for him in the world anymore. Certainly not in their lives. He had tried the 'happily ever after' thing and he lost. Lost everything that mattered. He was just an empty shell of what was once a man now. His heart might be beating but he was already dead inside. What was the point of trying anymore? He had nothing left that mattered?

He presses the gun to his temple, more tears now falling down his face. He wanted to believe that Anna or Robin would reach out and give him just one reason to hold on and fight it out. But who was he kidding? They were not going to show up when he needed them the most. They were happier without him.

Robin thought of his brother as her father now and Anna-well Anna certainly didn't need him anymore. It was time to let them go. Let them be happy without him. If he was dead, then he would not cause his family anymore pain. They wouldn't have to be weighed down by his failures. They might have a chance of living a happy life. A life that no longer included him.

"I'm sorry I let you down," he whispers just before he begins to pull back the trigger. There was so much pain reflected in his eyes. So much devastation in his voice. He just wanted this pain to stop. His pain. Their pain. Everything.