After twenty-two years of happiness, joy, and prosperity, Seth Evans and Linh Trang-Evans are murdered right before three year old Mana's eyes, after their home gets broken in. 

Just before Seth is killed, he manages to hide his daughter in a closet. Then he gets shot with multiple bullets.

When Darren, at the college, learns that his parents were murdered, he is surprisingly very calm; it's only when his sister is safe and sound in his arms that he finally mourns his parents' death.

Seth's younger brother, Leon, is the one to organize the funeral, which Darren does not attend in favor of watching over his sister.

After the funeral, Seth's parents insist on taking Mana. Remembering the kind of people they are and how they treated his father as a child, Darren refuses to give his sister up.

Because Leon has a job that renders him unable to properly care for a child and Linh's father is who-knows-where, Darren chooses to raise his baby sister himself.