"Aiden, may bago bang balita?"
My voice barely escaped my throat. Tight. Barely human. My eyes were glued to the man sitting at the edge of the al fresco lounge-Jacob Rivera, cast in the honeyed light of an expensive afternoon.
"Wala po kaming nakitang kahina-hinalang kilos mula kay Mr. Rivera," Aiden replied, his voice fuzzing through the encrypted line. "Kahit sa mga kapatid at magulang niya. Pagkalapag ng private jet ni Mr. Rivera, diretsong punta sa investors. Wala siyang ginawang labas sa pattern."
Of course not.
Of course he didn't.
I exhaled slowly, like it might empty me of him. It didn't.
"Sige," I muttered. "Puntahan mo sila Capt. Singson. Pakihigpit ang seguridad sa paaralan ng kambal."
"Copy, Sir."
Click.
I threw the phone onto the seat beside me. The thud was swallowed by the silence of the car's insulated interior.
Still no movement from my driver.
Toto sat behind the wheel with the same expression he always wore-calm, unreadable. His hands rested lightly, patiently, like we were waiting for traffic instead of vengeance.
He didn't look at me.
He didn't have to.
He noticed, of course-how the air in the car had gone heavy, how my breaths came slower, deeper. But like the old soldier he was, he said nothing. Just waited.
I appreciated that.
Silence was sacred when the mind was this loud.
Jacob.
Perfect posture. Eyes alive. That fucking smile-razor-edged and soft at the same time. He was charming someone across the table, a man in a blazer with a pen halfway to paper. Of course. They always signed.
From across the street, tucked beneath the tinted windows of my borrowed SUV, I watched the devil wear sunlight like a tailored suit.
It's him.
It's really him.
Eleven years.
"Iba na siya," I whispered aloud, the words cracking on my tongue. "Pero kilala pa rin siya ng bawat peklat ko sa katawan."
I looked down at my hands. At the barely visible ridges beneath the cuffs of my sleeves. My skin still remembered him. Not the man sitting in that restaurant now-but the boy he was. The boy who carved his name into me with heat and breath and power.
My hands curled into fists.
"You made these scars," I murmured to no one. Or maybe to him. "You. And now they talk to me. Still. They don't forget."
I heard them sometimes. In the quiet. In the dark.
Paano mo raw natiis ang magtago?
How could you be so weak?
How dare you bear the children of that violation?
My scars whispered judgment louder than God ever did.
Dinig ko. Dinig na dinig ko, te.
And for a long time, I had no answer.
But now?
Now I had this.
My eyes locked onto his silhouette.
"Ito na ang sagot ko."
He laughed. I couldn't hear it, but I saw it. The way his shoulders moved. The slight tilt of his head. The smugness of a man who'd never had to look back.
