Crown of the Empire

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The text came at six in the morning, when even the roosters outside the Vergara estate were still deciding whether life was worth crowing about.

Unknown Number:

Be ready in an hour. We're going somewhere.

I stared at it, groggy and half-buried in my sheets, then laughed out loud. The audacity. No "Good morning." No explanation. Just a command like he was scheduling a surgery.

I typed back: Who the hell is this?

The reply came instantly.

Unknown Number:

Nikolai Takedo.

Of course. Who else would text like God delegating the Ten Commandments?

I dropped the phone onto my chest, groaning. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."

And yet, I swung my legs out of bed.

Because apparently, despite everything in me screaming that I should ignore him, a traitorous part of me was curious. Curious enough to brush my hair, pull on tailored slacks, and remind myself that unlike him, I didn't wake up in ice-blue silk pajamas with a team of assistants handing me espresso.

As the car pulled up outside the estate gates—a sleek black Fortuner, naturally—I rolled my eyes. Billionaire, doctor, pharma king, and he picked a Fortuner. Did the man have something against Rolls-Royce?

I slid into the backseat, tossing my bag down beside me. He was already there, crisp as if he'd been awake since dawn. "You're punctual," he said simply.

"You're insane," I shot back. "Do you usually stalk women with surprise road trips, or am I just special?"

He didn't rise to the bait. "You'll see."

Which of course only made me want to strangle him.

The convoy pulled out of the city, the skyline shrinking behind us as concrete gave way to rice fields and houses built of wood and tin. Dust clung to the windows. The hum of motorcycles weaving through traffic rattled the air.

I crossed my arms, leaning back. "You know, most men ask nicely before dragging a woman out of bed. Coffee, maybe breakfast. You skip straight to kidnapping."

Still nothing. Just that maddening calm.

Fine. If he wasn't going to explain, I'd amuse myself. I pictured all the absurd possibilities. Maybe he was taking me to a secret pharma lab in the mountains where he'd reveal he was really a Bond villain. Or maybe this was the part of the movie where the heiress disappears, and the tabloids spin out conspiracy theories about how she ran away with her driver.

But then, as the SUV turned down a narrow road and stopped, all my sarcasm burned off.

Because what spread out before me wasn't a lab or a secret compound. It was a community. A barangay on the edge of farmland, where children played barefoot on dusty paths, their laughter carrying despite the sharp smell of smoke from burning garbage piles. A clinic squatted in the middle, its paint peeling, its windows cracked, and a line of mothers with children in their arms waiting outside.

The SUV door opened. The heat hit me first, humid and heavy. My heels sank into the dirt, but I ignored it. For once, I wasn't thinking about optics.

"This," Nikolai said, stepping out beside me, his voice low and even, "is where we start."

The barangay clinic looked like it had been built out of stubbornness and prayer. White walls turned gray from time and humidity, windows patched with tape, a corrugated tin roof that groaned every time the wind shifted. A crooked sign above the entrance read Barangay Health Station in fading paint.