Adrian's POV
The door closed behind them.
The Mercedes taillights had disappeared around the corner five minutes ago, but I was still standing in the doorway, staring at the empty street.
Ruz stood beside me. Neither of us moved.
Behind us, Mama was still standing in the living room entrance, her arms crossed, her eyes studying us.
"Go to your rooms," she said finally. "Get fresh. Take a rest. You're both still in school uniforms.
"Yes, Madam, " we said together.
She shook her head. "Synchronized. Always synchronized. It's unsettling."
We walked upstairs.
The house was quiet. The kind of quiet that came after a storm, when everyone was still catching their breath, still processing what had happened, still trying to figure out how to feel about it.
Papa was in the living room, pretending to watch television but actually staring at the wall. Kuya had gone to his office, probably making calls, probably handling things we didn't know about. Mama was in the kitchen, moving around, not cooking anything, just moving.
Ruz's room was in the upstairs left room, and mine was right. We are going to her room. She told me that she has something to show me.
She dropped onto her bed. I dropped onto the chair at her study table.
Something was different. The air in the room was heavier than usual.
Ruz pulled an envelope from her desk drawer.
She held it for a moment, looking at it like it might bite her. Then she handed it to me.
"Read it," she said.
I opened the envelope.
The paper inside was old. Yellowed at the edges. The handwriting was shaky from age or illness or maybe just from the weight of the words being written.
I started to read.
My dearest Richelle,
If you are reading this, I am gone. I'm sorry I never got to tell you these things in person. I'm sorry I never got to know you the way I wanted to.
I saw you once. At a business meeting. You were there with your brother, Azmain Cruz. You didn't know who I was. You didn't know I was watching.
But I saw you.
I saw the way you walked into that room like you owned it. The way you spoke without fear, without hesitation, without asking for permission. The way you dismantled those men with nothing but words and strategy and a smile that didn't reach your eyes.
You reminded me of myself. When I was young. Before the world made me hard. Before business became war and family became an obligation.
I learned that day you were my granddaughter. My son's daughter. The one he never told me about. The one he hid from me.
I was angry at him. I am still angry at him. For keeping you away. For denying me the chance to know you.
But I am also grateful.
Because if he had told me about you, I would have been forced to choose. Between my pride and my love. Between the life I built and the family I abandoned.
I don't know what I would have chosen.
But I know what I'm choosing now.
You.
You are my heir. My legacy. The future of everything my father built.
Not because you're blood. Not because you're family. But because you're you.
The girl who walks into rooms like she owns them. The girl who fights for what she believes in. The girl who doesn't break when the world tries to break her.
I believe in you, Richelle.
I believe in you more than I have ever believed in anyone.
Don't let anyone tell you that you don't belong.
Don't let anyone tell you that you're not enough.
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't.
Because you can.
You will.
And I will be watching.
With love,
Your grandfather,
Eduardo Mendoza
P.S. — I know about the blood. I know about the trauma. I know about the things you didn't want to tell anyone. The people close to you. The ones you don't want to lose. I know what happened in those eight years after your mother disappeared. I learned everything when I discovered you were my granddaughter. I was curious about you, so I started to learn about you. Then I found out what you really are.
I just want you to know that your mother is still alive. Safe and sound. I don't know where she is. But I left clues with my will. I hope you find her as soon as possible.
The past is not done with you yet.
Be careful, my Queen.
I read the postscript twice.
Then I read the last line again.
My Queen.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest.
I stood up.
Sat down.
stood up again.
Started pacing around the room.
"No," I said. "No, no, no. That's not possible. How does he know about your past? How is this possible? How is he sure that your mama is still alive? How does he….."
I stopped pacing, turned to face her.
"He knows," I said. "He knows everything. Everything about you. Maybe about me too. He definitely knows. Our pasts are connected. If he knows yours, then he definitely knows mine too. Nobody knows about our past. Mama. Papa. Kuya. Lola. Only our team members. The close ones.
I started pacing again.
"But how does he know? What if someone else finds out? What if Kuya learns about you about me? He'll bury me alive. I'll be underground before I can explain. And how did he find out about Tita Rochelle? We tried our best to find her. We all failed. We searched for years. Nothing. And he just….just knows?"
My voice was rising. I could hear it. I couldn't stop it.
"Sit down."
I didn't sit down.
"Adrian. Sit."
Ruz's voice was calm. Steady. The same voice she used when everything was falling apart and she needed to hold it together.
I sat down.
"Shut up," she said. "Peacefully. No one knows about this. If he was capable of learning about us, about our past, about our secrets, about everything we've been hiding….then he was also capable of hiding things properly. Without mistakes. So calm down. Just… breathe."
I breathed.
Not because I wanted to. Because she told me to.
"That's why you agreed to go with him," I said. "With your father."
She looked at me. Her expression was tired. Resigned. The expression of someone who had accepted something she didn't want to accept.
"I have to," she said. "I don't have any other option. I have to go there. I have to read the will myself. Papa and the lawyers have been trying to learn about the will properly, what Lolo wrote, what he left. But they don't know everything. He left clues with the will. I have to find them. As soon as possible. Before someone else does."
I leaned forward. "What about the company?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Lolo couldn't hand it over to anyone," she said. "Not even Papa. There's something in that company something he couldn't trust to anyone else. Something that had to stay hidden until the right person came along."
"That's why he inherited it to you," I said. "That's why he made you the heir. To protect his secrets. To keep whatever's in that company safe."
"He knew I could handle it," Ruz said. "He researched me for months. Four months. When he was sure, when he was absolutely certain, he wanted to come to me. Talk to me personally. Explain everything."
"But he got sick."
She nodded. "He got sick. So he changed his will first. Then he left the clues. Then he left everything else for me to find."
"That's why you agreed to go to Makati."
"As if I have any other choice."
"When?"
"After exams."
I leaned back in the chair.
"All the best," I said.
"All the best to your face," she said. "I'm tense. How do I handle all of this? The business. The secrets, I don't even know yet. And my place, the place I swore, I would be when I turned twenty."
I laughed. Just a little. "You're doomed."
"I'm dead," she said.
Ruz's POV
The smell of breakfast pulled me out of my room before my brain fully woke up.
Garlic rice. Fried eggs. Longganisa. The kind of breakfast that declared war on hunger and won before the first bite. My stomach growled loudly, embarrassingly, the kind of growl that echoed off walls and made its presence known to everyone within a twenty meter radius.
I walked downstairs, feet still heavy with sleep, hair still doing whatever it wanted, eyes still adjusting to the morning light that flooded through the kitchen windows like it had something to prove.
Everyone had already finished eating.
Tito was rinsing his plate at the sink, humming something off key that might have been a song from the eighties. Tita was wiping down the counter.
Kuya sat at the table, reading something on his phone.
Adrian leaned back in his chair, looking far too awake.
I sat down.
The empty plate in front of me looked hopeful. Innocent.
Tita turned from the counter, saw me, and immediately grabbed a plate from the stack. The rice went down first, a perfect mound. Then the eggs, sunny side up, the yolks wobbling slightly. Then the longganisa, three links, glistening with just the right amount of grease.
"How was your sleep?" she asked, placing the plate in front of me.
"Good," I said, reaching for the spoon.
"Good." She nodded, already moving back to the counter, already pulling out containers, already packing something. "Today is Liam's birthday, so take a nice gift for him. Something thoughtful. Something he'll appreciate."
I paused mid reach. "Define thoughtful."
"Not a weapon."
"I was going to say a nice pen."
"Ruz."
"A very nice pen. Expensive. The kind that feels important when you hold it."
She gave me the look. The one that said I know exactly what you're thinking, and I do not approve.
"I also made some food for him," she continued, packing containers into a bag. "He really likes it. The one with the pork and the special sauce. He mentioned it last time. Said it reminded him of his grandmother's cooking."
I stared at her.
"You remembered that?"
"Of course I remembered that. I remember everything." She tied the bag with practiced efficiency. "That's what mothers do."
Adrian, who had been watching this exchange with the expression of someone who felt personally attacked, finally spoke up.
"Wow, Ma. You never lovingly make things like that for us."
Tita didn't even look at him.
"To receive love, you have to be good too."
Adrian's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"That's…" He pointed at her. "That's biased. That's discrimination. That's…."
"Accurate," I said, taking a bite of my egg.
"Traitor."
"Breakfast."
"The same thing."
Kuya set his phone down.
The movement was slow. Deliberate.
"Don't you dare do anything reckless today," he said.
His voice was calm. Too calm. The calm that came before a storm, before a lecture.
Adrian and I exchanged a glance.
The glance that said here we go.
"If there's any problem," Kuya continued, "call the cops first. Then call me. In that order. Do not…" He paused, letting the weight of the word settle. "....do not take matters into your own hands. Do not follow anyone to abandoned warehouses. Do not start fights you cannot finish. Do not…" here we go again Kuya starts his lecture,after the lecture as soon as we finished our meal we went back to our rooms and got ready,
Adrian was already waiting by the car when I came downstairs. He was leaning against the driver's door, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. But his eyes were sharp. Alert. Watching.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Good. Let's go."
We drove in silence.
We were halfway to Liam's house when a black SUV pulled out from a side street and blocked the road.
Adrian stopped the car.
Two men got out.
They were large. Muscular. Their suits were expensive. Their sunglasses were dark. Their expressions were blank.
One of them walked to my window. Tapped on the glass.
I rolled it down.
"The boss wants to talk to you," he said.
"Tell the boss I'm busy," I said.
"He insists."
"I insist harder."
The man's expression didn't change. "He has your friends."
I went cold.
"Which friends?"
"All of them."
I looked at Adrian.
He looked at me.
The same thought passed between us. The same decision. The same understanding.
"Fine," I said. "Take us to him."
The warehouse was different from the last one.
Bigger. Newer. Less abandoned. But the same energy hung in the air.
Kairo sat in a chair at the far end of the room.
Around him, his men stood in loose formation. Armed. Alert. Ready.
And scattered around the room, separated from each other, were our friends.
Enzo. Marco. Eren. Zayn. Nika.
Their hands weren't tied. They weren't bleeding. They just looked annoyed.
"You're late," Kairo said as we walked in.
"Traffic," I said.
He smiled. "Still funny. I like that about you."
"Still ugly," I said. "I don't like that about you."
His smile didn't waver. But something flickered behind his eyes. Annoyance, maybe. Or respect. It was hard to tell with men like Kairo.
"Today is Liam's birthday," he said.
"I know."
"You know what I'm going to do."
"I know what you want to do."
"Want?" He raised an eyebrow. "I never want. I do."
I stepped closer. Adrian stayed beside me.
"You tried before," I said. "You failed."
"I underestimated you."
"You underestimated children."
He laughed. The sound echoed off the walls, cold and hollow.
"Children," he repeated. "Look around you. Look at your friends. Look at yourselves. You're not children anymore. Children don't fight armed men in warehouses. Children don't track criminals across the city. Children don't stare death in the face and laugh."
He stood up.
"You're something else. Something dangerous. He walked toward me. "I wanted to see what you would do. I wanted to understand what made you different."
He raised his hand.
His men moved.
The first man reached for me.
I sidestepped. Let his momentum carry him past me. He stumbled, caught himself, turned, and Adrian's fist connected with his jaw.
He went down.
"You're getting slow," Adrian said.
"You're getting annoying," I replied.
"Improvement."
Another man lunged at me. I ducked under his arm, grabbed his wrist, twisted. He yelped. I shoved him toward Enzo, who was already moving, already fighting, already grinning.
"Took you long enough," Enzo said.
"We had to make an entrance."
"It was dramatic."
"I try."
The warehouse turned into chaos.
Not the chaos of the last fight. Not the desperate, dangerous chaos of people fighting for their lives.
This was different.
This was fun.
Marco and Eren worked together like they had been partners for years covering each other, setting up combos, taking down opponents twice their size. Eren was fast. Marco was strong. Together, they were unstoppable.
Zayn moved like water. Flowing around attacks, redirecting momentum, using his opponents' weight against them. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone just disable them. Just slow them down. Just buy time.
Nika was a hurricane. She didn't fight like someone who had been trained. She fought like someone who had been in fights her whole life and had learned to enjoy them.
"Where's the boss?" she shouted.
"Over there!" Marco pointed.
"I'll handle him!"
"No, you won't!" Kairo's voice cut through the noise.
He was standing near the back door. His men were falling back, forming a protective circle around him. They were losing and they knew it.
"Retreat!" he ordered.
His men didn't hesitate.
They ran.
Kairo ran too.
But not before he turned back.
Not before he raised his hand.
Not before I saw the gun.
The Shot
Kairo's hand came up. The gun glinted in the warehouse light. His eyes weren't on me they were on the door behind me.
The door where Liam was standing.
He must have come in while we were fighting. Must have been watching from the shadows, waiting for the right moment.
Kairo aimed.
I moved.
Not toward Kairo. Toward Liam.
I grabbed his arm, pulled him sideways, threw both of us to the ground.
The gunshot echoed off the walls.
The bullet hit the concrete floor inches from where we had been standing.
Silence.
Police flooded in, guns raised, voices shouting. Mira led them. Mira gave us the lockets last week, who had been tracking us since we left the house, who had brought the cavalry exactly when we needed them.
"Everybody down!" a cop shouted. "Hands in the air!"
Kairo's men dropped their weapons.
Kairo ran.
But there was nowhere to go. The police were everywhere. The exits were blocked. The windows were covered.
He was trapped.
A cop grabbed him. Handcuffed him. Read him his rights.
Kairo didn't fight. Didn't struggle. Didn't do anything except look at me.
"Next time," he said, "I won't miss."
"There won't be a next time," I said.
He smiled. "We'll see."
They dragged him away.
Liam was shaking.
I could feel it in his arm, in the way his body was trembling against mine. We were still on the floor, still tangled together, still trying to catch our breath.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"You saved my life," he said.
"Again."
"Again."
I sat up. Pulled him with me.
"You need to stop almost dying," I said. "It's becoming a habit."
"You need to stop saving me," he said. "It's becoming embarrassing."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
Adrian walked over. His knuckles were bleeding. His shirt was torn. He looked like he had been in a fight,because he had.
"Everyone okay?" he asked.
"Yeh, All okay," I said.
Adrian sighed. "We need to put a bell on him."
"I can hear you," Liam said.
"Good."
Nika ran over, her eyes wide, her face flushed. "That was amazing! Did you see that? I took down three guys! Three! With my bare hands!"
"I saw," I said.
"Was I cool?"
"You were adequate."
"Adequate? I was magnificent!"
"You were adequate."
"You're impossible."
"I know."
Zayn appeared beside us. His expression was calm, but his eyes were scanning the room, checking for threats, making sure everyone was safe.
"It's over," he said.
"For now," I said.
He nodded. "For now."
Mira walked toward us, her phone in her hand, her expression unreadable.
"The lockets," she said. " They saved you. "
I touched the locket around my neck. The one she had given me last week, the one I had been wearing ever since.
"You tracked us," I said.
"I protected you," she corrected.
"Thank you," I said.
She nodded. "You're welcome."
The police finished their work.
Kairo was arrested, processed, taken to a cell somewhere. His men were gone too. The warehouse was empty except for us and the echoes of what had happened.
Liam stood beside me,
Adrian stood on my other side, his arms crossed, his eyes on the door where Kairo had disappeared.
Zayn, Nika, Enzo, Marco, Eren, Mira all of them were there. All of them were alive. All of them were watching the same door, thinking the same thoughts.
"It's your birthday," I said to Liam.
"I know."
"Let's celebrate."
He looked at me.
"You still have energy," he said.
"Let's go, it's your 18th birthday. You are now the CEO of Castillo Empire."
"Okay, then let's gooooo"
No Kairo, No more tention, He is safe now. They all are safe now.