Binondo – Weeks Earlier (Flashback)
The air in Binondo was heavy that night, thick with rain and secrets. Electric rickshaws zipped past colonial-era bahay na bato turned gambling dens. Red lanterns hung beside neon signs in broken English, Chinese, and Spanish. It was a strange intersection of centuries—a district where time didn't move forward, it twisted.
Gabriel Cariño moved quickly through a narrow alley near Ongpin. His leather satchel bounced against his hip as he clutched a torn notebook filled with names, dates, and smuggled locations. He knew he was being followed—he felt it in the rhythm of the shadows, the silence behind him.
He turned a corner, breathing hard, only to stop.
Three men stood before him, their faces partly hidden by umbrellas. The tallest one wore a red armband with the character 血 — blood.
"You've seen too much, Mr. Cariño," the tall man said in accented Spanish.
Gabriel's grip tightened around the satchel.
"I was just trying to understand," he whispered. "I wanted the truth."
"That is your mistake," another said. "This city doesn't run on truth. It runs on silence."
And then, the first shot rang out.
Two weeks later, the body was found floating in the Pasig River, near the broken hulls of forgotten Spanish galleons.
---
Present Day – Escolta
Juan stared at the photo again. Gabriel's last photo. The grief still settled in his chest like rusted iron.
"He was a journalist," Don Eduardo reminded him, sitting beside him in the café. "A writer. That was his power. But you—your power is something else."
Juan didn't answer. He couldn't.
---
Meanwhile – An Undisclosed Room, Chinatown
A deep red curtain swayed as Señor Lim Tionco poured himself a cup of jasmine tea. Dressed in a black silk camisa de chino and gold-rimmed glasses, Lim Tionco looked like a refined scholar from a forgotten dynasty. But behind his calm exterior was a warlord cloaked in culture.
On the wall behind him, a massive ancestral painting hung — an old mestizo de Sangley in full Spanish regalia, hand resting on a porcelain opium jar, the other on a Spanish sword.
In front of Lim knelt two men in dark red uniforms.
"Our enemies grow brave," Lim said quietly. "The Spaniard... Cariño... he's returned."
"He's working with Don Eduardo and the Americans," one replied. "They plan something. Soon."
Lim set the cup down.
"Then we must move quicker."
He opened a drawer and pulled out a jade seal.
"Activate the old network. The antique smugglers. The club owners. Even the colegios that owe us protection money. I want every eye in Escolta and Intramuros open. And when Juan Cariño shows himself... we take him alive."
"And if he resists?"
Lim Tionco raised his gaze. Cold. Unfeeling.
"Then we bury him beside his brother."
---
Escolta – Later That Night
Juan walked alone along the banks of the Pasig. Jones Bridge stood in full glory — restored with its grand statues and colonial French-style lamps. The river below shimmered with reflection, but to Juan, it looked like blood.
Escolta was awake. Music spilled from jazz bars. The nostalgic echo of a bandurria came from a theater, where a mestiza de Sangley sang an old kundiman in Spanish.
"Si en la sombra de mi vida... aún me amas... no me dejes morir solo."
(If in the shadow of my life… you still love me… do not let me die alone.)
Juan lit his cigar.
A motorcycle zipped past.
Then another.
He was being watched.
Suddenly, a voice from the shadows: "Señor Cariño... your brother was brave. But you—you are foolish."
Juan turned sharply, pulling his .38 revolver from his coat.
But the man was gone.
Only a red handkerchief remained, marked with blood.