AUGUST 2015
ISAAC
The heavy, ornate iron gates of our family compound rumbled open as Manong Jerry steered the black sedan through the driveway. I was seventeen, slumped against the passenger seat with my loosened school tie hanging crooked around my neck, exhausted from another day of classes. The afternoon sun baked the sprawling estate in a hazy golden glow as the car rolled to a stop beneath the front portico.
"We're, Sir," Manong Jerry said as he shifted the gear into park.
I managed a tired nod, slinging my canvas school bag over one shoulder before stepping out. I climbed the polished stone steps, pushed open the heavy narra front door, and let my bag slip from my shoulder onto the porch with a dull thud.
"Kuya?" I called, expecting Elijah's usual teasing voice to answer from somewhere inside the house.
Nothing.
The mansion was entirely too quiet. The foyer echoed with nothing but the steady hum of the air-conditioning. No television. No footsteps. Not even the clinking of dishes from the kitchen. The silence felt wrong.
I frowned.
"Kuya?"
Still nothing.
My heartbeat quickened as I climbed the sweeping staircase two steps at a time, my school shoes pounding against the polished hardwood until I reached the second-floor hallway.
Elijah's bedroom door stood slightly ajar.
"Kuya?"
I pushed it open.
A pair of limp, gray socks hung at eye level.
My breath snuffed out instantly, a sharp, cold spike piercing straight through my throat. My gaze ripped upward. Tied securely to the thick, exposed wooden ceiling beam above the center of the room was a length of blue nylon rope. It creaked. A low, rhythmic scritch-scratch echoed against the high ceiling as the body slowly revolved in the stale air.
"Kuya!"
The word escaped as nothing more than a ragged breath. My knees gave way beneath me. I stumbled backward until my shoulder slammed against the bedroom doorframe, my eyes refusing to leave my brother's face.
Footsteps thundered up the staircase behind me.
"Sir Isaac!"
Manong Jerry rounded the corner, his weathered face draining of color the instant he looked inside the room.
"Diyos ko..." Without hesitating, he rushed past me.
"Sir Isaac!" he barked, grabbing Elijah around the waist and straining upward with all his strength to ease the pressure of the rope. The veins in his neck stood out as he fought against the dead weight. "Tumawag ka sir ng ambulansya! Bilis!" (Call an ambulance sir. Faster!)
I couldn't move.
My ears rang until the world dissolved into a dull, muffled hum. My hands hung uselessly at my sides, trembling so violently my fingertips felt numb. All I could do was stare at Elijah's swollen face as his body swayed ever so slightly above Manong Jerry's shoulders.
"Sir Isaac!" he shouted again, his voice breaking through the haze. "Call an ambulance!"
I turned and bolted downstairs, nearly missing a step as I raced into the kitchen. My shaking hands knocked an imported crystal sugar jar from the island counter. It exploded across the porcelain tiles, white crystals scattering like shards of ice. I snatched up the landline receiver, my sweaty thumb slipping off the plastic dial twice before I finally managed to punch in the emergency number.
"Emergency hotline, what is your—"
"My brother," I choked out, my voice cracking into a high, unrecognizable shriek.
"The rope—he's hanging in his room! Please, he's not moving!"
"Calm down, sweetie. What is your address?"
"Acacia Street, the central estate compound—please, he's blue! Send someone!"
I dropped the receiver before she could finish and sprinted back upstairs.
Manong Jerry was still beneath Elijah, his entire body shaking from the effort of keeping him lifted. Sweat soaked through the back of his faded uniform, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles quivered beneath his skin.
"Hold on, Sir Elijah," he gasped through gritted teeth. "Please... hold on."
I stood frozen in the doorway, my legs refusing to carry me another step. My vision blurred into dark, pulsing spots as the minutes dragged on. Manong Jerry never let go despite the strain pulling at his shoulders and back. The room filled with nothing but his ragged breathing, the faint creak of the taut rope, and the terrible silence from my brother.
OCTOBER 2025
I gasped, my eyes flying open as my body jolted upright in bed.
The sheets were tangled around my legs like rope. My chest heaved, a cold, oily sweat slicking my forehead. I stared wildly around the dark bedroom of the villa, my heart hammering against my ribs in that same frantic, useless rhythm from that day.
I rubbed a hand over my face, swallowing against the dry, hollow ache in my throat. It was just the dream. The same dream that had haunted the edges of my mind for ten years. I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. 5:30 AM.
There would be no going back to sleep.
An hour later, the smell of garlic rice and frying eggs filled the kitchen—a transactional morning before a twelve-hour day. I kept my sleeves rolled up, focusing entirely on the hiss of the pan, using the familiar, domestic routine to anchor myself against the lingering shadow of the man hanging from the ceiling.
Then I heard her footsteps.
"You're up early," I said. I kept my voice level, offering a small smile as I set the plate down, but my eyes automatically tracked her face. She looked pale.
Exhausted. Like a woman who had spent the night staring at a wall. I wanted to ask if she had slept at all, but the words caught in my throat. We didn't do that. We didn't ask about each other's nights.
I checked my watch. 7:15 AM. The market opened soon. I grabbed my blazer from the chair. "I'll be late tonight," I muttered.
"Isaac."
Her voice stopped me a foot from the door. It wasn't her usual crisp, indifferent tone. It was tight. Frayed.
"Don't overwork yourself," she said, her eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my fingers tighten against the leather of my briefcase. "Come home early. The work will still be there tomorrow, but... you need to be here, too."
My hand froze on the brass door handle.
I turned slowly, my brows furrowing as I searched her face for the punchline, or the hidden motive.
You need to be here.
The syllables felt heavy, foreign, entirely wrong coming from Lillian. The Lillian I married lived behind a locked laptop screen and a wall of polite indifference. This woman looked like she was holding her breath, waiting for a blow to fall.
"Did you just tell me not to overwork?" The suspicion slipped out before I could mask it.
"I'm serious," she said, her voice steady, though I caught the slight, erratic rise and fall of her chest. "Just... come home."
I stood there for a heartbeat too long, the silence stretching between us. My chest tightened with a strange, confusing heat. I didn't know how to answer her—not without cracking the facade I'd spent three years building.
"I'll... see what I can do," I muttered, turning the handle and stepping out into the crisp morning air, completely undone by four simple words.
________________________________________
The hum of the projector in the executive boardroom was usually a sound that brought me focus. Today, it was just mind-numbing static.
"...which projects a 14% increase in Q4 acquisition velocity, assuming the logistics pipeline stabilizes," the head of development droned on, tapping a laser pointer against the glass screen.
I sat at the head of the long mahogany table, my chin resting in my hand, my posture perfectly rigid. To anyone else, I looked like an apex predator calculating a hostile takeover. In reality, my ribcage felt entirely too tight.
Every time I tried to focus on the spreadsheet, a strange, fluttering warmth would rise from the pit of my stomach, spreading upward until it knotted in my throat. It was an uncomfortable, erratic sensation—like a sudden drop on a rollercoaster—and it irritated me. I wasn't sick. I didn't get nervous. Yet, my pulse was hammering against my collar.
"Just... come home."
The words kept looping in my head, loud and intrusive. I picked up my pen, rolling it tightly between my knuckles to stop my fingers from fidgeting. Lillian's face right before I closed the front door kept flashing over the columns of data. The sheer terror in her eyes—why had she looked at me like I was made of glass? Like I was going to disappear if she blinked?
More than that, why was my chest reacting like this to a few simple words? It was completely illogical. We had a contract. We had boundaries. But the memory of her voice kept sparking that dizzying, anxious flutter in my gut, leaving me utterly, profoundly confused.
"...Sir Isaac? Your thoughts on the logistics budget?"
The room went quiet. A dozen pairs of eyes turned toward me, waiting for the final verdict.
I swallowed down the restlessness, forcing my voice to cut through the room. "The budget stands. But tighten the contingency margins by two percent. We aren't subsidizing their delays."
"Right. Of course," the director muttered, quickly scribbling in his notepad.
I glanced down at my watch. 5:45 PM.
Usually, this was the part of the day where I dug into the second mountain of paperwork, ordering a black coffee that would keep me at my desk until midnight. The villa was just a place where I slept; the office was where I lived. But as I stared at the glowing numbers on the screen, that sudden, nervous flip in my stomach returned, sharper this time.
"The work will still be there tomorrow, but... you need to be here, too."
My breath hitched. I stood up abruptly, drawing back my chair with a sharp scrape against the hardwood floor.
The entire board froze mid-motion.
"We're done for today," I announced, grabbing my blazer from the back of the seat, my mind entirely made up. "Send the finalized briefs to my email."
Without waiting for a response, I turned and strode out of the boardroom, my dress shoes clicking a rapid tempo against the polished floor. I needed to get out of the building. I needed to figure out why a sudden shift in my wife's tone was making it hard to breathe.
"Sir?" Marco, my secretary, scrambled up from his desk as I burst through the double doors. He held a thick stack of manila folders in his arms. "The representatives from the logistics firm just arrived for the dinner meeting. They're waiting in conference room B—"
"Reschedule them," I said, not slowing down as I walked past him and grabbed my briefcase from the couch.
Marco actually dropped a pen.
"Reschedule? Isaac, it took three months to get this dinner on the books. You said this acquisition was a priority."
"It is. And it will remain a priority tomorrow morning at eight o'clock." I slid my blazer on, pulling the lapels straight.
Marco stood entirely still, his mouth slightly open as he watched me lock my desk drawer. He had been my secretary for years. He had seen me work through a severe case of influenza, a broken collarbone, and Christmas Eve. He had never, not once, seen me leave before sundown.
Slowly, the confusion on his face morphed into something altogether different. A small, insufferable grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He set the folders down on his desk and leaned against it, crossing his arms.
"Well, well," Marco murmured, his voice dropping into a teasing drawl. "The world must be ending. Or... did Lillian finally decide to lock you out of the house if you missed another dinner?"
I paused, giving him a cool, warning glare over my shoulder, though the heat rising to my neck threatened to give me away. "Mind your business, Marco."
"I am minding my business. My business is keeping you alive, and right now, you look like a man escaping a burning building," Marco chuckled, entirely unfazed by my death stare. He reached over and tapped the face of his watch. "Go on then, boss. Don't keep her waiting. I'll tell the logistics team you had an urgent... personal emergency."
"It's not an emergency," I snapped, though my hand was already gripping the handle of my briefcase with white knuckles.
"Sure it isn't," Marco said, waving a hand dismissively as I headed for the private exit. "Drive safe, Icy."
I didn't answer him, but as the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, my heart gave another clumsy, erratic thud against my ribs.
The drive back was agonizingly slow. The city traffic felt like a personal insult, every red light an obstacle keeping me from answering the question that had been burning holes in my mind all day.
When I finally unlocked the heavy front door of the villa, the usual suffocating coldness of the house felt... different. The air was thick, expectant.
I stepped onto the marble floor, my dress shoes clicking rhythmically in the quiet. As I neared the kitchen, I saw her. She was standing by the spice rack, her hands moving idly over the glass jars to organize them. But as my silhouette hit the doorway, her shoulders locked.
She smoothed down her silk pajamas, a nervous, fleeting gesture that made my pulse hitch.
"You're actually home," she said, the words cutting through the quiet before she could stop them.
LILLIAN
The house felt different tonight. Usually, the silence of our villa was cold and hollow, a reminder that this was just a high-end business arrangement with a shared zip code. But tonight, as I heard the heavy thud of the front door closing and the familiar, rhythmic click of Isaac's dress shoes on the marble floor, the silence felt... expectant.
I was standing in the kitchen, pretending to organize the spice rack for the third time, but my ears were tuned to every sound he made.
One, two, three steps. He stopped at the mail table.
Four, five, six. He was heading toward the kitchen.
My heart did a clumsy somersault. I smoothed down my silk pajamas, trying to look like a woman who hadn't been checking the time on her phone every ten minutes for the last hour.
When he stepped into the light of the kitchen, I almost gasped. His tie was loosened, his top button undone, that made him look less like the untouchable CEO and more like a man who had spent the day fighting ghosts.
"You're actually home," I said, the words slipping out before I could filter them.
Isaac paused, his hand still gripping the strap of his briefcase. He looked at me, and for a second, the exhaustion in his eyes was replaced by that same quiet amazement I'd seen this morning. It was as if he kept expecting to come home to the "old" Lillian—the one who would have been in her room with the door locked.
"I gave my word," he said, his voice low and a little raspy. He set his bag down on the island.
"I'm glad," I whispered. I moved toward the counter, keeping the kitchen island between us like a physical manifestation of our contract. "I... I made tea. And there's some food if you're hungry."
Isaac didn't move toward the food. Instead, he leaned his weight against the counter, his dark eyes tracking my every movement.
"Why are you doing this, Lillian?" The question was soft, but it hit me like a physical blow. I froze, my hand hovering over the teapot.
"Doing what?"
"This," he gestured vaguely between us, his gaze intense. "The cooking. Worrying. The way you look at me when I walk through the door—like you're surprised I'm still in one piece." He took a slow, deliberate step around the island, shrinking the distance between us. "You've spent almost three years maintaining a very specific distance. Why break it now?"
I looked up at him, and for a terrifying second, the kitchen vanished. I saw the driveway again. I saw the blood. I felt the crushing weight of the silence after his heart stopped beating.
"I just realized that my business partner is a valuable asset that needs proper maintenance." I lied—a cold, clinical excuse.
"An asset?" he repeated, his voice dropping to that low, gravelly vibration. He sounded almost disappointed, though his expression remained unreadable. "That's a strange way to describe your husband."
He looked away first.
The distance returned.
"You should rest," he said, though his eyes remained fixed on mine. "You look like you're still fighting that nightmare."
"I'm trying to win this time," I replied.
He gave me a lingering, thoughtful look before picking up his briefcase. "I'll see you in the morning. Don't stay up too late."
I watched him walk away, his silhouette receding into the shadows of the hallway. He was alive. He was home. I had changed the script for tonight, but as I looked down at the hand that held his blood, I knew that keeping him alive was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever done.