Jay's POV
The heavy door of the Strongbuild mansion clicked shut behind me, but the silence didn't follow. My head was a riot of noise—the sound of shattering glass, my mother's pleading voice, and the ghostly, rhythmic thumping of a silver-topped cane that I hadn't heard in years but could still feel in the marrow of my bones.
I didn't go to the penthouse .I couldn't sit in a room filled with Keifer's scent and the lingering warmth of our morning. I felt contaminate.
The mere mention of them—August and Luna—felt like a layer of soot settling over my skin.
I drove. The city lights blurred into long, neon streaks. I found myself at a hole-in-the-wall bar, the kind of place where the music is too loud for conversation.
"Double whiskey. Neat," I told the bartender.
The first glass burned. The second numbed. By the fifth, the edges of the world were soft, but the center was still jagged. Alcohol couldn't touch the memory of the "Annex"—the dark, damp rooms of the Mariano estate where they used to "discipline" the help and, eventually, me.
"A girl's place is to observe and endure," August's voice whispered in my ear, cold as a tombstone.
I slammed the glass down and walked out. I drove to the one place that understood my violence: the JJM private gym, my "base."
The air in the gym was cool and smelled of rubber. I didn't bother changing. I didn't wrap my hands. I walked straight to the 100-pound heavy bag hanging in the center of the room—and I hit it.
Thwack.
That was for the summer I turned ten.
Thwack.
That was for the locked doors.
I punched until my knuckles split, the white bandages on my hand from earlier turning a dark, messy crimson. I kicked until my shins screamed. I wasn't Jay the CEO. I was a cornered animal, fighting a ghost that wouldn't stay dead.
With a final, guttural scream, I threw a roundhouse kick with every ounce of my suppressed trauma. The heavy chain snapped with a metallic shriek, and the bag slumped to the floor, dead weight.
I stood there, gasping, my hair matted to my forehead.
"Jay. Don't hold your tears anymore."
I spun around, my hands up in a defensive crouch. Standing by the entrance was Kuya Kyle.The only person who had ever seen the cracks in my porcelain mask.
"Kuya," I breathed, my voice breaking.
He walked across the matted floor and opened his arms.
"Cry," he said. "I've got your back."
The dam burst. I collapsed into him, my bloody hands clutching his shirt. I sobbed—horrible, racking sounds.
"Why do they have to come back?" I wailed. "Why now?"
"I know, Jay. I know," he whispered.
"You know what they did to me, Kuya..." I murmured, my mind slipping back into the darkness. "They made me watch. They treated me like trash... like I was just a thing to be broken. They let me watch what they did to the others just to show me what happened to 'disobedient' girls..."
I kept murmuring about the basement, about the cold, about August's smile. Kuya Kyle just held me. He lowered us to the floor and let me cry until my eyes were swollen shut.
Slowly, the exhaustion and the whiskey pulled me under. I fell asleep right there, my head heavy in his lap.
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The Next Morning
The grey light of dawn was filtering through the high gym windows. My head throbbed, and my knuckles felt like they'd been put through a meat grinder.
I looked up. Kuya Kyle was still there, leaning his head back against the wall.
"Kuya," I croaked.
His eyes snapped open. "I'm here. You okay?"
I sat up, wincing. I looked at the broken heavy bag and the dried blood on my hands. The "CEO" was back, but she was fragile.
"Go home, Kuya" I said, my voice flat. "Go back to Strong. Tell them I'm fine. Tell Keifer I'll be there at 10:00."
"Jay—"
"Please. I need to shower. I need to be the person they're afraid of."
He finally stood up. He looked at me for a long time, searching for the girl he'd held last night, but she was gone, buried under layers of steel.
"Ten o'clock," he repeated. "We'll all be there."
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Kyle's POV
I watched her walk toward the showers, her back straight, her gait steady—a terrifyingly perfect imitation of a woman who wasn't currently falling apart.
My legs were numb from her weight, but my heart felt heavier. I looked at the heavy bag lying on the floor like a discarded corpse.
The leather was split, and there were smears of her blood on the canvas.
She thinks she's hiding it. She thinks that by putting on a dress and a cold expression, she can erase what happened in that basement. But I heard her whispers last night.
I heard the parts she never told our parents—the parts about being forced to watch August's "discipline," the parts about being treated like a disposable object.
Her parents think she's just "rebellious." They have no idea that their daughter is a survivor of a war they didn't even know was happening.
I walked out of the gym, the morning air biting at my skin. I had to go back to the mansion and look Keifer in the eye. I had to tell the "Hubby" that his wife was fine, even though I'd spent the last six hours holding a girl who was screaming internally for a childhood that was stolen from her.
I climbed into my car, gripping the steering wheel until my own knuckles turned white.
10:00 AM.
August and Luna Mariano were coming for a meeting, but they were walking into a trap they didn't expect. Because Jay wasn't just bringing her "JJM Holdings" files to that table. She was bringing ten years of stored-up vengeance.
And if she faltered for even a second, I would be right there to finish what she started.