The Manila Cathedral felt less like a sanctuary and more like a mausoleum. The air was thick with the scent of lilies hundreds of them, their waxen white petals looking like funeral shrouds in the dim, amber light of the nave.
Enzo Galvez stood at the altar, his posture as rigid and perfect as the stone pillars surrounding him.
He looked every bit the celebrated architect, the visionary who had saved the tragic daughter of a fallen driver. To the wedding coordinators scurrying around us, we were the ultimate romance. To me, we were a Death Trap in its final walkthrough.
"Chin up, Mia. A bride should look at her husband, not the floor," Enzo's voice purred, low enough for only me to hear. He gripped my elbow, his thumb pressing into a specific pressure point....a silent reminder of the Double Tape that still bound our lives.
"I'm just tired, Enzo. The vows... they took a lot out of me," I whispered.
"They were perfect," he said, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying pride. "The part where you said I was your 'only foundation'... that was a nice touch. I almost believed you wrote it yourself."
I felt a cold shiver. I had written them, but not for him. Every word of worship I had penned was a coded message, a signal to the ghost in the machine.
I reached into the small, lace-trimmed clutch hanging from my wrist. Tucked inside a secret lining was the micro-SD card. I had retrieved it that morning, a task that required a level of stomach-turning grit I didn't know I possessed.
Now, it felt like a hot coal against my palm.
"Excuse me, Mr. Galvez," the lead coordinator, a frantic woman named Clara, interrupted. "We need to test the lighting cues for the Grand Entrance. The tech team is ready in the booth."
Enzo checked his watch. "Five minutes. I need to take a call from the firm. Mia, stay here. Don't wander off the 'blueprint'."
He walked toward the vestry, his footsteps echoing like a countdown. The moment he disappeared behind the heavy velvet curtains, my heart shifted into a frantic, jagged rhythm.
I looked up at the choir loft. There, hidden behind the massive pipe organ, was a figure in a gray utility jacket. Julian Alcasid. He didn't wave. He didn't move. But the light on his tablet flickered twice.
Go now.
I turned to Clara. "The lace on my train is caught on the pew. Can you check the back while I go to the sound booth? I need to make sure the music starts on the right beat."
"Oh! Of course, Ms. Mia! Just be quick!" Clara hovered over the fabric, distracted.
I moved. I didn't run...running draws eyes. I glided through the shadows of the side chapels, my white silk dress looking like a ghost haunting the cathedral. I reached the small, spiral staircase leading to the Control Booth.
The booth was cramped, filled with monitors and tangled wires. A young technician....the same one who had come to the penthouse...was sitting there, his fingers flying across a laptop.
"Ten seconds," he whispered without looking up. "The loop is active. Enzo's security feed shows you standing at the altar with Clara."
I handed him the SD card. My fingers were shaking so hard I almost dropped it. "Is it enough? Will it stop him?"
"It won't just stop him, Mia," the technician said, his eyes meeting mine. "It's a Digital Detonator. The moment Enzo steps onto the stage at the Gala tomorrow to announce the wedding, this code will override the entire system. It will broadcast the Arthur Santos Dashcam to every screen in the city. It will bypass his firewalls and dump his 'private archive' directly to the NBI servers."
"And my mother?" I breathed. "The laser... the sniper..."
"Julian is handling it," he said, plugging the card into the main console. "The 'Double Tape' is about to lose its stickiness."
Beep. The upload bar started to crawl. 10%... 30%...
Suddenly, the walkie-talkie on the desk crackled.
"Clara to Tech. Where is Mia? She's not at the altar."
My blood turned to ice. Enzo was back.
"Hide," the technician hissed, pointing to a small crawlspace beneath the console.
I scrambled under the desk, my silk dress bunched up against the dusty floor.
A second later, the heavy door to the booth slammed open. The scent of Tom Ford cologne filled the tiny room. Enzo.
"Is there a problem with the signal?" Enzo's voice was as cold as a mountain stream. "My remote just gave me a proximity alert for Mia's tracker."
"Just a glitch in the old wiring, Mr. Galvez," the technician said, his voice remarkably steady.
"The Cathedral's thick walls interfere with the GPS. See? She's right there on the altar camera."
I watched Enzo's polished leather shoes through the gap in the desk. He stepped closer. One more foot and he would see the white lace of my dress peeking out from the shadows.
"The altar camera shows a loop," Enzo said quietly.
The silence that followed was deafening. I stopped breathing. I felt the SD card's code finalizing on the screen above me...a tiny, digital ding that sounded like a gunshot in the stillness.
"You're good, kid," Enzo said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, purring tone. "But I built the Security Architecture for this entire district. You think I don't know my own ghost-code when I see it?"
He reached down. His hand clamped around my wrist with the force of a vice. He yanked me out from under the desk, my dress tearing with a sickening rip.
"Mia," he whispered, his eyes burning with a madness that surpassed anything I'd seen in Tagaytay. "You just broke the last rule of the design."
He didn't look at the technician. He didn't look at the laptop. He pulled a small, silver device from his pocket....the Master Remote.
"You wanted a show for the Gala?" Enzo smiled, and for the first time, I saw the true face of the monster. "We're moving the schedule up. If you won't be my bride, you'll be my Martyr."
He dragged me toward the balcony of the choir loft. Below us, the Cathedral was empty, but I knew the snipers were already in position.
"Julian!" I screamed, looking toward the pipe organ. "DO IT NOW!"
The Cathedral lights exploded into a blinding, strobe-like white.
From the shadows of the organ, a figure leaped. Julian Alcasid. He wasn't wearing a technician's uniform anymore. He was wearing the scars of five years of hatred.
He tackled Enzo, the two men crashing into the stone railing. The Master Remote skittered across the floor, sliding toward the edge of the loft.
"Run, Mia!" Julian roared, his hands locked around Enzo's throat. "The bridge is rigged! Get your mother out of the house!"
I scrambled for the remote, my fingers clawing at the stone. But Enzo kicked out, his heavy boot catching my ribs. I gasped, the world spinning.
Enzo stood up, his shirt torn, his face a mask of primal rage. He looked at Julian, then at me.
"You think a dead man and a broken girl can take down a Galvez?" Enzo laughed, a sound that echoed through the hollow cathedral. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a real gun.....not a silencer, not a toy. A heavy, black 9mm.
"The Double Tape ends here," Enzo said, pointing the gun at Julian's heart. "But I'm taking the whole foundation with me."
BOOM....
The sound didn't come from the gun. It came from the Main Doors of the Cathedral.
The NBI had arrived. But they weren't alone. Behind them, a fleet of black SUVs pulled up, their sirens screaming.
Enzo didn't panic. He looked at the police, then at the remote near the edge of the loft. He realized he couldn't win. He couldn't own the canvas anymore.
"If I can't have the masterpiece," Enzo whispered, looking directly into my eyes with a chilling, final love. Nobody can."
He didn't fire at the police. He fired at the Gas Main running along the Cathedral wall.
As the smell of gas filled the air and the first spark ignited, Julian grabbed my hand and shoved me toward the secret priest's tunnel.
"GO!" he screamed.
The last thing I saw was Enzo Galvez standing in the center of the Cathedral, the white lilies at his feet, as the first wave of fire began to climb the altar.
I ran. I didn't look back. But as I reached the street, I realized one thing. I still had the Master Remote in my hand. And on the screen, a new timer had started.
00:59... 00:58... 00:57...
It wasn't a timer for the Cathedral. It was a timer for the Penthouse.