“Be quiet for a moment, Bianca,” I said, my voice cutting through her manufactured tears. The room went dead silent. Even Adrian froze. It was likely the first time he had ever heard me speak to her without a tone of soft, sisterly affection. I had been the silent martyr for three years, absorbing every blow and every insult with a quiet dignity that he had mistaken for weakness.
I had said nothing when my mother-in-law called me useless and barren. I had remained silent when Adrian disappeared for days under the guise of ‘business,’ only to return smelling of a perfume that wasn’t mine. I had even swallowed the insult when he removed my name from the company’s emergency contacts so he could play the part of an eligible bachelor at high-stakes corporate galas. But today was the end of my silence.
“Adrian,” I said, looking him directly in the eye, “if you are so certain this child is your flesh and blood, why is a simple test such a hurdle? If the results confirm your paternity, I will step aside and allow the registration to proceed without another word.” I could see the gears turning behind his eyes. He was arrogant, yes, but he was also starting to feel the first prickle of doubt.
“It isn’t necessary,” he insisted, though his voice lacked its previous conviction. “Because I know he is my son.” I countered him instantly: “How can you be certain?” The question echoed against the hospital walls. I looked at Bianca and caught a flicker of something—a flash of pure, unadulterated panic that vanished as quickly as it appeared. But I had seen it.
It was the same look of hidden guilt she had worn years ago when I found her perfume in Adrian’s car. Back then, she had laughed it off, telling me not to be ‘paranoid’ and that a man like Adrian would never look at a ‘plain girl’ like her. I had been a fool once, believing their lies even when I caught them at a hotel in Pasay. I had accepted his excuses of being ‘drunk and weak.’ Never again.
“If the test proves the baby is yours,” I told the nurse, ignoring Adrian’s burgeoning shout, “I won’t interfere. But until then, no father is being listed.” I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I had saved weeks ago. “Atty. Salazar, please proceed with the petition for a court-ordered paternity test. And bring the documents we discussed.”
Through the speaker, the lawyer’s voice was crisp and professional. “The documents are ready, Ms. dela Cruz. That includes the divorce settlement you requested. Should I bring them to the hospital immediately?” The revelation of the word ‘divorce’ seemed to hit Adrian harder than the request for the DNA test. He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“Divorce settlement?” he repeated, the words sounding foreign in his mouth. I ended the call and looked at him with pity. “Isn’t this what you’ve wanted since the day we married? You only took my hand because Doña Elena made it a condition of your inheritance. You’ve treated me like a ghost in my own home for three years. Now, I’m finally giving you the haunting you deserve.”
For the next few days, the battle moved from the hospital to the corporate offices of Villareal Prime Holdings in BGC. Adrian tried to intimidate me, tearing up the settlement papers twice. He thought he could break my will through sheer attrition, believing I had no resources or spine of my own. He forgot that while he was out playing house with Bianca, I was the one who had managed his grandmother’s estate and learned the intricacies of his world.
I brought the third copy of the divorce papers myself, bypassing his panicked assistant and walking straight into a high-level board meeting. The room was filled with the most powerful men in the city, all of whom looked up in shock as I interrupted their deliberations. Adrian stood at the head of the table, his face darkening with a mixture of embarrassment and fury. “What are you doing here, Lucia?”
I placed the papers on the mahogany table with a resonant thud. “I’m here to finish this,” I said. I pulled a USB drive from my pocket and held it up. “Before you consider destroying these papers a third time, I suggest you and your board take a look at the CCTV footage from the hotel where Bianca checked in this past Valentine’s Day.”
Adrian’s face drained of color as I plugged the drive into the boardroom laptop. “You weren’t in the city that day, Adrian. You were in Hong Kong for the merger,” I reminded him. The screen flickered to life, showing Bianca entering a presidential suite. A moment later, a man joined her. When his face came into focus, the entire room gasped. It wasn’t a stranger. It was Adrian’s own brother. The DNA results, which arrived an hour later, merely confirmed what the video suggested: the child was a Villareal, but he wasn’t Adrian’s.
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