My stomach twisted.
Rafael answered.
“She already signs whatever I put in front of her.”
Laughter.
Bianca’s voice came next.
“And if she asks questions?”
Rafael chuckled.
“She won’t.”
The recording continued.
“She loves me. That’s the useful thing about people who grow up losing everyone. They mistake attachment for loyalty.”
I had thought nothing could hurt after seeing Bianca in my dress.
I had been wrong.
My mother’s death.
My father’s absence.
The loneliness I had confessed to Rafael in our first year together.
He had catalogued all of it.
Not as wounds.
As vulnerabilities.
Then Lucian said something that silenced the entire ballroom.
“The Villareal debt matures Monday. If we don’t move the Tagaytay and Makati properties into Seraphim before then, your banks start asking questions.”
Rafael’s father shot to his feet.
“Turn that off!”
Nobody moved.
Rafael’s voice continued.
“My father has it handled.”
Lucian laughed.
“Your father hasn’t had anything handled in ten years.”
The livestream comments were moving so quickly I could no longer read them.
Reporters had joined.
Business journalists.
Financial analysts.
People were screen-recording everything.
Then Bianca’s voice said:
“What happens to Celeste afterward?”
A pause.
Rafael answered.
“After the refinancing?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
Then:
“Whatever she wants. Paris. New York. Therapy. A divorce eventually.”
A few guests gasped.
“But the properties stay in Seraphim,” Lucian said.
“Exactly.”
My hands clenched.
Three years.
Three years of birthdays.
Christmas mornings.
Flights across the world.
Rafael asleep beside me.
Rafael crying at my mother’s funeral.
Rafael telling me I was the safest place he had ever known.
**And all that time, he had been counting buildings.**
The recording ended.
Silence swallowed the ballroom.
Rafael’s mother, Sofia Villareal, was still seated near the front.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
Her expression was unreadable.
Rafael looked toward her.
“Mom.”
She did not answer.
“Tell them this is ridiculous.”
Nothing.
His voice sharpened.
“Mom.”
Sofia finally looked at him.
And I saw something through the livestream that I had never seen before.
Disgust.
Not disappointment.
Not embarrassment.
Disgust.
Lucian stepped toward Tomas.
“You’re making a catastrophic mistake.”
Tomas smiled without warmth.
“I don’t believe I’m the person who made the mistake tonight.”
Lucian looked directly toward the camera.
“Celeste, call me.”
I almost did.
Habit.
That was the humiliating part.
A lifetime of obedience does not disappear simply because betrayal becomes visible.
Then I remembered my mother.
Two weeks before she died, she had been sitting in her sunroom, thinner than she wanted anyone to notice.
Lucian had called.
Afterward, she had stared at the phone for a long time.
I asked what was wrong.
She smiled.
“Nothing, darling.”
But then she said something strange.
**“Never confuse the person who manages the door with the person who owns the house.”**
I hadn’t understood.
Until now.
I called Tomas.
“Remove Lucian’s voting proxy.”
My uncle’s head snapped toward the phone in Tomas’s hand.
Tomas repeated for the room:
“Chairwoman Aragon has revoked Mr. Lucian Aragon’s board proxy and management authority, effective immediately.”
