📜 CHAPTER 6: Erasing the Scum
Six months after the rainy night in San Juan, the dust had finally settled over the ruins of the Villareal family.
Adrian was sitting in a dim, cold visitation room at the Makati City Jail, awaiting his final sentencing for domestic abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, and corporate embezzlement. The high-and-mighty billionaire who used to wear ten-thousand-dollar custom suits was now wearing a faded orange detainee uniform, his hair messy, and his face gaunt.
The heavy iron door opened. I walked in, dressed in a sharp white power suit, escorted by two personal bodyguards and Atty. Salazar.
Adrian’s head snapped up. A sickening mixture of desperate hope and venomous hatred flashed in his eyes. He lunged toward the glass partition.
"Lucia!" he rasped, his voice sounding like broken glass. "You’re finally here. Please... tell your lawyers to drop the corporate embezzlement charges. I can survive the assault charge, but embezzlement will put me away for twenty years! We were married, Lucia! You loved me once!"
I didn't sit down. I looked at him with the cold detachment one reserves for a stray insect.
"I never loved you, Adrian," I said calmly. "I loved the memory of my mother, whose life your parents destroyed. And as for your charges? I didn't fabricate them. You actually stole millions from Villareal Prime Holdings to fund Bianca's luxury lifestyle in Singapore."
Speaking of Bianca, she had already been sentenced to eight years for fraud and accessory to grand theft. Without Adrian's money, her expensive lawyers vanished, and she was left to rot in a crowded cell, her precious thirty-million-peso Colombian emerald seized by the state to pay off her debts.
"You're a monster," Adrian hissed, tears of rage spilling over his hollow cheeks. "You used me. You used my whole family!"
"No, Adrian. Your family used my mother. I just collected the interest," I countered smoothly.
I signaled to Atty. Salazar, who opened his briefcase and pressed a final document against the glass partition.
Adrian squinted through the glass to read the headline of the legal document. His face turned from pale to completely translucent. It was a Petition for Total Asset Foreclosure and Name Revocation.
"What... what is this?" Adrian stammered.
"Doña Elena’s private trust contained a clause," I explained, leaning in slightly. "Since you violated the marriage contract by committing adultery and fathering a child outside of wedlock—or attempting to—the Villareal name, the family crest, and every single cent left in your personal accounts are legally revoked. You are being stripped of the Villareal name, Adrian. As of today, you are legally nobody."
Adrian’s breath hitched. His family pride was the only thing he had left. Now, he was being cast out of his own bloodline, penniless and nameless.
"You can't do this to me!" he screamed, slamming his fists against the glass until his knuckles bled. "I am a Villareal! You are just a bastard's daughter!"
"Guard, we're done here," I said, turning my back on his hysterical screams.
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As I walked out of the prison gates, the warm Manila sun hit my face. My phone vibrated. It was a notification from the stock market: Villareal Prime Holdings under CEO Lucia dela Cruz hits an all-time high.
The legal battles were won. The ghosts of the past were finally avenged. I slipped on my sunglasses, stepped into my car, and drove forward into a future that belonged entirely to me.
