CHAPTER 1

Chapter 1

Silent War

(Andra’s POV)

The newsroom of The Daily Truth was a chaotic hub of caffeine. Phones ringing. Keyboards clattering. Voices overlapping with the sound of deadlines.

“Enriquez, you just poked the country’s golden boy,” my editor barked from across the room, waving a printout of the conference transcript. “And you did it live.”

The Daily Truth

𝒫𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝒸𝓈 𝓇𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓁𝓎 𝒸𝑜𝑒𝓍𝒾𝓈𝓉. 𝒯𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔, 𝒶𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝑒𝑔𝓇𝑜 𝒢𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓅 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒻𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒, 𝒯𝒽𝑒𝑜𝒹𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝒵𝒶𝓎𝓃𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝑒𝑔𝓇𝑜 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒶𝓈𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝑒𝒻𝒾𝓃𝑒 ‘𝒾𝓃𝒸𝓁𝓊𝓈𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓌𝓉𝒽’ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒻𝒶𝒾𝓁𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝒶𝓃𝓈𝓌𝑒𝓇 𝒷𝑒𝓎𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝓁𝑒𝑔𝒶𝓁 𝓉𝑒𝒸𝒽𝓃𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑒𝓈.

BY ANDRA ENRIQUEZ

I didn’t look up right away. My fingers kept typing, words spilling into the first paragraph of my article draft.

I paused. Too harsh? Maybe. But truthful.

“Sir, I asked a legitimate question,” I replied, keeping my tone even as I saved the file. “The people displaced in San Pascual deserve an answer.”

“You cornered him, Andra,” another reporter called out from the entertainment desk. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. Pero girl, Montenegro yan. They own half the city.”

I shrugged. “Then half the city should learn to listen.”

A few heads turned. Some impressed, others amused. The newsroom lived for drama, and apparently, I had just provided the headline.

My editor, Mr. Reyes, sighed and dropped the printout on my desk. “You’re a good journalist, Andra, but sometimes I wonder if you’re suicidal.”

“Just doing my job.”

“Your job,” he said, leaning closer, “is to report, not to start wars with the billionaires.”

I met his gaze, unflinching. “Wars start when someone refuses to be silenced.”

He studied me for a beat, then exhaled. “Fine. I’ll hold your piece for editorial review, but if the Montenegro Group calls, I’m sending them straight to you.”

“Happy to take the call,” I said with a tight smile.

He shook his head but smirked as he walked away. “Remind me never to cross you.”

The hum of the office gradually softened as the day dragged on. Reporters clocked out, screens dimmed, and the chaos faded into the quiet buzz of evening.

I stayed behind, the blue light of my monitor washing over my face as I replayed the video clip from earlier. There he was. Theodore Zayne Montenegro.

He was confident and calculated. Every move is controlled. He answered my question without actually answering it. Classic corporate maneuver. But there had been something in his tone, a shift, and subtle but deliberate—when he mentioned “coordination with local government.”

Too smooth, I thought. Too polished. I scrubbed back the timestamp, replayed the part where his jaw tightened.

He knew something. Then my phone buzzed. A message from Clarisse, one of my closest colleagues.

Clarisse:Girl, balita sa media chat. PR team ng Montenegro Group is fuming. You good? 😭

Me:Let them fume. Truth hurts.

Clarisse:Just be careful. May mga kwento about how they “handle” reporters.

I stared at the screen for a moment. Rumors. Power plays. Cover-ups. None of it was new.

I typed back:

Me:I’ve handled worse.

Then I locked my phone and turned back to the monitor.

My article draft stared back at me. It was sharp, unflinching, and dangerously close to the truth. But the truth wasn’t complete. Not yet.

I minimized the document and opened a blank research file. The San Pascual case needed names, dates, and evidence. The kind that couldn’t be erased with PR statements.

One lead. That’s all I needed to start pulling the thread, and if Zayne Montenegro thought he could hide behind polished speeches and gilded empires, he was wrong. This was just the beginning.

The newsroom was nearly empty when I started digging again. The hum of the air conditioner was the only sound, punctuated by the faint tapping of my keys. A cup of cold coffee sat beside my laptop, long forgotten.

I scrolled through old government filings, environmental clearances, and press releases tied to Montenegro Holdings. The San Pascual Development Project an officially a modern eco-hub, was supposedly funded through a public-private partnership. But on paper, too many things didn’t add up.

The contractor listed wasn’t familiar. The funding trail looped through shell companies that ended unsurprisingly at the Montenegro Group’s offshore subsidiary.

“Got you,” I murmured, highlighting a line in the document. I clicked open another tab, cross-referencing tax filings from the past three fiscal years. The deeper I went, the more inconsistencies surfaced.

Figures adjusted. Signatures mismatched. Timelines altered. Someone had gone to great lengths to make it all look legitimate.

I jotted notes in my leather notebook, each word written in clean, precise strokes:

-Follow the paper trail.

-Find connection to LGU permits.

-Interview relocation families.

Then I wrote the last one slowly, underlined twice.

-Watch your back.

Because I could already feel that quiet heaviness that always came when I was onto something real. The kind of truth people paid millions to bury.

The newsroom lights flickered as I stood to stretch, glancing at the clock. 9:47 PM. Outside, the city glowed beneath the drizzle. Manila in motion—cars crawling through traffic, neon lights reflecting on puddles, stories unfolding in a hundred directions.

“Late night again?”

I turned. It was Rico, one of our layout artists, holding his bag and a cup of instant noodles.

“Just finishing something,” I said.

“Montenegro story?”

“Always.”

He grinned faintly. “Careful ka lang, Andra. Hindi lahat ng laban worth dying for.”

“I’m not dying,” I replied evenly. “I’m writing.”

He gave a small laugh and waved as he left.

When the glass doors slid shut behind him, the silence grew thick. I shut down the newsroom terminal and slipped the flash drive from the USB port, tucking it into my coat pocket. Then I gathered my notes and camera, switched off the desk lamp, and headed out.

The hallway smelled faintly of ink and disinfectant. Every step echoed. By the time I reached the street, the drizzle had turned to rain.

I hailed a cab, the city’s lights blurring through the window as we drove. My reflection stared back at me—a little exhausted, but determined.

Somewhere between Makati Avenue and Sta. Mesa, I checked my recorder. The file from the press conference played softly through my earphones.

Reporter:“Mr. Montenegro, may we have your statement on the reported displacement of residents in San Pascual?”

Zayne:“The Montenegro Group has always operated within the bounds of law and ethical business. If concerns arise, we address them through proper channels.”

His voice was smooth, steady—like marble polished to perfection, but when I replayed it again, I caught something.

A pause. Just before he said “ethical.”

Barely a second, but loaded. My instincts flared. That’s not hesitation. That’s a calculation.

I replayed the clip four times before saving a timestamp note: 00:03:42 — micro-delay, tension spike. I didn’t know what it meant yet. But I would.

The rain followed me all the way to my apartment building, a small walk-up tucked between a laundromat and an old bakery.

As soon as I got in, I kicked off my heels, dumped my bag on the couch, and let out a long breath. The apartment was modest—organized chaos. Books are stacked on the floor. Folders lined the coffee table. A corkboard filled with red pins and paper strips covered one wall.

San Pascual Development Project sat right in the center, circled twice in red ink. Under it, photos clipped from field reports: empty homes, cracked walls, children standing in the rain beside packed boxes. Faces of the forgotten.

I hung my damp coat and sat cross-legged on the couch, laptop open, recorder still running. Zayne’s voice filled the room again. Calm, polished, and dangerous in its confidence. And somewhere in that voice, I felt the weight of an empire that thought itself untouchable.

I pressed pause. You’re hiding something, Montenegro.

The thought wasn’t emotional—it was instinctive. Cold, investigative. I didn’t hate him. I didn’t even know him, but I understood power. And men like him didn’t yield it without blood on the foundation.

My phone buzzed again.

Clarisse:You home? Heard from a contact—Montenegro Group might issue a statement tonight.

Me:Let them. I already have enough to counter their PR spin.

Clarisse:You sure? You’re poking a dragon here.

I smiled faintly, and then I replied.

Me:Then let’s see if it breathes fire.

The rain hadn’t stopped when midnight came. It drummed softly against the glass as the city outside blurred into streaks of amber and gray. I sat on the couch, legs tucked beneath me, still staring at the paused video of the press conference.

Zayne’s face filled the frame — composed, serious, the perfect corporate mask. Behind him, reporters moved in and out of focus. Flashing cameras. PR handlers whispering cues, but something about the background pulled at me.

I scrubbed the timeline back to the part where the first question was asked, then slowed it to 0.25x speed.

“Mr. Montenegro, how do you respond to the accusations—”

Freeze. There. A man in a dark gray suit, standing just behind Zayne’s right shoulder. Sunglasses indoors. No press ID.

I zoomed in. Grainy pixels formed a faint outline of a scar along his jaw. Security detail? Maybe. But something felt… off. I’d seen him before — not in person, but in a photo from a corruption hearing two years ago. A bodyguard affiliated with Varela Corporation, one of the Montenegro Group’s rival-turned-partners.

Why would a Varela operative be standing behind a Montenegro executive during a private press conference? I rewound. Watched closely this time.

When I asked my question earlier that day, “Was the Montenegro Group aware of the displacement in San Pascual?”  the man in gray had subtly shifted his stance, leaning toward Zayne, almost whispering something near his ear. Then Zayne’s expression had hardened just for a split second before he replied.

My pulse picked up. That wasn’t random. That was control. A signal. Someone was feeding him cues mid-conference.

I reached for my notebook and scribbled a new entry:

-Identify the man in the gray suit.

-Possible Varela link.

-Cross-check security footage.

I closed my eyes briefly, exhaling. There it was — the lead I needed. Every instinct in me screamed to dig deeper, but exhaustion pressed against my skull like a vice.

Still, I couldn’t shake that image, Zayne standing tall in his immaculate suit, voice calm, while somewhere behind him lurked a shadow no one else noticed.

I replayed the clip one last time. This time, I muted the sound, focusing only on his face. His eyes never flinched. His jaw never twitched. But power had a rhythm and, in his silence, I could almost hear it.

Calculated. Dangerous. Controlled.

He was a man used to command and he wasn’t alone. The more I looked, the clearer it became, this wasn’t just a corporate story. It was a cover operation. And I’d just walked straight into it.

The rain eased into a soft drizzle. I stood, stretching my stiff limbs, and moved to the corkboard again. New string. New pin.

I drew a red line connecting “San Pascual Project” to “Varela Corp.” Then another line to “Montenegro Group.” Three names. One intersection. Power. Money. Corruption.

And somewhere in the center — Theodore Zayne Montenegro.

I stared at his photo, printed from a business magazine article months ago. He looked untouchable there, the perfect heir to a billion-peso empire. But the truth never stays buried forever.

“Let’s see how far you’ll go to protect your name,” I whispered.

I clicked save on the video edits, encrypted the folder, and uploaded a backup to my cloud drive. Years of journalism had taught me one thing: always protect your source, even when the source doesn’t know you’re watching.

The clock hit 12:47 A.M. The city outside hummed, restless. I leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling, replaying every word from that press conference.

“Everything the Montenegro Group does is for the progress of this country.”

That line again. Smooth. Practiced. Deceptively patriotic. But progress always had a price. And people like him, people with power rarely paid it themselves.

I reached for my recorder again, pressing play one final time. Zayne’s voice echoed softly through the room. Calm. Controlled. But underneath that calm, I could almost hear the storm. And for the first time that night, I allowed myself to admit it — not fear, not awe, but a quiet recognition.

This wasn’t going to be an ordinary story. This was war.

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