Prologue

Run. Stop. Breathe.

The Makati skyline loomed in the distance, its glass towers catching the first blush of dawn. I ran toward them, my shoes slapping against the empty pavement of Ayala Avenue. The city was still half-asleep, save for the restless hum of taxis and the flicker of street lamps giving way to sunlight. The wind cut through the humid air, fanning my face, burning my lungs. I welcomed it. Pain I could measure. Pain I could control.

I didn’t look behind me. I never do. There’s nothing worth seeing there anyway, nothing but the life I refuse to return to. The life I refuse to surrender to.

Step after step, I forced my body forward, desperate to outpace the ache that lived in my chest. Music roared in my ears, Hozier’s voice drowning the thoughts I refused to let surface. No memories. No weight. Just the rhythm. Just the burn.

A delivery motorcycle sped past, the driver throwing me a curious glance. Runners are common here, but not at this hour. Not with this intensity. I knew what I looked like: a woman trying to outrun something that kept pace no matter how fast she sprinted.

Breath in. Breath out. Keep moving.

Ahead, the road bent toward the heart of the city. And there, looming like an omen and a promise, was the tower that held my life inside its glass walls, the L. V. Lorenzo Building.

The closer I got, the more the world sharpened. Jeepneys began to rattle awake at terminals. Security guards switched shifts, their uniforms still crisp and their faces still hopeful, not yet drained by the caffeine-to-survive grind.

Twenty-four floors up, my office awaited. My kingdom. My fortress. Echelon Magazine.

Some days, that title still startled me.

Editor-in-Chief.

The girl who once drafted articles in a cramped studio apartment now shaped narratives for Manila’s elite. Celebrities, CEOs, politicians, they courted coverage, and I decided what the city cared about. Who mattered. Who didn’t.

Power. Influence. Control.

By daylight, I was Editor-in-Chief. The woman who curated Manila’s elite, who commanded glossy covers and whispered exclusives. The one who never faltered, never let the cracks show. But here, in the quiet hours before the city woke, I was simply a woman trying to run far enough, fast enough, to forget.

I slowed to a stop, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the name etched into the stone façade: Lorenzo. A name that carried weight in every ballroom and boardroom. A name I could never escape. A name tied to him.

Sweat dripped from my jaw, leaving a trail down my collarbone. I dragged an arm across my forehead, wiping away the sting. The sun finally crested the skyline, bathing the building in warm gold, as if the universe had chosen it to be blessed and untouchable.

He wasn’t supposed to matter. Not to me. Not to Echelon. Not to the carefully constructed empire I had built in this tower of glass. And yet, every step forward seemed to bring me closer to him.

I hated how the past had claws.

A jogger passed me, earbuds in, oblivious. A group of baristas exited a nearby coffee shop, laughing, their bags slung over their shoulders, ready for an early shift. Life was moving on. Everyone was moving on.

Except me.

My breath shook. My pulse refused to settle. I pressed my palm against the cool stone exterior of the building, grounding myself. The marble felt indifferent to my anxiety. The glass reflected my figure back to me, flushed cheeks, damp hair, eyes carrying a tired kind of fire.

That girl in the reflection didn’t look like an Editor-in-Chief.

She looked like someone standing at the edge of a choice.

I straightened. Pulled the elastic from my hair. Let the wind take over.

The day would start soon. Meetings. Emails. Deadlines. People depending on me to be decisive, influential, unshakeable. I would step into the elevator, onto the twenty-fourth floor, into my role.

Mask on. Backbone straight.

Makati never slept. And lately, neither did I.