Lahat ng Kabanata ng One Heart, Which Brother?: Kabanata 91 - Kabanata 100

The gentle hum of a coffee machine filled the cozy air of the café. Snow dusted the windows outside, turning the view into a picture-perfect postcard, but inside was warmth, chatter, and the quiet tapping of fingers against a keyboard.Lia sat in the corner booth, wearing a cream knitted sweater over her now slightly visible baby bump. Her face was fuller, cheeks kissed with a natural glow. Her hair was longer now, dark curls framing her face softly. She looked… peaceful.She wasn’t rich yet, but she was getting there.After arriving in Europe, she started small tutoring English online, ghostwriting romance novellas, taking weekend courses in business management. It was grueling, and lonely sometimes. But every night she slept without fear. No nightmares. No locked doors. No Ruben. No blackmail. No threats. Just silence and safety.Her startup skincare line, LustraGlow, had just secured its first distributor. Daph helped design the logo. A local Norwegian influencer promoted it withou

The day moved like molasses.Lia spent most of it indoors, finalizing a proposal for an upcoming jewelry collaboration and distracting herself with the mundane. But it didn’t help. Not when her heart beat like a warning drum in her chest. Not when every noise outside made her glance at the window.Julián played in the living room, humming to himself as he stacked colorful blocks with the kind of innocence only a child could maintain in a world so cruel.She wanted to hold on to that innocence. Guard it with her life.By late afternoon, Daph stepped into the room with a face Lia recognized too well: something’s wrong.“What?” Lia asked instantly.Daph hesitated, then passed her phone over. “You need to see this.”It was a security snapshot. Blurry. Black and white.But clear enough.Lia’s stomach turned.Ken.Standing across the street from the house. A coat draped over his arm. Face half-hidden. Watching.He didn’t knock. He didn’t call. He just stood there. Like he couldn’t make up h

The kettle whistled, loud and shrill in the quiet kitchen, but Lia didn’t move.She sat at the table, staring at the chipped ceramic mug in front of her. The tea inside had long gone cold. Across from her, Daph watched her like someone defusing a bomb carefully, patiently, and bracing for the blast."You’re not sleeping," Daph finally said.Lia didn’t answer."You’re not eating either.""I’m fine," Lia muttered."You’re not." Daph’s voice was low. “Lia… we need to talk about Ken.”“No, we don’t.” Lia’s tone was sharp, final.But Daph wasn’t backing down this time.“He’s not going to disappear because you ignore him. He saw Julian. You know what that means.”Lia’s jaw clenched. “I said I’ll handle it.”“How? By hoping he goes away on his own?”Lia stood suddenly, her chair scraping against the tile. She turned her back to her best friend, hugging herself. “He doesn’t even know if Julian is his.”“And what if he finds out?” Daph pushed. “What if he takes you to court? What if he fights

There was a storm in her eyes before the rain even touched the ground.Lia didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her fingers remained clutched around the brass doorknob, knuckles pale, breath trapped in her lungs as though releasing it would unravel the fragile world she’d built.And there he was.Ruben.Soaked to the bone, eyes rimmed red from something far older than rain. The storm outside had nothing on the chaos in his gaze. His jaw was tense, lips parted like he was about to speak, yet no words came out. For a second, he didn’t even blink he just stared at her like he couldn’t believe she was real.Her hair was longer. Her face sharper. There was weariness in her that hadn’t been there five years ago. But she was Lia, his Lia, and she was standing right in front of him.Lia took one slow step forward, pulling the door half-closed behind her. “What are you doing here, Ruben?”His voice was gravel and fire. “You’re asking me that?”Her spine straightened. “You shouldn’t have come.”“I should

Lia stood in the kitchen, her hands steady as she chopped vegetables, but inside, she was fire and frost.Ruben’s voice still echoed from earlier that morning.“He’s mine. I deserve to be in his life.”Deserve?She scoffed quietly. The audacity.Meanwhile, Ken had left her twelve missed calls and one last message that made her throat tighten:“I don’t care what the results say. He still feels like mine.”It was too much. Too loud. Too invasive.She turned off the stove and walked into the living room, watching Julian play with toy cars, humming to himself. Peaceful. Untouched. She would die before she let them ruin thatThat AfternoonRuben came by again. He didn’t ask just showed up, the way he used to.She didn’t let him past the threshold.“You had years to be a father, Ruben,” she said calmly. “Don’t act like biology makes up for your absence.”His jaw flexed. “I didn’t know.”“You chose not to know,” she replied, voice sharper now. “You disappeared. And now you want to be the her