The Last Piece of Love

Prologue

The sky was restless that night.

Thunder rolled like a warning from the heavens, and rain poured in furious sheets, drumming against the car roof as if trying to break through. The winding mountain road was almost invisible, just faint white lines swallowed by darkness.

Inside the car, Calista Gabriella Gonzalez, nineteen at that time, tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Her knuckles were white, her breathing uneven. Beside her, her younger sister, Alessia Arabella, sweet, stubborn, full of secrets sat curled against the window, tears streaking her cheeks.

"Alessia, please," Cali pleaded, trying to keep her voice steady. "Umuwi na tayo. You're scaring me."

But Alessia only shook her head slowly, shoulders trembling.
"You don't understand, Ate... you never do."

"I'm trying," Cali said, swallowing hard as the car skidded lightly on the slick road. "But you won't tell me anything."

Alessia's fingers dug into her coat.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."

The words hit Cali harder than the storm outside.

"What?" she blinked, turning to her sister. "You're—what? Why?"

But Alessia didn't answer. She stared at the chaotic blur of the rain-soaked world outside the window.

She looked small.
Lost.
Broken.

Cali felt a panic rise in her chest, the kind that made her heart beat too fast.
"Alessia, please don't do this. Talk to me. Ano bang nangyayari sa'yo?"

Alessia squeezed her eyes shut.
"I messed up, Ate."

Cali's pulse spiked.
"What do you mean?"

Instead of explaining, Alessia touched Cali's cold hands, trembling.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Alessia opened her mouth to speak...
but the universe didn't give her the chance.

Headlights exploded through the darkness.

A car.
Coming fast.
Skidding.
Out of control.

"CALI!" Alessia screamed.

Cali twisted the wheel violently. Tires screeched against the wet asphalt. The world spun, metal grinding, glass shattering, bodies thrown helplessly as the car flipped once, twice—

Then—

CRASH.

Silence followed.
A heavy, suffocating silence.

When Cali's consciousness clawed its way back, she tasted blood. Her head throbbed. The windshield was gone. Rain drenched her through the shattered window. Her ears rang.

"Alessia...?" she croaked, coughing.

No answer.

Her hands shook wildly as she unbuckled herself, crawling out onto the muddy ground.
She circled to the passenger side, heart pounding, calling Alessia's name again and again.

"Alessia! Sumagot ka naman! Please!"

The door was ripped open by the impact. The seat was empty.

Her sister...
was nowhere.

Cali staggered to her feet, screaming her name into the storm.
"AAAALESSIAAAA!"

Lightning illuminated the ravine below, and for a terrifying moment, Cali thought she saw a figure small, fragile being dragged by the current of the overflowing river.

She scrambled down, slipping, falling, clawing at roots and rocks.

But when she reached the bottom...

There was nothing.
No footprints.
No blood.
No trace.

Just water.
Dark.
Deep.
Devouring.

Cali collapsed on her knees, sobbing into the storm as guilt wrapped itself around her throat like a chain.

This was her fault.
She was driving.
She couldn't save her.

And then—
the faintest echo in her mind:
a whisper she would hear every night for years to come.

"Kasalanan mo 'to."

The rescue team arrived hours later. They searched until sunrise, but the river had already claimed its secret. Alessia was never found.

Not dead.
Not alive.
Not anywhere.

And as Cali watched the rescuers give up, something inside her froze.
With her sister gone, the world felt colder.
She felt colder. She hears how her Mom cries scream in agony, her Dad devastated face and her, alone in the midst of this chaos. And from that day on, she finally knew what will come in her way.

That night carved a hollow inside her chest that nothing—not success, not power, not time—could fill.

It was the night she lost her sister.
The night she lost herself.

The night Calista Gabriella Gonzalez became the woman everyone would fear. The cold-hearted CEO with a conscience stained by a single, unending question:

"What really happened to Alessia?"

Years later, the answer would come.
Not from the river.
Not from the city.
But from a quiet province...
and a man hiding a truth that could either save her—

—or break her all over again.