Chapter 38
The courtroom smelled of varnished wood and sweat, the kind of place where silence always carried weight. The Philippine flag hung heavily on the wall, beside the golden seal of the Republic. At the center, above us all, sat the judge—robes dark, face stern, gavel within reach.
I adjusted the blazer over my dress, feeling the cool air from the ceiling fans brushing against my skin. The benches were crowded: journalists, curious onlookers, the Rosario family seated stiffly in the front row. To my right, my counsel—one of the best litigation lawyers in Manila—sorted through neatly bound folders. I had hired him not just for his brilliance, but because I knew I needed someone who would not flinch at Monique's madness.
The doors opened.
Monique Rosario was escorted in, her wrists cuffed, two police escorts flanking her. She looked nothing like the polished heiress she once pretended to be. Her hair hung in greasy tangles, her face bare and pale, but her eyes—God, her eyes—still burned with that same venom. She smirked the moment she saw me, as though this entire trial were just another one of her games.
"All rise!" the bailiff announced, voice booming. Everyone stood. The judge entered and sat down, and we all followed.
"This is the Regional Trial Court, Branch 128," the clerk began formally, "in the matter of People of the Philippines versus Monique Rosario, docket number..." His voice echoed as he read out the case title. "Charges include kidnapping under Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code; attempted murder under Article 6 in relation to Article 248; illegal possession of firearms under Republic Act 10591; and parricide by reason of the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Esperanza, punishable under Article 246."
The list made the room hum with whispers. Parricide—murdering ascendants—was a capital crime. Life imprisonment, or reclusion perpetua.
The judge cleared his throat. "Proceed."
The prosecution began. Evidence was laid out—photographs, sworn affidavits from the police officers who had exchanged fire with Monique's men during LC's kidnapping, the forensics report on Tyrell's gunshot wounds. My lawyer glanced at me, then at the judge, then stood.
"Your Honor, the prosecution also submits additional evidence discovered through private investigation—" He lifted a thick folder. "—establishing the direct involvement of the accused, Monique Rosario, in the bombing of the private plane that carried Mr. and Mrs. Esperanza, along with their staff. We submit certified photographs, corroborating testimonies, and an authenticated security report from the airport."
The judge raised an eyebrow. "Is the defense aware of this submission?"
Monique's lawyer sputtered, trying to object, but the judge cut him short. "Overruled. The evidence is admissible under the Rules of Court, Rule 132. Proceed."
My lawyer glanced at me and nodded. He opened the folder, placing photographs on the evidence table.
My throat tightened. Even after weeks of knowing, seeing the images still hurt. The grainy picture showed Monique in a maintenance worker's uniform, crouched near the belly of my parents' plane, slipping a rectangular package into place. The caption read: CCTV still, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, July 2015.
A ripple of shock moved through the courtroom. Even the Rosario family froze.
And then—Monique laughed.
The sound was sharp, deranged. "Yes! I did it! I planted the bomb! Your parents deserved to die, Dea! They were nothing but parasites!" Her shackled hands rattled against the wooden table as she leaned forward, cackling.
Gasps filled the room. A woman in the back actually screamed. The Rosario mother buried her face in her hands; her husband clenched his jaw but said nothing.
"Order in the court!" the judge thundered, banging his gavel. "Silence!"
I felt my nails bite into my palms, fury hot in my veins. "You killed them," I whispered under my breath.
The prosecutor seized the moment. "Your Honor, the admission of the accused, made in open court, corroborates the documentary evidence already presented. The People rest their case."
The defense lawyer stood weakly, his face pale. "Your Honor—my client is clearly unstable. We ask for a psychiatric evaluation—"
"Denied." The judge's voice cut like a blade. "The accused is competent to stand trial. And her spontaneous admission carries weight under Rule 130, Section 33 of the Rules of Court: admissions of a party may be received in evidence against her."
The room went still.
Finally, the judge spoke, voice firm, decisive. "In light of the evidence presented, the testimonies, and the admission of the accused, this court finds Monique Rosario guilty beyond reasonable doubt of kidnapping, attempted murder, illegal possession of firearms, and parricide under Articles 246 and 267 of the Revised Penal Code, and Republic Act 10591."
My breath caught.
"For these crimes," the judge continued, "the penalty imposed is reclusion perpetua for parricide, forty years maximum for kidnapping, twenty years for attempted murder, and additional penalties for illegal possession of firearms. These sentences shall be served consecutively. The accused shall be committed to the Correctional Institution for Women immediately."
Bang. The gavel fell.
Gasps. Cries. A few claps muffled quickly.
And Monique—Monique only laughed louder, her voice hysterical as the guards restrained her. "You think this ends me, Dea? You think prison will stop me? I'll haunt you until the day you die!"
I stood. My heels clicked against the polished floor as I walked past her, meeting her wild eyes with calm steel.
"No," I said softly enough for only her to hear. "This is the day you disappear. Forever."
Her laughter faltered.
And just like that, it was over.
I stepped out of the courthouse like I was shedding a second skin.
The sun was lower now, turning the city glass into strips of molten gold. My heels hit the pavement in a deliberate rhythm—tap, tap, tap—each step an attempt to puncture the fog that the trial had left inside me. People glanced; some nodded politely, others stared, mouths half-open with the kind of curiosity that feels like hunger. I kept my face neutral. Inside, my breath was a ragged thing, but the verdict—reclusion perpetua, consecutive terms, the gavel's final bang—sat like a ballast in my chest and, paradoxically, gave me a brittle kind of peace. The world had acknowledged what I already knew: my parents had not been the victims of chance. Someone had chosen the end for them. Someone with teeth.
When I reached the parking lot, I did not go home. The day had folded into itself and I needed a place where the sea could lay its long palm over my frantic pulse. The resort's coastline always did that for me—stretched sand, an indifferent horizon, the honest salt-scratch of wind in your face. I borrowed time and a car that was, frankly, unnecessary for my status, and drove toward the shore.
By the time I stepped out of the vehicle, dusk had slipped into evening. The lights along the promenade hummed awake—small bulbs, warm as embers. A festive hush had settled over the place like a blanket: couples walking hands entwined, children hopping over wet sand, lanterns swaying above cabanas. For a moment, the world felt like it was trying to be gentle with me. I let it be.
I found him before I expected to. He stood ankle-deep where the tide kissed the beach, guitar slung over his shoulder, the instrument catching the last orange of light and throwing it back at me in a dozen small sparks. He'd always had a way of making ordinary things feel like the only things that mattered—the way he wore a coat, the way he folded his hands, the sidelong grin that said he knew something private and delicious.
He didn't turn when I called his name. He started a chord instead and the sound carried across the hush of the water like a small, honest bell. It was an old song—an earnest one, the kind that presses its forehead against memory and refuses to let go. The melody wound into me and I remembered a thousand tiny things: a cracked coffee mug on a winter morning, the way he'd tried to fix a squeaky hinge and ended up making the rest of the house laugh, the ridiculous note he'd slipped under my dormitory door when I was seventeen and convinced myself that my life was a drama no one else would ever star in.
"Dea," he said, finally, when the last chord fell and the sea took it in its long mouth. His voice had that rasp that only came after something like an honest confession. In the low light, his face looked carved—angles softened by the dusk, eyes honest and raw.
I crossed the sand with bare feet, each step cold and small, and felt the tiny grit of it glue to my soles. My dress—too thin for the ocean wind—fluttered. I wrapped my arms around myself, not from the cold but from the sudden, visceral vulnerability of being exactly where you had once trusted someone to stay.
He set the guitar down, like a weapon relinquished. When he knelt, it was not a theatrical, desperate gesture but a deliberate, steady lowering—as if he were setting himself level with the earth, with the truth. The sea breathed behind him; somewhere a far-off boat blinked with navigational lights and the world leaned in.
"Dea Ver Saturnina Esperanza," he said—my full name like an invocation. The syllables were heavy and reverent. "I've spent too much time proving things to people who didn't deserve my effort. I wasted years. I was cruel. I was selfish. I let things happen that hurt you. I let someone like Monique twist us, twist my life. I can make a thousand excuses, but I would rather make one promise."
His hands found mine and the strength in his fingers was a quiet, astonishing thing. There was no showmanship now, just the naked bracing of a man who had bled and thought himself done but found a reason to stand again.
"Will you marry me? Will you let me try to be better—for you, for LC, for us? Will you give me a chance to love you properly? Will you be my wife, again?"
The ring he produced was small, modest and terrible in its significance; it sat in his palm like a compass pointing to a possible future. I watched the way his knuckles flexed, the tremor at the edge of his jaw, the way the light in his eyes pleaded like someone whose world was being held at an excruciating angle.
For a breathless second, my brain supplied reasons to refuse: the property deeds, the bitterness I had swallowed like bile these past years, the memory of signatures I should've read, the raw, jagged knowledge that trust had been a currency I had spent and that someone I loved had hoarded. I could count, at a glance, every fight, every deceit, every stolen moment of my life that had piled like bones.
And yet there was a pull so ancient it frightened me—the pull toward the man who had once serenaded me on a roof, who had been foolish and gallant and imperfect in the ways that made him ours. I remembered the small, stubborn tenderness under the pain, the times he had made me coffee without complaining, the night he had once held my hand and counted stars with a ten-year-old devotion.
"Yes," I heard myself say, before the cautious part of me—practical, legally-scarred—could coach a retort. The word tasted like water and smoke. The ring slid onto my finger and somehow it felt like a seam mending.
He rose and pulled me into him. The kiss was not a cinematic swoon so much as an ignition—sharp, necessary, long overdue. Salt air and guitar dust, the raw inhale of two people who had finally chosen to try again. My knees wobbled; the sand moved beneath us; the world forgot how to be ordinary.