JAY JAY POV
The moment the balcony door clicked shut, the last bit of adrenaline holding me upright vanished. My knees didn't just buckle; they gave out entirely. I slid down against the wood of the door, burying my face in my hands as the weight of everything—the lies, the betrayal, the brother I never knew I had—finally crushed me.
"Jay-Jay," Jare's voice was instant.
He was inside the room before I could even draw a ragged breath. He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't ask for details. He just dropped to the floor beside me and pulled me into his arms.
I clung to him, my fingers bunching into the fabric of his shirt as I sobbed.
It was that ugly, chest-heaving grief that makes your whole body ache. I felt like a little girl again, lost in a house that wasn't mine, looking for a mother who apparently wasn't even mine to begin with.
Jare didn't say a word. He didn't tell me to stop, and he didn't give me those empty promises that everyone uses when they don't know what else to say. He knew me better than that. He knew that for us, right now, nothing was okay.
He just held me, his chin resting on the top of my head, his own breathing heavy and uneven.
After a long time, my sobs finally ebbed away into a hollow, shaky silence. My head felt heavy, and my eyes were burning from the salt and the sheer exhaustion of it all. Jare didn't move; he stayed right there on the floor with me, his back against the door, staring at the shattered remains of the vase across the room.
He let out a long, heavy sigh—the kind that carried the weight of everything we'd just learned.
"I won't say I appreciate what Keifer did to you, Jay," Jare started, his voice low and unusually steady. He wasn't looking at me, but I could feel the tension in his shoulders. "Believe me, part of me still wants to go to his house and finish what I started with my fist."
I wiped my damp cheeks with the back of my hand, leaning my head against his shoulder. My throat felt too tight to speak.
"But," Jare continued, his gaze drifting to the balcony where Keifer had stood just minutes ago. "He had the opportunity to say no. He had a million chances to keep lying, to keep playing the game, to keep you in the dark so he wouldn't lose you. But he didn't."
I bit my lip
"He chose to tell you the truth," Jare said, turning his head slightly to look at me. His eyes were soft, reflecting the same conflict I was feeling. "He knew that telling you would probably destroy everything between you two. He knew I'd hit him. He knew you'd hate him. And he still did it."
I closed my eyes, picturing Keifer's shattered expression, the way he'd knelt at my feet, and the raw desperation in his voice when he said he loved me more than he hated Aries.
"Why are you defending him?" I whispered, my voice cracked and small.
"I'm not," Jare said firmly. "I'm just saying... for a guy who's spent his whole life making chess moves, he finally stopped playing. He chose you over the plan. He chose the truth over the lie."
Jare reached out and squeezed my hand, his grip grounding me. "It doesn't make what he did okay, Monkey. But it means he's at least trying to be the man you thought he was."
I didn't even think. My hand moved on instinct, delivering a sharp hit to his shoulder.
"Oww! What the hell? Why are you hitting me?! Go hit your fiancé!" Jare yelped, rubbing his arm and scooting a few inches away on the floor.
"Because you're being too logical and it's annoying!" I snapped, though the fire in my voice was already fading into a dull ache. I pulled my knees up to my chest, resting my chin on them. The room felt too big, too empty without the suffocating heat of Keifer's presence.
"So... what do you want me to do, Jare?" I asked, my voice falling into a small, hollow whisper.
I looked at my twin, desperate for him to have the answer key to my life like he used to back in London when we were kids
Jare stopped rubbing his arm and went quiet. He looked at the shards of the vase, then at the balcony, and finally back at me. He wasn't the teasing, annoying brat for a second. He was just the other half of my soul.
"I want you to do what Jay-Jay Mariano does," Jare said firmly. "I want you to take the time to figure out if the boy who confessed to a crime is more important to you than the crime itself."
He leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. "If you decide you can't look at his face without seeing a chess move, then we're leaving. I'll pack your bags myself and we'll be in Heathrow by Friday. No questions asked. Papa will understand."
He paused, opening one eye to look at me. "But if you decide that you're only this angry because you can't imagine a life without that asshole... then you deal with it. You make him earn every single inch of your trust back until he's crawling."
I swallowed hard
"What about the engagement?" I asked Jare, my voice barely more than a breath.
Jare shifted, his shoulder bumping into mine in that familiar, grounding way "Don't worry about the engagement, Jay," Jare said, his tone dropping the teasing edge entirely. He sounded like the protector he'd always claimed to be. "Like I said, if you want to say no—if you reached your limit and you don't want to see his smug face ever again—then we leave. We leave everything behind. The ring, the mansion, Section E... all of it."
He reached over and tucked a stray, tear-damp hair behind my ear. "Papa and Mama would rather have a daughter in London than a trapped 'Mrs. Watson' in Manila. If you want to run, I'm the one driving the car to the airport. No questions asked, Monkey."
I looked down at my lap, the silence of the room pressing in on me. Run. It sounded so easy. I could go back to my old life, where the biggest drama was a boring lecture or a rainy afternoon in Camden. I could forget Aries. I could forget the "Plan." I could forget the way Keifer looked at me like I was his only reason for breathing.
But as I felt the weight of the ring against my chest, I realized that running back to London wouldn't make me feel whole. It would just make me a different kind of empty.
"I'm not running yet," I whispered, my voice finally finding a bit of its old London-bred steel.
"Good," Jare grunted, though he looked a little relieved. "Because honestly? I'd miss the drama. And I still haven't hit Keifer enough times to make up for my own trauma of hearing you scream his name."
I delivered one more sharp hit to his arm. "JARE! FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!"
"Okay, okay! Shutting up!" He laughed, standing up and reaching out a hand to pull me off the floor. "Now go to bed. You look like a raccoon that's been through a blender."
I took his hand, letting him pull me up. My life was a wreckage, my mother was a stranger, and my fiancé was a manipulative jerk—but as Jare steered me toward the bed, I knew I wasn't going to let anyone else make the next move on my chessboard.
Not even the Great Keifer Watson.
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