Disclaimer: The author's imagination and passion are the only sources of inspiration for this novel, which is a work of dedication. Parallels between these pages and the past or present may be apparent to some readers, but they are completely coincidental. You are free to interpret this art anyway you see fit, and it is meant for your enjoyment.
The penthouse of the Spencer Tower overlooked the shimmering, chaotic sprawl of Metro Manila like a silver throne. High above the smog and the blaring jeepney horns, Zayden Spencer sat in a minimalist leather chair, the city lights reflecting in the floor-to-ceiling glass. He had changed into a fresh silk shirt—black this time—but the phantom scent of caramel macchiato still seemed to cling to his skin.
On the mahogany desk before him lay a sleek, carbon-fiber tablet. It contained the initial harvest of his intelligence team's digital dragnet.
"Report," Zayden commanded, his American accent cutting through the hum of the air conditioning.
His right-hand man, Marcus—the one with the scarred knuckle—stood at attention. "Her name is Ysabella Ramirez, Boss. Twenty-three years old. She graduated with honors in Accountancy from UST. No criminal record. Not even a parking ticket. She's been working at Sy & Associates for fourteen months. Her coworkers describe her as quiet, diligent, and boring."
Zayden swiped his finger across the screen. A series of photos appeared. They were candid shots taken from her social media—what little of it existed. Most were of coffee cups, sunsets over Manila Bay, or blurry photos of her dinner.
Then, he hit a specific folder.
"These were taken at her cousin's wedding six months ago," Marcus added.
Zayden's breath hitched, a sound he masked by taking a sip of neat bourbon. The photo showed Ysabella wearing a deep emerald silk dress. It was modest by most standards, but on her, it was devastating. The fabric hugged the gentle curve of her hips and the slender line of her waist. Her long black hair was down, cascading over one shoulder in dark, shining waves. She was laughing at something off-camera, her hazel eyes bright and crinkled at the corners.
He zoomed in on her face. Her lips—those soft, pinkish lips he had watched her bite in terror—were parted in a genuine smile.
Zayden found himself biting his own lower lip unconsciously. He had bedded models, socialites, and daughters of diplomats. They all had a polished, plastic perfection. But Ysabella? She had a raw, unstudied grace that made his pulse thrum with a predatory rhythm.
"Family?" Zayden asked, his voice raspier than usual.
"Father is Christian Ramirez, sixty-two. Retired civil servant from the Department of Public Works. Mother is Eloise, a housewife. They live in a modest gated community in Quezon City. Nothing flashy. They seem to live entirely on a government pension and Ysabella's salary."
Zayden frowned, his blue eyes narrowing. He scrolled through the family tree his analysts had constructed. "Siblings?"
"Only child, Boss," Marcus said confidently. "We checked the birth registries and the census records. It's just the three of them."
Zayden leaned back, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. Something felt... off. In his world, a background this clean was usually a red flag. Most people had a cousin in debt, a shady uncle, or a disgruntled ex-boyfriend. Ysabella Ramirez was a ghost of a citizen. She was a blank slate.
He didn't know that three floors below a high-end commercial building in Makati, a silent alarm had triggered the moment his hackers touched the Ramirez family's digitized records. He didn't know that a man named Mateo—Ysabella's "invisible" brother—had spent millions of dollars and years of his life bribing officials and scrubbing databases to ensure his sister lived a life of peace, far away from the blood-soaked world he inhabited. Mateo had even scrubbed himself from the family's official history, leaving behind a "clean and boring" facade that even the Spencer intelligence network couldn't easily pierce.
"You're sure she's just a civilian?" Zayden asked, staring at the photo of her in the green dress.
"Every indicator says yes. She's just a clumsy accountant who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Zayden grunted. "Clumsy. She ruined a deal with the Singaporean Triad, Marcus. They aren't going to be happy that the signed protocols are now a brown puddle."
"We can reschedule, Boss."
"The Triad doesn't 'reschedule.' They see it as an omen. It cost us time. And time is the only thing I can't buy back." Zayden stood up, walking to the window. He was 6'2" of coiled tension, his muscular frame silhouetted against the skyline. "I want her watched."
Marcus blinked. "Watched? Sir, she's an accountant. If she's not a spy, why waste the resources?"
Zayden didn't answer immediately. He couldn't explain the way his chest had tightened when he saw her cry. He couldn't explain why he kept thinking about the way her hazel eyes looked under the flickering café lights. It wasn't just about the deal anymore. It was an itch under his skin.
"I don't like loose ends," Zayden said, his tone final. "And I don't like people who make me feel... inconvenienced. I want to know her routine. I want to know where she eats, who she talks to, and what time she goes to sleep."
"Yes, Boss."
Meanwhile, in a small apartment in Sampaloc, Ysabella was doing anything but sleeping.
She was huddled on her sofa, her knees tucked to her chest, staring at her front door as if a hitman might burst through it at any second. Her heart still felt like it was performing a frantic drum solo.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him.
Zayden Spencer. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen, but he was also the most terrifying. The way he had looked at her—like she was a bug he was considering crushing under his expensive Italian shoes—made her blood run cold. And that gun. She had seen the cold, black metal of the grip tucked into his waistband.
"Oh my God," she whispered into the silence of her room. "I spilled coffee on a murderer."
She reached for her phone, her thumb hovering over her brother's contact. Mateo.
She hadn't spoken to him in nearly four months. Their last conversation had ended in a shouting match. Mateo wanted her to move into one of his "secured" condominiums with a private driver and a bodyguard. Ysabella, desperate to prove she could survive without his shadow looming over her, had moved into this cramped apartment and taken a job that paid barely enough for rent and groceries.
"You think the world is safe, Ysa," Mateo had warned her, his voice cold and prophetic. "But there are wolves out there you can't even imagine."
She sighed, her thumb sliding away from the call button. If she called him now and told him she had accidentally tangled with a mafia boss, he would lock her in a gilded cage and never let her see the sun again. He would find Zayden Spencer, and blood would flow through the streets of Manila.
"I can handle this," she lied to herself. "He told me to get out. He let me go. It's over."
But deep down, she knew it wasn't. Men like Zayden didn't just let things go.
The next morning, the Manila heat was already oppressive by 7:00 AM. Ysabella walked to the bus stop, her eyes darting around nervously. Every black SUV she saw made her breath hitch. Every man in a suit made her want to run in the opposite direction.
She made it to her office, but her focus was shot. She stared at the spreadsheets on her monitor, but all she could see were the ink-smudged documents from the café.
"Ysa, you okay? You look like you saw a ghost," her coworker, Sarah, asked, leaning over the cubicle wall.
"I... I just didn't sleep well," Ysabella managed a weak smile.
"Well, drink some coffee. Oh, wait—didn't you say you were going to that fancy café yesterday? How was it?"
Ysabella flinched. "It was... expensive. And messy."
She spent the day in a state of high-functioning paranoia. She left the office exactly at 5:00 PM, skipping her habit of staying late to finish filings. She just wanted to be home, behind three locked bolts.
As she stepped out onto the sidewalk, a sleek, black Rolls-Royce Ghost pulled up to the curb, gliding silently like a shark through dark water. The tinted window rolled down just an inch.
Ysabella froze. Her instinct told her to run, but her legs felt like lead.
The rear door opened, and a man stepped out. It wasn't Zayden. It was Marcus. He looked even more intimidating in the daylight, his scarred hand resting casually at his side.
"Ms. Ramirez," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Mr. Spencer would like to have a word."
"I... I have plans," Ysabella stammered, clutching her bag to her chest. "I have to go home and... feed my cat."
"You don't have a cat, Ysabella," Marcus said, his eyes void of emotion. "You have an apartment with a leaky faucet and a refrigerator that currently contains half a carton of eggs and a wilted head of lettuce. Please, get in the car. Don't make this difficult."
The sheer invasion of privacy made Ysabella's temper flare through her fear. "You were in my apartment?"
"We know everything, Ms. Ramirez. Now, the Boss is waiting. He's not a patient man."
Reluctantly, her heart hammering in her throat, Ysabella climbed into the plush leather interior of the car. The scent was the same—expensive, masculine, and dangerous.
The car moved through the traffic with an authority that seemed to part the sea of cars. They arrived at the Spencer Tower, and Marcus escorted her through a private elevator that bypassed the lobby entirely.
When the doors opened to the penthouse, the sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows across the room. Zayden was standing by the window, his back to her. He had discarded his jacket, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms dusted with golden hair.
"You're late," he said, without turning around.
"I didn't realize I was invited," Ysabella snapped, her fear momentarily eclipsed by her indignation.
Zayden turned slowly. He looked at her—really looked at her—from her messy bun down to her scuffed heels. He felt that strange, sharp pull again. She was so different from the women who usually threw themselves at him. She was defiant, even while she was shaking.
"I've spent the last twelve hours reading about you, Ysabella," Zayden said, walking toward her with a slow, predatory stride. "Your life is very... clean. Too clean."
"Tell me," he whispered, his American accent dipping into a low, intimate growl. "How does a girl with a retired civil servant for a father and a housewife for a mother afford a university degree from UST without a single student loan? And how does she manage to live in a city this expensive on an entry-level salary?"
Ysabella felt a cold sweat break out on her neck. He was digging. He was getting close to the wall Mateo had built.
"I'm good at saving money," she lied, her voice small.
Zayden reached out, his fingers catching a stray lock of her black hair. He tucked it behind her ear, his touch surprisingly gentle, but his eyes were like flint.
"Don't lie to me, Ysabella. I hate liars even more than I hate people who ruin my business deals."
He leaned in closer, his lips hovering just above hers. Ysabella could see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes. She felt the heat radiating from his body, and for a terrifying second, she didn't want to pull away.
"You're going to tell me who you really are," Zayden breathed. "Because if you're a spy, I'll have to kill you. And that would be a shame... because you're far too beautiful to end up in the Pasig River."
Ysabella's breath hitched. She was trapped between a mafia boss and the secrets of her own family.
"I'm nobody," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears again. "Please, just let me go."
Zayden stared at her lips, his jaw tightening. He wanted to break her. He wanted to protect her. The duality of the feeling frustrated him. He let go of her hair and stepped back, his expression turning to stone.
"You're staying here tonight," he announced.
"What? No! You can't kidnap me!"
"It's not kidnapping, Ysabella. It's... protective custody. Until I'm sure you didn't leave that café and report our meeting to the authorities."
He turned to Marcus, who was standing by the elevator. "Show her to the guest suite. And Marcus? If she tries to leave, lock the door."
As Ysabella was led away, she felt the weight of Zayden's gaze on her back. She didn't see him pull out his phone and dial a private investigator, whom he only used for the highest-level targets.
"I need a deep dive on the Ramirez family," Zayden said into the phone, his voice cold. "Go past the digital records. Go to the streets. I want to know who is protecting her. Because someone—someone very powerful—is hiding her from the world."
Zayden looked at the empty spot where she had stood, the scent of her perfume—something floral and cheap—lingering in the air. He didn't know it yet, but he had just poked a hornet's nest. And the hornet, Mateo Ramirez, was already looking for his sister.