Villaverde Brothers Series 3: Marrying the Heartless

Prologue

I never thought I would want to marry. The idea of love seemed tainted, nothing more than a game boys played, toying with girls’ hearts and feeding their obsessions, greed, and lust. How could I trust anyone when the one man I should have been able to rely on—the one who was supposed to protect me—destroyed the very idea of love?

My father didn’t just break my mother’s heart; he shattered mine too. It wasn’t just her tears that fell in the silence of the night, but mine as well. While they screamed at each other, while their marriage crumbled in the chaos of their bitter words, there I was in another room, feeling invisible, wishing with every ounce of my soul to disappear.

My mom was slowly dying, yet instead of being there for her, my father chose to chase after his own selfish desires. He was too consumed by his affair to even care. I can still hear my voice trembling as I begged him to come home, to be with her, because she needed him. But he rejected me, told me to never come back. And in that moment, I realized he wasn’t just abandoning her—he was abandoning me too.

He let her suffer in the end.

When my mom was gasping for breath, when death was so close I could taste it, he showed no sign of empathy. He didn’t cry, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even spare a moment to acknowledge the woman who had once been his everything. He let her go without a second thought, without a shred of compassion.

And when she passed, when we were burying the woman who had given her all for him, he didn’t even have the decency to show up. His absence was a greater betrayal than any words could express. He didn’t even have the decency to send his shadow to her burial, as if she meant nothing to him. As if we meant nothing.

That is the legacy he left me—nothing but heartbreak, nothing but the painful memory of being abandoned by the man who should have loved us most. And with that, my belief in love, in trust, was gone.

At ngayon, kinukuha niya ang lahat ng bagay na dapat sa akin. I don't care about the material things. Wala akong pake sa mga lupa o sa mga negosyong naiwan. Ang akin lang, akin ang bahay ni mama at akin ang kapatid ko. But he doesn't want me to have those. Sapilitan niyang kinuha sa akin ang kapatid ko at ngayon ay isusunod niya na ang bahay.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you, Valencia! I regret carrying your last name! Putangina mo!” buong lakas kong sigaw sa tuktok ng burol.

I cried out of frustration.

“Words, woman!” a man’s voice behind stopped me from lashing out my anger through shouting.

Agad akong napalingon sa lalaking nakasandal sa isang puno at mukhang nagising ko sa pagtulog. Minsan nakakatawa talaga ang tadhana.

Here’s the youngest Villaverde, staring at me with those piercing eyes that seem to see right through me. His expression was unreadable at first, a mask of calm indifference, but then, slowly, a smile crept onto his face—one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. It was a half-smile, almost like he was amused by something I couldn’t quite grasp. There was something about the way he stood, the way he carried himself—confident, almost too confident, like the world was his to command. The Villaverde charm, I suppose. He had the kind of presence that made you feel both drawn in and guarded, like a predator sizing up its prey. I could sense the subtle power in his gaze, the quiet dominance in his demeanor, and it made me uneasy, though I couldn’t understand why.

There was a sharpness to him, something dangerous and captivating, that made it hard to look away, even if I wanted to. The way his lips curled into that smile, it was as if he knew something I didn’t—like he was in on a joke the rest of us were left out of. Something about him unsettled me, but I couldn't deny the magnetic pull that kept my eyes locked on his.