My Substitute Bride

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

His Brother

Third was furious. When they reached their bedroom, he had been pacing back and forth and kicking the bed and the couches in their sitting area.

Iryn calmed him down, “Third, please calm down. We still don’t know the truth.” She embraced him.

She led him to sit down beside her at the rear edge of their bed. She held his hands.

He voiced out, “Why did they keep it from me? I have a brother and I didn’t know anything about him.”

“Third, let’s wait for their explanation first,” Iryn told her husband.

Their visitors left after an hour. They were driven by Nardo in a hotel in the town proper of Matra.

They had a very silent dinner for the first time. Afterwards, they all talked at the family room.

Lola Altagrasia narrated, “Your mother was pregnant with you when your father had an illicit affair with another woman. Mids had a difficult pregnancy and your father had sought the bed of another woman to satisfy his sexual urges. The woman was Divina Cancio. Divina was a struggling ramp model. Your father wasn’t her only lover. Just a few months after you were born, she came here claiming that she was pregnant with your father’s son. Your father had denied it. He said he had used protection whenever he had bedded the woman. Divina left defeated. But after a few more months she returned with her son. She had pointed out the resemblance of the baby to your father.”

Iryn asked, “Have you done DNA testing to prove Papa’s paternity?”

Mama Armida answered, “We didn’t. The child has resemblance to my husband as well as to Papa, so we didn’t feel it was needed.”

Lola Altagrasia continued, “Your Lolo was very furious. He couldn’t accept the baby. To him, you are his only grandson, Third. Divina never demanded anything except for her own house and lot in Missi, her own car and twenty-million pesos in the bank. Your Lolo agreed on it provided that Divina would sign a waiver giving up all her claims as well as her son on all of your inheritance. Divina had signed it. From then on, we had never seen her and her son. We continued on with our lives as if nothing happened.”

Third asked then, “What does he want now?”

Mama Armida answered, “He wanted to assert his rights as a Sotto.”

Third voiced out his decision, “We need to be sure that he is indeed Papa’s son through DNA testing. I would also have him investigated. I don’t want him, his wife or his son here in this house. We still don’t know what they are after for. I will ask our family’s lawyer to deal with him for the mean time.”

His mother asked, “What if he makes a scandal?”

Third wasn’t afraid of anymore scandal, “Then let him be. We already had those scandals months ago. I don’t trust him. I just want all of you safe from any malicious intent that he could possibly do. I’m in doubt of Papa’s paternity over him. Yeah, he had my nose and my eyes. But it could also mean anything else.”

Lola Altagrasia had asked, “And what if he is really your father’s son?”

Third said, “I’ll just cross the bridge when it gets to that point, Lola.”   

Third met up with their family’s lawyer the following day. The waiver that Divina Cancio had signed years ago had been produced by Lola Altagrasia. Their lawyer, Atty. Justiniano Vargas had also arranged for a private investigator to deal on the background of Mark Joseph Cancio.