FIDES SUPER OMNIA

ENRIQUE SERRANO’S POV

I was sitting in my office, working – brooding – when Brian walked in. Barely four hours had passed since I called him. It was almost 11:30. I didn’t expect to see him until morning.

“You are early.”

“I came immediately,” he explained. My best friend-slash-fixer liked to dress to blend in, but instead of the well-tailored suit one would expect, he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. “I didn’t want…Rico, I want to clear things up.”

“Well, that’s what you get the big bucks for, Brian,” I said sardonically. “You clear shit up.” I went over to the hidden bar in my office and poured a glass of whiskey.

He didn’t say anything.

“You’re one of the top fixers in the country – in the continent – and you expect me to believe that you never found anything about Veronica in seven years? You expect me to believe that you didn’t know about my daughter?”

“No, I didn’t.” He came over to grab the drink from me. And chugged it down in one go.

I poured myself another, and I stared at him. Hard.

“Not at first. I don’t know how your mom found out about Veronica, but if I had to guess I’d say Ignacio told her. He probably told her about how your father was threatening her, and how she’d lost her scholarship. I don’t know the details but your mom reached out to Veronica and then she came to me.”

“Why?” I asked. “What did she want from you?”

“She knew who my dad was…about my family.” Brian hesitated. “She knew we were working for your father.”

“Brian, everybody knew you your dad was working for my father.” Enrique Serrano Snr. had used the Fuentes’ to keep control of his empire for as long as I could remember. Brian’s dad, Roland, had uncovered truckloads of dirt on my father’s enemies for years. Lots of those information were illegally gained, and that was not all.

Unlike his son, Roland liked to dabble in the grey. As long as the price was right and he agreed with the end, the means weren’t a problem for him. If my father needed to make someone disappear, in the most conventional of ways, Roland Fuentes was the person he would call. If he needed airtight security personnel, wanted to get away with a crime in the court of law, or had a body to bury, he’d do pretty much the same thing. Now, I didn’t trust Roland because of his connection to my father but I’d bet my life on his son.

Now the son, my best-friend, swallowed nervously as if something was stuck in his throat.

“No, I mean…she knew I was working for your father. Rico, your mother knew that my first official assignment with The Firm was to watch over you. I wrote weekly reports on all your activities, everything you did…I- it’s because of me that your father knew about Veronica.”

I knocked back my whiskey and felt the burn of alcohol sliding down my throat. “I know. I guessed. You know I suspected this already.” It was an unspoken secret between us. We Serranos, we liked our open, unspoken secrets; it was okay if we both knew what we knew but talking about it was taboo, an action that suddenly made it all too real.

Of course, I had known that Brian had been watching me. Had my father really expected me not to notice that the son of his private Head of Security was following me around campus? Suddenly bumping into me all over the place “by coincidence” when were weren’t even in the same faculty? Or did they think I wouldn’t add the pieces together when I realized that he was also my neighbor in the private dormitory my father had rented for me?

“I remember we sorted this out. After Veronica left my place and I hunted you down. And beat the shit out of you. I believe the only reason I didn’t kill you that night was because you swore your undying loyalty to me,” I recalled dryly. “You promised that from then on, you’d never tell your father or mine anything I didn’t want them to know, and I let you live.”

“Well…we never really talked about it after that time, did we?”

“No.” It left a bitter taste in my mouth now, the memory of his betrayal. But I had forgiven him for it. Like me, Brian had been born into a particular type of family that had very specific expectations for him. Fuentes Securities and Holdings, or The Firm as we liked to call it, was the lifeblood of his family. And watching me had been his first official role in it.

“Well,” he ran his hands over his face, probably thinking the same things. “Your mom found out about it. I was still nursing the two black eyes and broken ribs you’d given me when she arranged a meet. She wanted me to use my father’s resources to arrange three fake identities for Veronica. The official way. Perfectly traceable if someone knew where to dig. For a while, after graduation, I could track her down. But after she moved to America, she was in the wind. I tried to find her. Every time you asked me to, I tried to make it seem like…heck, I don’t know what I tried to make it seem like. But two years ago, after your parents’ accident, I realized that the only reason I hadn’t been able to find her was because my father had hidden her himself. I never spoke to him about it, you know how he is. The mere idea of asking him would be suggesting that he was disloyal to your father, and that is something…” Brian shook his head. “He wouldn’t appreciate it.” Absently, he toyed with the coin-shaped pendant in the leather chain around his neck. It had a swan, the symbol of his family’s business, etched upon it along with the words he said next. “Fides super omnia.”

Loyalty above all. The Fuentes’ were loyal to us.

“But the details I was able to discover…Rico, the people my father paid to bring her back to the Philippines said she wasn’t in a good shape. That after everything, she wanted nothing to do with any of the Serranos. That your mother was worried that she’d hurt herself, so she arranged for her to stay with family. That Veronica needed to heal.”

I felt a muscle tick in my jaw at the image he painted of the beautiful, vivacious girl – woman – I had fallen in love with. But I couldn’t afford to focus on my guilt.

“Why did he do it?”

Brian looked at me. “My dad? My best guess is that your mother got to him.”

I ran my hand through my hair in frustration. My mother had been a sweet, easygoing woman who had loved living a life of financial comfort far above any other kind of freedom. Still, she had been loving and kind. Not dangerous at all. Now, I found myself wondering, “What the hell was she doing turning my father’s most trusted lieutenant against him?”

And how on earth had she managed to do it?

“I need to speak to your dad.”

Brian looked like someone was forcing him to swallow a bag of nails. “Sure. Yeah. Why not?”

I felt a shred of sympathy for him. I knew what it was like to be a pressured son with a difficult father. But at least, Ronald Fuentes hadn’t ever harassed any of Brian’s girlfriends before, or bribed them to abort his kid.

“When should I arrange a meet?”

“As soon as possible. I have a lot of questions. Speaking of which…” I walked over to my table where the photo album I’d uncovered in Manila sat. “Do you know anything about this?”

Brian sucked in a sharp breath as he looked at the pictures of the little girl, my half-sister.

“Shit, Rico. Is this is your kid?”

“No.” I glanced back at the picture marked as June 17. “This is Althea Villamor’s daughter. For some reason, my mom had pictures of her.” I pointed at the odd message she’d scribbled on it. “Do you know anything about this?”

“E.S is G.D.R, TELL M.D.R!” Brian read aloud thoughtfully. “Seems like a code for something. Who’s M.D.R?”

“I have absolutely no idea. It could be one of her friends. It’s why I called you last week. I think we should do a cross reference of all her acquaintances from that time. Maybe one of them would know…whatever this is.”

“M.D.R…M.D.R,” his friend mumbled. “Why does that sound familiar to me?”

I blinked, feeling exactly the same way.

“Martina Dela Reyes,” a familiar voice said and suddenly, everything clicked.

“Of course, it is!” I turned around and saw my brother standing in the doorway of my office, with a picnic basket in his hands. “D.J! What are you doing here?”

“Rico…” He looked shell-shocked, and perhaps a little bit white. “I have something to tell you.” And then, he began to tell me his dream.