CHAPTER 3

MISHA THOUGHT SOREN would be thoroughly annoyed, but no, he looked worried—about her, no doubt—as he craned his neck outside his window and looked at her. “What happened?” he asked, with his head still out the window. “Wait.” His head disapperared from the window, then, slowly, his car started backing up.  Aftwerwards, they almost simultaneously got out of their vehicles and walked towards each other. Misha’s steps were brisk; Soren’s, calm.

Misha stopped a mere foot away from him.

“Are you okay?” Soren asked him.

She smirked and she didn’t even attempt to hide it. “I have a question for you,” she said, ignoring his question as her question was far more important. “Please be truthful.”

“Okay,” he said, his forehead knotting a bit while he gazed at her, most likely surprised with her suddenly antagonistic mood. Just a moment ago, we were departing from each other amiably. Now, he probably could see fire coming out of her nose as she snorted angrily.

She cleared her throat so she could deliver her words clearly. “Do you know Fredrick Cortez?”

“Frederick Cortez?”

“Fredrick Cortez. The businessman.”

Soren just stared at her with a dazed expression on his face so she thought he needed more information.

“The billionaire, one of the richest in the country.”

His attractive face darkened a bit.

She crossed her arms across her chest. “This is the first time that I saw you, but you do look like him, you know, and also one of his sons... you’re just more handsome…”

“I really don’t want to—”

“Please answer the question, Mr. Cortez.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Are you his son?”

“Yes.”

She wanted to shut her eyes hard in dismay. “Please reject the friend request I sent you,” she quickly decided before turning around and walking back to her car.

“Do you know him personally? Has he offended you or insulted you or hurt you in any way?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she answered without glancing back at him.

“What did he do to you?”

She didn’t respond.

“Tell me what he did to you,” his voice followed her.

She still didn’t bother to reply and got inside her car and left.

Soren’s father, nay, his whole family, her family suspected, hurt someone they loved.

Seven years ago, Misha’s uncle, James, a younger brother of her father, disappeared and hadn’t been found until now. James was forty two years old at that time. He worked for a company that was owned by Fredrick Cortez, a billionaire businessman who owned a conglomerate, a regular in Top Ten Richest Persons in the Philippines.

James was last seen inside the premises of the company where he worked, arguing with a superior, before he disappeared. The superior, who was related to Fredrick Cortez, denied he had anything to do with James’ disappearance. There was an investigation but nothing came out of it. James was now considered dead, leaving a wife and two kids. Ironically and tragically, his family and relatives were still looking for him or his corpse.

Fredrick Cortez didn’t lift a finger to help find her uncle. The business magnate even told reporters that James wasn’t a good employee so he probably was not a good man and had many enemies. Imagine saying that while they were all panicking looking for her uncle. And his uncle wasn’t a wicked man, he was kind and helpful.

And they had hated Fredrick Cortez ever since.

And Fredrick Cortez was the father of Soren Cortez.

If only she had known first that he was the son of Fredrick, she’d never add Soren on F******k. Her family would be surprised to see her being friends with Soren on F******k. They certainly would reprimand her. And if she had known that fact at the onset of what happened to Claire, she’d probably insist to take her to the hospital just by herself and leave Soren, or just let Soren take her alone to the hospital. Or she would accompany him but wouldn’t talk to him.

Now, she knew why he seemed so certain of sending those two men to jail: he had a very powerful and influential family.

But what perplexed her was that she knew Fredrick Cortez’s other kids, Andrew and Kayla, but not Soren. When they were still looking for her Uncle James, she would sometimes see Andrew and Kayla with their father Fredrick. Until now, she still would see these two on her F******k News Feed, hobnobbing with their fellow rich kids and celebrities.

But not Soren, he was, like, invisible when it came to his family.

Where was he hiding? Was his father ashamed to show him to the public? Who was in his right mind would be embarrassed to say that Soren was his son? He was the perfect son: handsome, polite, helpful, and well-mannered, And handsome. Okay, she already mentioned it a lot of times, she thought. If anything, Fredrick should be proud of Soren, especially with what he did tonight—unless, she was wrong about him being nice and that he was actually a black sheep. But she didn’t see any signs earlier that he was a schmuck. What she saw were clear signs of a very nice guy, unless again, he was a poseur. But he looked and sounded genuine. If he was just pretending to be nice, then, he was a very good actor. Oscar-caliber. The worried look on his face as he rushed to Claire’s succor looked authentic. And what would he get from pretending to be nice? He could’ve just run away from the accident and no one would resent him for it since no one knew he was there. But he stopped and helped and risked not only his truck but his life, even though no one was there to video it and make it viral.

He helped because it was the right thing to do.

Misha got home safely at around two in the morning.

Home was a two-storey house inside a subdivision in Quezon City. She lived with her parents and her two younger siblings. His brother Jaden, who was twenty one years old, was a graduating civil engineering student while her eighteen-year old sister Ruth was taking up chemical engineering. Misha was a graduate of a business course but she was currently working as a model. A friend influenced her. She was pretty, she was told, she was statuesque, and she had that X-factor. She tried to juggle a day job and a part-time modeling job, but later learned that she couldn’t do both successfully. Casting calls became scarce as she would often fail to attend them. A model-friend advised her to try full-time modeling for two years, earn some money and maybe after two years, she would have enough to start her own business.

And she was on her tenth month now since she made it a full-time job. She would always be available for casting calls and could travel anywhere she needed, and when it came to money, so far so good. She loved to cook so she was thinking of putting up her own restaurant when she had saved enough money.

She sent text messages to Jaden and Ruth while she was in the hospital and told them of the accident so her family knew that she would be going home late. She parked her car in the garage, grabbed her bag, walked to the main door and opened it with her key. When she entered the living room, she saw Jaden still awake, watching TV.

“Have you eaten?” Jaden asked her. “There’s food on the table”

“No, I’m not hungry,” she said. She ate with her friends at a restaurant before she encountered the accident.

 “How was she?” Jaden inquired as he was switching off the TV.

 “Who?”

 “The victim.”

 “I didn’t confirm it with the doctor but she probably suffered leg fracture.”

“Ouch,” Jaden winced. “I hope she recovers quickly.” He turned the TV off.

“Yeah, I hope, too. You’re sleeping?”

 “Yeah,” he said and yawned.

They then both went upstairs and went to each other’s room. Feeling fatigued, Misha sat on the edge of her bed and placed the bag on the bed beside her. Then, she remembered his confrontation with Soren. She grabbed her bag and put out her cell phone, sat back on the edge of the bed, and logged on to F******k—Soren had accepted her friend’s request. She thought of unfriending him immediately but she changed her mind and went to his F******k account instead. He looked really handsome in his profile picture, which was a close-up photo of his smiling face. And even in photo, he really exuded this aura of being nice and polite.

He wasn’t active on F******k as his last post was three weeks ago. And she had more friends than her. She had more than four thousand friends while he had less than one thousand—nine hundred fifty-five, to be exact—and she thought a handsome billionaire’s son, who was probably a billionaire himself, would be very popular on F******k. Or maybe he was just choosy with his friends even on F******k where everyone could be friends, even those who didn’t know each other and hadn’t met each other. Nothing on his account indicated if he was single or in a relationship. But he had lots of pretty female friends. She even saw two famous celebrities (one male, one female) among his friends. And strange, he wasn’t friends with his siblings. In fact, there was no other Cortez on his friends’ list. Interesting, she thought. And a bit mysterious. She was certain he had cousins or niblings with the same surname. It was either he didn’t want them as friends, or they didn’t want him as a friend.

His last post, which was public, was an inspirational quote about ignoring your critics. There were eighty positive reactions on it and more than a hundred comments. Too many comments on an inspirational quote, she thought. She would share a quote and it would garner many positive reactions but almost no comments. She got curious and read the comments. One of them shared a link, which she clicked, and it led her to an article about—Soren.

She read it and was shocked—the article accused Soren of being a sex addict, a kleptomaniac, a pathological liar, and possibly a drug addict. A real asshole, the article said.

And the writer’s source for saying those nasty things about Soren? None other than Soren’s father and his siblings, Andrew and Kayla. What was wrong with them? Why were they disparaging their own blood and flesh? But it wasn’t disparaging if the accusations were true, it would just be telling some facts. But Soren, a sex addict, a drug addict, a pathological liar and a kleptomaniac? They were just together for a few hours but she didn’t sense any of these accusations in him. But then, they really weren’t able to talk that much. It was just that that the concern he showed to that woman and her daughter seemed genuine. And common sense would dictate that if he was bad, he wouldn’t risk his life attacking those men on motorcycle. He wouldn’t risk his life saving people he didn’t know.

But why would his family vilify him? She went back to the comments. Many were encouraging and but a lot were mocking Soren. And the, she saw another link—she clicked on it and it led her to a blog. And the blog contained a link to a video.

And the video was entitled Soren and a girl.

She clicked the link and it led her to the video which thumbnail was dark.

She clicked Play and swallowed hard when she saw a man and woman having sex in bed, and the man, at first glance, looked like Soren.