JAY — SIX YEARS OF BECOMING
For six years, the Philippines ceased to exist.
Not as a country.
Not as geography.
But as a presence in my life.
No calls.
No replies.
No curiosity disguised as healing.
The Fernandez name never crossed my lips.
Section E became a phrase without weight.
And him—
He faded into the category of things that once mattered, and then didn't.
I didn't block anyone.
I simply never looked back.
Because healing, I learned, wasn't forgiveness.
It was distance.
---
NEW YORK — AGE 18
New York didn't care that I arrived shattered.
It didn't pause because I'd lost everything in one night.
It didn't soften because I woke up gasping some mornings, unsure where I was.
The city moved anyway.
And in that movement, I found survival.
At eighteen, I learned the first rule of rebuilding yourself:
> No one is coming to save you.
So I saved myself.
Slowly. Quietly. Ruthlessly.
---
REYCEE MARIANO
At first, I didn't call her Mom.
I didn't know how.
She never asked me to.
Reycee Mariano existed in my life like sunlight through glass—present, warming, never intrusive.
She respected my silences.
Never touched my things without permission.
Never tried to replace anyone.
She cooked for me when I forgot to eat.
Sat beside me when I couldn't sleep.
Defended me without announcing it.
I noticed the little things.
The way she kept my favorite fruit stocked.
The way she learned when to knock—and when not to.
The way she never flinched when I woke from nightmares, shaking but silent.
One night, maybe a year after I arrived, I came downstairs at 3 a.m.
She was there.
Reading.
No questions.
She poured tea, slid it toward me, and said gently,
"You don't have to explain anything."
That's when something in me shifted.
I didn't call her Mom that night.
But I thought it.
---
PERCY
Percy was constant.
Protective without being suffocating.
Sharp without being cruel.
He watched my evolution like someone guarding a wildfire—ready to step in if it burned wrong, but never trying to extinguish it.
He didn't soften me.
He sharpened me.
He taught me how to read contracts like weapons.
How to spot desperation in polished men.
How power actually moved—behind closed doors, in pauses, in silence.
He never once treated me like his fragile weak little sister.
He treated me like someone dangerous enough to respect.
--
I completed school in New York fast.
Not because I rushed—but because I focused.
No distractions.
No social theatrics.
Just work.
By the time I was accepted into Harvard's Business Program, my father didn't even pretend to be calm.
He hugged me so tightly I laughed for the first time in weeks.
"I told you," Percy said proudly, clapping my shoulder. "She's terrifying."
Reycee cried. Full-on tears. The good kind.
Harvard wasn't mercy.
It was war.
I loved it.
Three years.
That's all I needed.
I compressed a five-year program into three with surgical precision—summer courses, overload credits, zero excuses.
I interned at Mariano Industries during the day, studied at night, and slept when my body gave out.
Boardrooms replaced classrooms early.
I learned how men twice my age tried to test me, dismiss me, corner me.
They stopped quickly.
I didn't raise my voice.
I didn't threaten.
I outplayed them.
Percy watched quietly from the sidelines—not interfering, not shielding.
He didn't need to.
By the time I graduated, people already knew my name.
Not as Jaspher Mariano's daughter.
But as Jasper Jean Mariano.
And some times they didn't see a Mariano.
They saw a problem.
I liked that.
---
MJ CORP — AGE 22
MJ Corp wasn't born from ambition.
It was born from independence.
I didn't want my name attached to legacy.
I didn't want whispers of favoritism.
So I built something no one could trace back to my father.
No Mariano branding.
No inherited credibility.
Just results.
We started small.
Tech infrastructure.
Private logistics.
Strategic acquisitions.
I controlled markets that once refused to take my calls.
They called me cold.
They called me calculating.
They called me dangerous.
Good.
They weren't wrong.
And I never chased attention.
---
COLE & CELESTE WILSON
Cole Wilson was the first person who didn't flinch around me.
He walked into a negotiation with a lazy grin and sharp eyes.
"You're younger than I expected," he said.
"So are you," I replied.
He laughed.
That was it.
Celeste followed a week later—cool, observant, terrifyingly precise.
Where Cole talked, she watched.
Where he burned, she froze.
They didn't ask who I was.
They cared about how I thought.
That's why we became unbreakable.
Outside the room?
We were lethal.
Inside?
We were idiots together.
Cole Wilson walked into my life like chaos wearing a grin—sharp mind, sharper instincts, loyalty that didn't waver even when money did.
He'd grown up rich but bored, brilliant but underestimated.
Celeste Wilson—his sister—was my opposite and my mirror. Quiet where I was sharp. Deadly where I was distant.
She read people like open books and remembered everything they wished she wouldn't.
The three of us didn't become friends.
We became a unit.
Unbreakable.
To the world, we were ruthless.
To each other, we were safe.
Late-night takeout in my penthouse.
Sarcastic banter during mergers.
Silence that didn't need explanation.
They never asked about the Philippines.
They didn't need to.
They knew the shape of my scars without needing the story.
---
THE MYSTERIOUS CEO
By twenty-three, people stopped asking who owned MJ Corp.
They asked who ran it.
I didn't give interviews.
Didn't attend galas.
Boardrooms whispered my name like a warning.
Not Mariano's daughter.
Not legacy heir.
Just—
Jay.
The mysterious CEO.
The ruthless strategist.
The one who never overplayed her hand.
I liked the anonymity.
It meant I'd earned it.
---
REYCEE Turned to MOM
One evening, after a brutal week, I came home late.
Reycee was in the kitchen.
She looked up and smiled.
"Dinner's still warm."
Something about that broke me.
I sat.
She served me like it was the most normal thing in the world.
And without thinking, I said it.
"Thanks, Mom."
She froze.
Then smiled—soft, teary, real.
"I've waited," she said quietly.
That night, I cried in her arms.
Not from pain.
From safety.
---
AGE 24 — NOW
MJ Corp dominates markets older than I am.
Old-money firms call me reckless.
New-money firms call me terrifying.
I don't care.
My name stands on its own.
Not as a Mariano.
As Jay.
I have a family who chose me.
A brother who guards me.
Parents who protect me without chains.
Friends who would burn the world quietly if it touched me.
The Philippines?
A closed chapter.
Section E?
A footnote.
Him?
A shadow that no longer reaches me.
I didn't survive.
I became.
And whatever the world thinks it remembers about me—
It's already too late.
Because the woman I am now?
She doesn't look back....