Before the sandalwood and the shadows, there was the scent of laundry detergent and fried garlic.
Joie's life had been small, bright, and predictable. Her parents were hardworking people—a public school teacher and a government clerk—who lived in a modest townhouse where the roof leaked during typhoon season. They were rich only in hope, betting everything on Joie's straight-A report cards and her dream of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.
Then came the letter, followed by the black car.
Lolo Tenorio was a name spoken in hushed tones in her household—a distant, wealthy patriarch of a branch of the family they had never visited. He was the "Great Uncle" who had disappeared into the heights of Forbes Park. When he summoned Joie, her parents saw it as a miracle.
"He wants to pay for everything, Joie," her mother had whispered, her eyes shining with tears. "The best med school, the books, the housing. He says he wants a Tenorio to finally have 'Dr.' before their name."
Joie had gone to him with a heart full of gratitude. She thought she was being rewarded for her mind. She didn't realize she was being bought for her steady hands.
The smell of formaldehyde in the university lab had always felt like a promise to Joie—a promise that life could be understood, categorized, and ultimately, saved. But as she stepped into the Tenorio estate for her weekly "check-in," the promise felt more like a threat.
At twenty, her world was defined by Homeostasis: the delicate balance required to maintain life. She spent her mornings charting the Krebs cycle, convinced she owed this education to a benevolent old man.
But the air changed the moment she entered the sunroom.
Lolo Tenorio (80) sat amidst the opulence, his breathing assisted by an oxygen concentrator that wheezed like a rhythmic, mechanical predator. He didn't look like a benefactor today. He looked like a spider.
"You're late, Joie," he rasped.
"Professor Galvez ran over, Lolo. We were discussing the nervous system," Joie said, clutching her heavy textbook. It was the only shield she had.
Lolo Tenorio let out a dry, rattling chuckle. "The nervous system. Good. You'll need to understand how a body reacts to stress. Not just in a textbook, but in the field."
The door creaked open, and three tall shadows spilled across the polished mahogany floor. Joie's "cousins"—the men she had only recently met, men who moved through the world like silent predators. Stephen (33), the pillar; Matthew (29), the ghost; and Timothy (28), the watcher.
"I am paying for your future in medicine, Joie," Lolo said, his voice dropping to a gravelly low. "But the Tenorio name is not a charity. It is a debt. My hotels and resorts are the skin of this family. But the bones? The bones are built on a different kind of service. We remove obstacles. And for that, we need someone who understands the science of the human form."
Joie felt the weight of her tuition—the thousands of pesos for her books and her elite dorm—turn into lead in her stomach.
"I have a special job for you," Lolo said. "A test. Your brothers will guide you. But you... you will be the one to deliver the finality."
The "job" happened two weeks later.
Under Stephen's watchful, predatory eye in a soundproofed basement, Joie was handed a scalpel. The man in the chair wasn't a specimen. He was a "leak," an obstacle.
"Map the Carotid Artery, Joie," Stephen whispered. "Show Lolo that his investment wasn't a waste."
Her hands shook, her mind screaming —fragments of the girl from the modest townhouse who wanted to save the world. But under the crushing weight of the debt she owed for her dream, Joie performed her first "procedure."
She returned to her dorm that night and scrubbed her nails until they bled. She realized then that the girl who wanted to be a doctor had been killed by the very man who paid for her to become one.