The prison visiting room smelled of steel and disinfectant, the kind of place where even air seemed to carry the weight of punishment. Stacy Bendoy adjusted her blazer, trying to steady her nerves as she waited for Rafael Manuel to be brought in. She had rehearsed questions the night before, writing and rewriting them until the paper was covered in ink. Yet now, with the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and the armed guards stationed by the doors, every word she had planned felt too fragile for the moment.
When Rafael finally appeared, Stacy almost did not recognize him at first. He was taller than she expected, lean but not weak, and though his orange prison uniform marked him as condemned, he carried himself with the composure of someone who had chosen his fate. His eyes scanned the room until they landed on her, and then he smiled as if they were old acquaintances meeting after years apart.
He sat on the other side of the glass partition, picking up the receiver with deliberate calm. Stacy hesitated, then lifted her own.
“Good morning, Miss Bendoy,” Rafael said, his voice smooth and unsettlingly warm. “You are even more punctual than I imagined.”
“You imagined me,” Stacy asked, forcing her tone to remain steady.
“Of course. A man in here has little else to do but imagine. And when I requested you, I pictured how you would walk in, how your eyes would betray your hesitation, how you would sit straight to hide it. You did not disappoint me.”
Stacy’s fingers tightened on the receiver. “This is not about me. This is about you and your crimes. I am here to record what you want to confess.”
Rafael leaned closer to the glass. “Crimes. Such a convenient word. It boxes everything neatly into wrongs committed, laws broken, lives destroyed. But what I have to tell you will not fit so easily into that word. My story is not one line. It is seven.”
“Seven,” Stacy repeated.
“Seven confessions,” Rafael said softly. “Each one a truth that shaped the man sitting before you. I will not give you dates and body counts like a police report. I will give you the soul of what happened. You cannot have the crime without the confession.”
Stacy tried to keep her professional mask, but the way he spoke unsettled her. “You speak as if you are proud.”
“I speak as if I am alive,” Rafael replied. “And while I am alive, I will not waste words. Would you prefer I tell you everything in one long monotonous statement? Or will you allow me to guide you through the labyrinth of what I was and what I became?”
“You are manipulating this,” Stacy said.
“You call it manipulation. I call it storytelling.” His eyes gleamed. “And you, of all people, know the difference.”
She took a slow breath. “Fine. Then start. What is the first confession?”
Rafael tilted his head, studying her as though she were the one being interviewed. “Before I confess anything, I need to know. Why are you really here, Miss Bendoy? Is it ambition? Is it hunger for recognition? Or is it something more dangerous?”
Stacy held his gaze. “I am here because the truth matters. Because your story may reveal more than just your sins. It may expose the systems that allowed men like you to thrive. And yes, maybe I want to prove myself. But that does not make my purpose less valid.”
Rafael smiled faintly. “Honest. I respect that. Then let us begin.”
He leaned back, his eyes briefly closing as if recalling a distant memory. “My first confession is not about murder or money. It is about abandonment. I was six years old when I realized the world had no place for me. My mother left me in an alley in Tondo. She kissed my forehead and said she would return, but she never did. I waited until the streetlights flickered off. I waited until my stomach ached and my eyes burned. That was the first night I understood what betrayal tastes like.”
Stacy felt a pang she did not want to admit. “That is not a crime you committed. That was something done to you.”
Rafael opened his eyes, his stare sharp. “Every criminal begins with something done to him. People love to talk about choice, about free will, but a child left in the dark learns desperation before morality. My first theft was bread. My first violence was survival. And by the time I was ten, I had already decided the world owed me. That is the first confession. That I built my life not on greed or malice, but on the promise that I would never again be the boy who waited in vain.”
His voice carried no tremor, no hint of sorrow. It was fact, delivered with elegance.
Stacy scribbled notes on her pad. “So your justification is abandonment. You want me to believe that your crimes were the world’s fault.”
“Not justification,” Rafael corrected. “Foundation. You cannot understand the structure of a house unless you see the soil it stands on. Every man’s sins have roots. These are mine.”
“Then tell me this,” Stacy said, narrowing her eyes. “If your life began with betrayal, why betray others? Why ruin lives when you knew what it felt like to have your own shattered?”
For the first time, Rafael chuckled. “Because power tastes sweeter when you know hunger. Because to be the betrayer is better than to be the betrayed. And because somewhere along the way, I learned that love and cruelty are twins, born from the same mother.”
The way he said love made Stacy uncomfortable, as if the word itself was stained when it came from his lips.
“Are you trying to frighten me,” she asked.
“No,” Rafael said simply. “If I wanted to frighten you, I would not need words. I am trying to make you listen. My first confession is the seed. The next will be the storm.”
Stacy shifted slightly, feeling the weight of his gaze press through the glass. “You speak like a poet, but you are a convict.”
“And yet you are here,” Rafael answered quickly. “Listening. Writing. Breathing in my words. That makes me more than a convict. It makes me unforgettable.”
The guard tapped his watch, signaling that time was almost up.
Stacy felt the urgency rise in her chest. “Rafael, people outside think you are a monster. They expect me to confirm that in my articles. Why should I let you control the narrative?”
Rafael’s eyes darkened, his smile fading into something sharper. “Because monsters do not confess. They hide in shadows, they deny, they snarl. But I am giving you my truths openly. That does not make me less guilty, but it makes me more human. Write that. Write that a man condemned to die still wishes to be remembered as more than the needle in his arm.”
“Confessions do not erase blood,” Stacy said softly.
“No,” Rafael admitted. “But they make the blood speak.”
The guard called out, “Time.”
Stacy slowly lowered the receiver. She had pages of notes, but she felt as though she had only been given a glimpse of something far more dangerous. Rafael, however, kept his eyes on her until she stood up, and even then his gaze lingered like a chain she could not shake off.
As she walked toward the door, Rafael lifted his receiver again, speaking though she could no longer hear. His lips moved in silent words, but Stacy caught one.
Her name.
Outside, as the heavy doors locked behind her, Stacy leaned against the cold wall and let out a breath she had been holding since she sat across from him. Her heart beat too fast. She wanted to believe it was nerves, nothing more. But somewhere in her chest, curiosity burned hotter than fear.
The storm that Rafael promised had not yet begun. And Stacy, against her better judgment, wanted to hear it.
ns216.73.216.23da2
and then Add to home screen.