The prison’s visiting room was colder that morning, or maybe it was only Stacy who felt the chill creep through her blouse. She sat with her notebook open, pen poised, though she knew the recorder in front of her would capture every syllable. Rafael Manuel sat across from her, his wrists chained but his posture carrying the arrogance of a man who still believed the world revolved around him. His eyes were steady, sharp, unflinching.
“Are you ready for the second confession?” he asked, his lips curling into that familiar smirk.
Stacy nodded, forcing herself to keep her tone neutral. “Yes. Last time you spoke about Trisha. You made it sound like love and ruin were the same thing. But today you said it will be about something else.”
Rafael leaned back slightly. The chair groaned under his weight as he adjusted, the metal of his cuffs clinking against the table. “Confession two is not about passion. It is about power. A different kind of hunger. The kind that makes men follow you into hell if you promise them a share of the fire.”
“Tell me,” Stacy said. She tried to sound calm, but her pulse betrayed her, beating faster in her neck.
Rafael tilted his head as if testing her courage. “It was the robbery. The one they wrote about in your newspapers, though the papers never knew the whole truth. Andrew Macavinta and I planned it for months. Not the kind of smash and grab your average street criminals dream about. No, this was precision. Every move calculated like a game of chess. Every piece exactly where I wanted it.”
“Which robbery are you talking about?” Stacy asked.
“The Pasig River transport heist,” Rafael replied smoothly. “They were moving payroll money for a construction project. Millions in cash. Guarded, of course. But not well enough. Not against me.”
Stacy scribbled quickly, though her eyes never left him. “You orchestrated it?”
“Every detail,” Rafael said with pride. His voice carried no trace of remorse. Instead, there was almost an artist’s delight in his words. “I studied the route, the schedule, the guards’ habits. I knew which bridge they would take and at what time. I even accounted for the traffic lights. That is what separates me from petty thieves. I did not just steal. I designed chaos.”
“And Andrew?”
“Andrew was my hammer,” Rafael said, his eyes gleaming. “Where I carved lines with precision, he was the force that broke through. Loyal to me in ways I cannot even explain, though loyalty is a fragile thing, is it not? At that time, he would have slit a man’s throat if I asked. In fact, he did.”
Stacy felt her stomach tighten. “You are admitting to murder again.”
Rafael smiled. “I am confessing, Stacy. That is what you came here for. Do not flinch when you hear what you already expected.”
She steadied her pen. “Then tell me exactly what happened that night.”
Rafael’s eyes seemed to drift past her, as though he was no longer in the sterile visiting room but standing once again by the riverbanks. His voice slowed, deliberate, savoring the retelling.
“It was midnight when we moved,” he began. “The trucks were scheduled to pass at one in the morning. We had masks, weapons, even uniforms stolen from another security company so we could blend in. Trisha was there too, though I did not want her to be. She insisted. She always insisted. She wanted to see me work. To see the man the world whispered about.”
Stacy interrupted, “She was part of the heist?”
“She was the driver,” Rafael admitted. “Her hands were steady, her eyes sharper than some of the men I trusted. She waited with the engine running while Andrew and I set the trap. We placed a broken-down jeep on the bridge, perfectly positioned to block the trucks. When they slowed, our men surrounded them. Everything unfolded exactly as I had planned.”
His voice quickened, excitement flickering in his tone. “The guards barely had time to react. Andrew smashed the first one with the butt of his rifle. I disarmed another before he could reach for his gun. In less than a minute, we had the entire convoy under our control. It was beautiful, Stacy. A symphony of fear and obedience.”
Stacy’s grip tightened on her pen. “And the guards? What happened to them?”
Rafael paused, a faint smile curling on his lips. “Alive. Most of them. Shaken, humiliated, stripped of their weapons, but alive. Except one. He resisted, tried to be a hero. Andrew broke his jaw first. Then he went too far, and the man never stood up again. That was not in my plan, but sometimes blood writes itself into the script.”
“You sound proud,” Stacy said, her voice colder than she intended. “Proud of orchestrating a crime that terrified people.”
Rafael leaned closer, his eyes piercing. “Do you know what pride really is, Stacy? Pride is walking into the impossible and walking out untouched. Pride is knowing you outsmarted a system designed to keep men like me under its heel. That night, I was not a poor orphan scrounging for scraps. I was a conductor of fate.”
Stacy held his gaze. “And what about the people you hurt? The families of the guards? The city that had to live in fear?”
Rafael’s expression softened into mock sympathy. “You still want me to show remorse. But remorse is for those who did not mean what they did. I meant every second of it. And yet, do not mistake me for some mindless butcher. I never killed without purpose. Every move had meaning.”
“Meaning for whom?” Stacy pressed.
“For me,” he said simply. “For survival. For power. For love. Do you think Andrew would have followed me otherwise? Do you think Trisha would have looked at me the way she did? The heist was not just about the money. It was about showing the world I could bend it to my will.”
Stacy felt a strange tension inside her chest. He spoke with such conviction that a dangerous part of her almost believed him. But she forced herself back to clarity. “What happened afterward?”
Rafael’s eyes gleamed with memory. “We vanished into the night. The cash hidden in compartments we had prepared weeks before. The newspapers screamed about it for months. Politicians cursed my name while secretly envying the audacity. Andrew and I celebrated with champagne in a rented villa. Trisha danced in the living room with the money scattered around her like confetti. For a moment, it felt like we had conquered the city.”
“And yet you ended up here,” Stacy reminded him.
Rafael chuckled softly. “Because every conquest has its cracks. Andrew started to question. Trisha began to fear. And the police, though slower than me, were not fools. They stitched pieces together. But that is another confession.”
The guard by the door cleared his throat, signaling their time was halfway gone. Stacy glanced at the recorder, then back at Rafael. “When you speak of Andrew, there is both admiration and bitterness in your voice. Which is it?”
Rafael’s smile thinned. “Admiration once. Bitterness now. Andrew was my brother in arms, my shadow. But loyalty bends when survival calls. He proved that later. For now, in this confession, I will tell you only this. Without Andrew, the heist would have failed. With Andrew, it succeeded. And with his betrayal, it ended.”
Stacy leaned forward. “You plan to confess everything in order, do you not? Each piece of the story building toward something.”
“Yes,” Rafael said, his tone low and deliberate. “Seven confessions. Each one another thread in the tapestry. And when you see the whole picture, Stacy, you will understand why my last crime is not theft or blood. It is you.”
The weight of his words pressed against her chest. She forced herself to speak calmly. “Do not twist this into something it is not. I am here for the truth, not for your games.”
Rafael smirked. “Truth is a game, Stacy. One where the pieces are memory, guilt, and desire. You are already playing whether you admit it or not.”
Her pulse betrayed her again, but she would not let him see weakness. She closed her notebook, signaling the end of the session. “Confession two,” she said firmly. “You orchestrated the Pasig River heist. You take pride in it. That is the truth I will write.”
Rafael leaned back, satisfied. “Yes. Write it. But remember, every confession is a mirror. When you look too long, you will start to see yourself in it.”
The guards moved forward, preparing to escort him back. He stood with grace, even with chains weighing him down, and before leaving, he glanced over his shoulder at her.
“Next time,” he said, “I will tell you about betrayal. The kind that cuts deeper than any knife.”
Stacy remained seated, staring at the empty chair across from her. The recorder’s red light still blinked, capturing the silence that followed. She pressed her hand against her chest, steadying the storm inside her.
She had come for stories, but each confession seemed to pull her further into Rafael’s world, a world where pride replaced remorse and crime was told like poetry. And despite herself, she knew she could not wait for the next chapter.
ns216.73.216.23da2
and then Add to home screen.