Chapter 6 - The Brother Who Forgot His Name
Adrian flew to Davao the next morning.
Claire came with him.
Captain Navarro remained behind to protect Rosa and Ernesto and continue the search for Mateo. Samuel arranged for a local attorney to meet them at the clinic.
The facility was small and operated by a religious charity. It cared for patients who had no families or identification.
A nurse named Elena brought them into a quiet office.
“You are looking for a man named Gabriel Reyes?” she asked.
“Yes,” Adrian said.
Elena opened a file.
“Seven years ago, fishermen found an injured man near a coastal road. He had severe head trauma, broken ribs, and signs of prolonged exposure.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“He could barely speak. He remembered only fragments.”
“Why wasn’t his family contacted?”
“He had no identification. The name Gabriel Reyes came much later, after he began remembering certain words.”
Adrian’s chest tightened.
“Is he here?”
Elena hesitated.
“He lives in a supported residence nearby. He works in the garden.”
“Can I see him?”
“We must prepare him first. Sudden emotional stress can trigger confusion.”
Adrian felt an almost unbearable urge to push past her and search every room.
Claire took his hand.
“We’ll wait.”
Elena showed them photographs.
The first was taken seven years earlier.
Gabriel’s face was swollen and bandaged. His hair had been shaved for surgery. One eye was closed.
The second photograph was recent.
He was thinner than Adrian remembered, with a scar along his temple, but unmistakably the same person.
His younger brother.
Alive.
Adrian pressed both hands against the desk.
For years he had imagined Gabriel building a life somewhere else, perhaps angry, perhaps indifferent.
Now he understood that Gabriel had been fighting simply to remember his own name.
Elena returned an hour later.
“He agreed to meet you.”
They found Gabriel sitting beneath a mango tree behind the residence.
He wore gardening gloves and held a small shovel.
When Adrian approached, Gabriel looked up.
His eyes were cautious.
“Gabriel?”
The man’s face remained still.
Adrian stopped several feet away.
“I’m Adrian.”
Gabriel blinked.
The shovel slipped from his hand.
“Adrian,” he repeated.
Adrian’s throat closed.
Gabriel touched the scar on his temple.
“I know that name.”
“I’m your brother.”
Gabriel stood unsteadily.
For a moment, Adrian thought he might walk away.
Instead, Gabriel stepped closer and touched Adrian’s face as though confirming he was real.
“You left on a bus,” he whispered.
Adrian began to cry.
“Yes.”
“Mama ran after you.”
“Yes.”
“Mateo said you did not look back.”
“I didn’t know she was there.”
Gabriel’s expression twisted with pain.
“He lies.”
Adrian embraced him.
Gabriel remained stiff for several seconds.
Then his arms closed around Adrian.
They stood beneath the tree, two brothers reunited after sixteen years of stolen silence.
Claire turned away to wipe her eyes.
Later, inside a private room, Gabriel tried to explain what he remembered.
His memories came in fragments.
Mateo stealing bank records.
Ernesto signing papers.
A locked room at the mill.
An argument.
A police chief.
A truck.
Water.
“When they took me to the cabin, Mateo said I had betrayed him,” Gabriel said. “He wanted to know where I hid the copies.”
“The memory card?”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“I put it inside my watch.”
“You buried the watch?”
“I think so. During the night. I escaped from the cabin.”
“How?”
“There was a window in the bathroom.”
“What happened after that?”
Gabriel touched his head.
“Road. Rain. Someone chasing me.”
“Mateo?”
“I don’t know.”
He remembered reaching a bus station and hiding beneath cargo in a truck traveling south. At some point, he fell or was thrown from the vehicle near the coast.
His next clear memory was waking in the clinic.
“Why didn’t you come home after remembering your name?” Adrian asked gently.
Gabriel looked ashamed.
“I remembered Mateo’s face. I thought he would find me.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“I remembered you were gone. Mateo said you hated us.”
Adrian lowered his head.
Even after Gabriel escaped, the lie continued to imprison him.
“Papa and Mama are alive,” Adrian said.
Gabriel’s eyes widened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do they hate me?”
“No. They have waited for you every day.”
Gabriel covered his face.
The sound that came from him was not quite a sob. It was deeper, like grief stored for years had finally found a way out.
They arranged a video call.
Rosa appeared on the screen from her hospital bed.
When she saw Gabriel, she stopped breathing.
“My baby?”
Gabriel leaned toward the phone.
“Mama.”
Rosa screamed his name.
Ernesto entered the frame and collapsed into a chair.
The four of them cried through a conversation filled with broken sentences.
Claire held the phone because Adrian’s hands would not stop shaking.
For the first time in sixteen years, the Reyes family spoke together.
Mateo was the only one missing.
And he was still hunting them.
That evening, Captain Navarro called.
“We found Mateo’s pickup near the northern highway.”
“Was he inside?”
“No. But there was blood on the passenger seat.”
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Navarro paused.
“There is something else. Chief Villareal has disappeared.”
Adrian looked toward Gabriel, who sat beside the window.
“They’re together.”
“Possibly.”
“Or one of them turned on the other.”
Navarro told Adrian to remain in Davao until officers secured the route home.
But Mateo knew about the clinic.
Someone had accessed Gabriel’s patient file two days earlier using false credentials.
They moved Gabriel that night to a secure hotel.
At midnight, the fire alarm rang.
Smoke filled the hallway.
Adrian opened the door and saw flames near the stairwell.
Claire pulled Gabriel toward the emergency exit.
Guests screamed as they ran.
Outside, Adrian counted everyone.
Claire.
Gabriel.
The nurse who accompanied them.
All safe.
Then Gabriel pointed toward the street.
A black pickup accelerated away.
Mateo stood in the truck bed.
For one second, his face was visible beneath a streetlight.
He was not looking at Adrian.
He was looking at Gabriel.
And in his hand was the same gold watch Adrian had seen during the confrontation at the farm.
Gabriel began trembling.
“That isn’t his watch,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“It belongs to Chief Villareal.”
Adrian watched the pickup disappear.
Mateo had once needed the police chief’s protection.
Now he was wearing the man’s watch.
May you like
Whatever alliance had protected him for years was beginning to collapse.
And desperate men became most dangerous when they had no one left to trust.
