Lahat ng Kabanata ng A Man in Distress: Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

CHAPTER 61 Liana PovThe email came at 8:04 a.m.No greeting.No warmth.No pretense.SUBJECT: Administrative Action – Effective ImmediatelyI stared at the screen, my coffee cooling beside me, my reflection faintly visible on the glass. I already knew what it was before I opened it. My body did too. My chest tightened. My fingers went numb.Still, I clicked.“Due to ongoing concerns regarding conflict of interest and recent media developments, Delgado & Reyes Law has decided to place you under temporary suspension, effective immediately, pending internal review.”Temporary.As if the word softened the blow.As if this wasn’t an execution dressed up as procedure.I read the rest without really seeing it. Legal language. Corporate caution. The firm’s “commitment to integrity.” Marcus’s signature at the bottom—clean, precise, impersonal.I closed the laptop slowly.The apartment was silent. Too silent. No emails pinging. No phone calls. No Ethan reminding me about briefs or timelines.

CHAPTER 63 Liana Pov I returned to Delgado & Reyes three days later.Not because I wanted to. Because I needed to end it properly.The building looked the same—glass gleaming, guards nodding politely, the lobby humming with controlled urgency. But the moment I stepped inside, I felt like a ghost walking through a life that no longer belonged to me.“Good morning, Atty. Ramos,” the receptionist said automatically.The title felt foreign now.“Good morning,” I replied, forcing a small smile.The elevator ride to the seventh floor was silent except for the soft instrumental music playing overhead. My reflection stared back at me in the mirrored walls—tired eyes, pulled-back hair, a face that had aged years in weeks.When the doors opened, conversations stalled.People noticed.They always do when someone returns under a cloud.Whispers followed me down the hall.

CHAPTER 65 Liana PovThe first thing I did was delete my professional email.Not archive.Not forward.Delete.I hovered over the confirmation prompt longer than I expected, my finger suspended like it was waiting for permission.Are you sure you want to permanently remove this account?“Yes,” I whispered.I clicked Confirm.And just like that, the last official thread tying me to Delgado & Reyes vanished.No more internal memos.No more legal alerts.No more reminders of a world that had chewed me up and decided I was expendable.I expected panic.Instead, I felt… quiet.The kind of quiet that settles after something irreversible.---The bakery downstairs opened at six every morning.I learned this because I was always awake by then.I’d sit by the window with a cup of bitter coffee, watching the owner

CHAPTER 67 Liana PovSilence has a sound.I didn’t know that until I left everything behind.It’s not quiet—not really. It hums. It presses against your ears at night when there’s no email notification, no calendar alert, no deadline screaming for attention. Just the steady reminder that you’ve stepped outside the life you built.I woke up past eight for the first time in years.No suit laid out.No case files waiting on my desk.No firm logo glowing on my phone screen.Just me. And the mess I didn’t know how to clean yet.I made coffee and forgot about it halfway through, standing by the window, staring at the street below. People rushed past like nothing had changed. Like my world hadn’t collapsed and reassembled itself into something unfamiliar.My phone buzzed.I didn’t need to look to know who it was.Evan.I let it ring.It buzzed again.

CHAPTER 69 Liana Pov The first rule of survival is knowing when to stay quiet.The second is knowing when silence becomes surrender.I spent the next few days living between those two rules, walking a thin line that felt sharper with every step. I didn’t go back to the courthouse. I didn’t call Evan. I didn’t answer messages from former colleagues who suddenly remembered my name now that scandal hovered like smoke over the legal community.Instead, I worked.Quietly. Methodically. Obsessively.I turned my apartment into a command center. The dining table disappeared under stacks of printed case summaries, sticky notes, and handwritten timelines. My laptop stayed open day and night, tabs multiplying like nervous thoughts. Coffee became an accessory rather than a choice.I wasn’t acting as an attorney anymore.I was acting as a witness.Marcus Delgado had built his pow