Never Judge

"The history of the Chan family is filled with deception and death." Raphael Chan explained. "And your grandfather, my father, is no exception. He spared no one, not even family." He said with a frown as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

"But dad, would he actually order the death of his daughter-in-law. He knew it would break Uncle Miguel's heart?" Eric asked.

"Your grandfather always told us that a broken heart could be mended, but a broken family would be hard to piece together."  Raphael Chan said with a sigh as he shook his head.

"What is that even supposed to mean? That sounds ridiculous!" Nicole Chan said as she looked at her father in disbelief.

"Nicole, if he could do it to your father, then he could do it to your uncle Miguel too." Lucy Chan told her daughter with a frown.

"Mom, what do you mean?" Nicole asked as she looked at her mother in disbelief.

"Your mom wasn't the woman I wanted to marry." Raphael Chan said as he looked at his wife with sad eyes.

She simply looked at him and smiled.

"Are you telling us that you don't love mom?" Miguel asked his father as his voice began to shake. "Do you have someone else, dad?"

"No, it's not that." Lucy Chan told her son. "Your father and I love each other, but it took us a while to get to where we are in our relationship. Like most Chan family marriages, ours was arranged and carefully arranged."

"Before I was married to your mother, there was another woman that I loved. Don't worry, your mother knows about this, she's known this from the start." Raphael Chan explained to his children.

"The fact that he could love like that made me hope that he could love me the same way someday." Lucy added. "I knew her, but I didn't know that the way her life ended involved the Chan family and their disapproval of their relationship."

"You see, my father is very very controlling. Even the women we dated had to be approved by him, that's why I kept my relationship with her a secret." Raphael said with a frown as he recalled the past.

"Why didn't grandfather approve of her?" Eric asked.

"Many reasons, she came from the wrong family, she wasn't of Chinese descent, she didn't have the right qualifications to become the future lady of the Chan family." Raphael said as he told his children. "She wasn't the right kind of woman to him so he didn't approve."

"I thought he didn't know about your relationship?" Miguel asked.

"Not at first, no. But as you said, secrets can only stay hidden for so long, and eventually we got over confident. We began spending time in public and someone saw us together and told your grandfather." Raphael Chan explained.

"We didn't think he would do it either." Emilio Reyes said, joining in on the conversation. "We all told Raphael that it was impossible that his father, your grandfather would go as far as taking a life or ruining one just to keep them apart."

"Unfortunately, we were all wrong." James Abad said.

"My father only threatened me at first." Raphael said. "He would tell me he had more than one son, or that if I loved Vanessa I would break up with her. I didn't take his threats seriously and she died."

"What happened?" Ram asked.

"It was just like any other day, I had work at the hospital and she went to the office. We had plans to meet up for dinner after she got out of work." Raphael said as his wife reached out and held his hand.

He looked at her and she smiled at him. Cedric and the others watched as he took strength from her and took a deep breath. Gathering what it took to tell the story.

"My father had threatened for the hundredth time that morning that he would ruin her life and her family's lives if I didn't break up with her." Raphael explained. "Little did I know that that was the last time I would hear that threat."

"Dad, you don't need to tell us if it's too hard." Nicole said with a frown as she gave her father a concerned look.

"No, it's fine." He said, shaking his head. "You need to be made aware of this side of the family, the darkest and most dangerous side so that you never underestimate them like I did."

Raphael paused as he gathered himself again while everyone remained silent and eagerly awaited the rest of the story.

"I waited for hours outside of her office, and when she didn't show up I went to her house. Vanessa's mother said she hadn't seen her since that morning, so I went to the restaurant where we were supposed to meet up, but she wasn't there." He told them.

"I searched everywhere that night, I was out till three in the morning, just searching for her. But I failed, I couldn't find her." Raphael said with a frown as he began to tear up. "If I had listened to my father I could have done something to keep her safe, but I never took any of his threats seriously."

"None of us thought they would go as far as kill someone, Raphael." Jose Sebastian said.

Raphael Chan nodded, acknowledging what his friend said.

"The next day, I was shocked when the police came knocking to the old Chan Mansion where we lived. They came to interrogate me. It was from them that I learned that Vanessa was murdered." As he said this, Raphael wiped the tears coming from his eyes.

"She wasn't just killed, she was tortured, raped, and murdered. Her body was hung from a bridge with the word whore written on her." Raphael Chan said as he voice broke, clearly he was struggling to tell the story.

"I'll tell them from here." Lucy told her husband as she held his hand.

"My husband then confronted the old man once the police left, and when he asked him about it, the old man just played a tape showing the murder and rape of Vanessa." Lucy said as she spat out the words in disgust. "After that he was broken, he simply followed what his father asked, so when we were introduced he proposed almost immediately."

"I was like a puppet to my father for a while, always afraid of what would happen next." Raphael Chan said. "Eventually, Lucy helped me come back. She helped me become brave again. So when my brother said he had met someone he loved I tried to help him avoid the same mistakes I made. Sadly it was not enough."

"So if you were wondering if the Chan family was capable of murdering a little boy, then the answer is yes." Lucy said as she looked at her children. "Some members of the Chan family will stop at nothing for their stupid traditions and standards. It's already killed too many innocent people, we weren't going to let it murder another."

"Thank you." Ram suddenly said. "We might not fully understand everything yet, but thank you.. Your lies saved me."