My Stepfather Put a Price on My Marriage, but When I Opened the Car Door, Natalia’s Smile Immediately Disappeared

At the moment when I opened the car door, I realized that the only way back was now standing before me—and that way might be more dangerous than the forest from which I had escaped.

It was eleven o’clock at night. The rain was falling so heavily, as if the sky wanted my disappearance. I stood barefoot in the yard of a closed roadside hotel, my bloody soles pressed against the cold concrete, while the silver dress clung to my body. I had gotten out of Andrii Shevchuk’s car, holding his phone as if the small black object were the only witness to my life.

Natalia was walking toward me. The rain had plastered her hair to her face, but the same severity with which she had ruled my entire childhood still stood in her eyes.

“Olena, get into the car and go home,” she told me. “All this will be forgotten.”

“First repeat what you said on the phone.”

“I don’t know what you’re making up.”

“You said that Viktor Savchuk had paid an advance.”

Natalia’s lips twitched slightly, but immediately tightened again.

“I do not discuss family matters with strangers.”

The door of Andrii’s car slowly closed behind him. He was no longer wearing the black jacket, because he had put it over me. The sleeves of his wet shirt clung to his wrists, but there was no fear on his face.

“Mrs. Natalia,” he said, “you yourself called me and asked me to bring the girl back. And now you say that nothing happened.”

Natalia stopped.

“You do not know who she is.”

“I know that she is frightened and that her feet are bleeding.”

The two men standing behind her looked at each other. One of them held a wet leather belt in his hand. I recognized that detail immediately. An hour earlier, exactly such a belt had been lying on the armchair when Natalia locked the door.

Cold passed through my body.

“Get into the car, Olena,” Natalia said in a lower voice. “You have no idea what you are losing.”

“I have already lost everything that connected me to you.”

The words came out of me in such a way that even I was surprised. My knees were trembling, but I no longer stepped back.

Natalia suddenly extended her hand and seized my wrist. Her fingers squeezed the same place where, in childhood, she held me during a fever, when I cried and she convinced me that after my mother’s death I had only her left.

This time I freed my hand.

“Don’t touch me again.”

Andrii said nothing. He only leaned against the car door and waited for me, as if the decision truly belonged to me.

“Olena,” one of the men called to me, “Natalia told us that you left willingly.”

“Then why did you follow me into the forest?”

The man could not answer.

Amid the noise of the rain, the rumble of an engine sounded from far away. Everyone turned at once. A new car entered the yard. Its headlights shone so brightly that for a moment every face disappeared into the light.

Natalia looked anxiously toward the road.

Andrii lost his calm for the first time. He took the phone from me, looked at the screen, and quietly said:

“Now you must decide whom you trust. Because if this person has come this far, he already knows that you are here.”

The door of the new car opened. A black shoe stepped toward the wet asphalt, and an unknown man held a thin brown folder in his hand. He looked directly at Natalia, then walked toward me and wrapped his fingers around the folder’s clasp…

The stranger did not open the folder yet. He only pressed the clasp with his finger, and such silence fell over the yard that I could hear every raindrop.

“Mrs. Olena,” he said to me, “if you wish, we can end this conversation right here and call the police.”

Natalia turned her face away.

“Don’t you dare.”

“You have already dared,” the man calmly replied.

Andrii looked toward him.

“Mr. Meladze, we do not have time.”

Now I understood that they knew each other. The stranger nodded and took one step toward me.

“I am Levan Meladze. Your father’s old lawyer.”

At the mention of my father, I felt such pain in my heart as if someone had opened an old wound again. My father had died three years earlier. Natalia had told me then that he had left only debts and that she had barely managed even to pay the funeral expenses.

“You knew my father?”

“Better than Natalia wanted.”

“Levan, be quiet,” Natalia said.

“Tonight is not the first time I have failed to obey your order.”

Natalia turned toward Andrii.

“You are taking advantage of my family matters.”

“You sold her to a strange man,” Andrii said. “And now you are using the word ‘family’ as a shield.”

Anger and fear mixed on Natalia’s face.

I still could not understand what the appearance of my father’s lawyer meant. My soles burned, my wet dress clung to my shoulders, but I no longer thought about that. For the first time that night, something else hurt— the suspicion that the entire life I had been told after my father’s death might have been a lie.

“You said my father had left me something,” I told Natalia. “Why did you never tell me?”

“Because you were not ready for it.”

“For what?”

“For the truth, after learning which you will no longer be able to blame me for everything.”

“I have already blamed you.”

Natalia smiled bitterly.

“Tomorrow morning you will learn why I cannot receive what your father left me until you sign.”

Levan gripped the folder more tightly. Andrii looked toward me as if waiting for me to fall apart. But at that moment I could no longer cry.

“Sign what?”

Natalia lowered her voice.

“A statement that you renounce the inheritance.”

One of the men standing in the yard quietly exhaled. The other returned to the car and slammed the door.

“What inheritance are you talking about?” I asked.

“Your father had a company. Land. Accounts. Everything that we may now lose because of the debt.”

“You told me he had left nothing.”

“Because I protected you.”

“From whom?”

Natalia came closer to me. The scent of lilac perfume came from her, the same one she had worn that evening when she adjusted the chain on my neck.

“From the men who will take your money from you. From Savchuk too. You only had to spend one night with him and everything would be over.”

Andrii clenched his jaw.

“One night with which you would pay the family debt?”

“Do not interfere.”

At last Levan opened the folder’s clasp. The edges of documents appeared inside, but he still placed his hand on them.

“I cannot read these papers here,” he said. “There are cameras, security, and witnesses there. But you must know one thing, Olena: according to your father’s written instruction, all documents are opened only when you yourself request it.”

“And if I do not request it?”

“Then Natalia will lose the company tomorrow.”

Natalia quickly raised her head.

“Levan!”

That one exclamation told me more than an answer.

Andrii opened the car door for me.

“I will come with you,” he said. “But first you must know that Savchuk is not the only danger in this matter.”

“Who else is there?”

Andrii looked into my eyes.

“The person who knows why your father signed that document one day before his death.”

Levan closed the folder and added very quietly:

“And that person is standing behind you right now…”

I slowly turned, but saw only windows shimmering in the rain. In one of them, however, a man’s silhouette appeared. He was looking at us from inside and holding my father’s old silver chain…

The silhouette disappeared from the window, but my body already knew that someone had truly been standing there. We entered the hotel’s duty room. The clock showed midnight. The old clock fixed to the wall swung with a heavy sound every second.

Andrii had the head of security lock the door. Levan put the folder on the wooden table, while I sat down on a chair. Drops of blood from my feet gathered on the white towel.

“Open it now,” I told Levan.

Natalia burst into the room.

“A doctor must see her first.”

“You did not need a doctor for three years, when you hid my father’s property from me.”

“You do not know what you are saying.”

“Then explain it to me.”

Levan opened the folder. The first document was a statement written in my father’s hand, with a notary’s seal and the signatures of two witnesses.

“Your father, Davit Kavtaradze, came to me one day before his death,” he said. “He told me that he suspected financial fraud was being prepared against him.”

My breath caught.

“Who was preparing it?”

Levan looked at Natalia.

“He did not say the name directly. But he told me that his wife and business partner had transferred money from the company accounts.”

Natalia struck the table with her hand.

“It is a lie!”

“Then why do you have a copy of this document hidden in the lower compartment of your safe?” Levan asked.

Natalia’s face went pale.

I looked at the document. My father had written that the controlling share of the company was to be transferred to me at the age of twenty-five, while until then it was to be managed by an independent board of trustees. Natalia was only a temporary manager.

“I am twenty-four,” I whispered.

“That is exactly why she was trying to make you sign the renunciation tomorrow morning,” Levan said. “After one year, she would no longer be able to touch the share.”

Natalia leaned against the chair.

“I saved this company.”

“You sold it,” I told her.

“I paid your father’s debts!”

“With my body?”

A heavy silence fell over the room. Andrii lowered his gaze, as if he did not want to be an unnecessary witness to my pain.

Levan took out a second sheet.

“Here is a preliminary audit report. The money went to accounts belonging to companies connected with Viktor Savchuk. The advance transferred today is also indicated here.”

Natalia bit her lips.

“Savchuk was only a creditor.”

“No,” Andrii said. “He was the buyer.”

I looked toward him.

“How do you know?”

Andrii put the phone on the table and played the recording. It was his conversation with Natalia after my escape. His voice was clearly heard: “The girl will sign in the morning. If she resists, Savchuk will take her and the company will still remain with us.”

Natalia rushed at the recording, but Andrii pulled the phone back.

“This is illegal,” she shouted.

“You called me yourself,” Andrii replied. “The conversation was recorded on my device.”

I clasped my hands on my knees. So much truth fell upon me at once that I thought the walls of the room were leaning toward me.

“Andrii, who are you?”

He was silent for several seconds.

“I am the executive of the group that was supposed to buy your father’s company. But today I learned that the deal was built on false data. That is why I came.”

“Why did you help me?”

“Because the woman standing in front of the car had a face that no one should leave in the rain.”

Levan took out the last sheet. One sentence was written on it: “If Olena is threatened, all documents must immediately be handed over to the investigative authorities.”

At that moment Andrii’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and turned pale.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Your father’s doctor.”

The call went unanswered, but immediately a new message arrived. Andrii read it and slowly placed the phone on the table.

“What happened?”

“The doctor says that Davit Kavtaradze did not die of natural causes. And the police found a recording today showing who entered his room on the night before his death…”

Natalia suddenly opened the door and ran into the corridor. Levan reached a hand toward her, but it was too late. Andrii called for the head of security.

I was looking at only one thing: the silver chain belonging to my father, which the stranger at the window had held a short while earlier.

Andrii quietly told me:

“That man is not with the police. He did not come here because of Natalia. He came because his face also appears in the recording…”

And at that moment, the sharp sound of car tires came from below the hotel…