Part 4 — My Lover Refused to Acknowledge the Newborn, but the Appearance of a Stranger Erased the Smile from Derek’s Face

The conversation on Luka’s phone was still continuing when Derek struck the chair pushed against the wall.

The chair overturned onto the floor.

A small crack appeared in the glass of Lea’s room, though the glass did not shatter.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Derek told Luka. “You cannot take my life away.”

“I did not take your life away,” Luka replied. “You exchanged it yourself for a few signatures and lies.”

Derek immediately called a lawyer.

“Richard, come to the hospital. Now. All of this is illegal.”

He listened for several seconds.

His face slowly became ash-colored.

“What do you mean, you no longer represent my interests?”

Derek held the phone to his ear and walked to the end of the corridor, but his voice could still be heard.

“I paid you!”

We could not hear the answer.

We heard only Derek’s next words:

“You told me this plan was safe.”

Luka signaled to the guard.

“Record every call.”

“It is already being recorded,” the man replied.

I looked at the woman with the folder.

“Is the police coming?”

“They are already in the building.”

Derek returned to me. His eyes were no longer as confident as they had been half an hour earlier.

“Emma, listen to me. Everything was Brittany’s idea.”

Brittany looked at him as if she had been slapped in the face.

“Now you are blaming me?”

“You told me Luka was dead.”

The corridor fell silent.

I looked at Luka.

There was neither surprise nor victory on his face.

Only exhaustion.

“She has said many things about my death,” he said. “But now you heard it from her own mouth for the first time.”

Derek reached a hand toward me.

“Emma, I was simply afraid. You were pregnant, everything was changing. Brittany was a mistake.”

“No,” I said. “Brittany was a choice. The lie was a choice. Denying Lea was also a choice.”

At that moment two police officers appeared in the corridor. One held a folder, and the other held a small memory card inside a plastic bag.

“Derek Hale?” the first one asked.

Derek stepped back.

“I am waiting for my lawyer.”

“Your lawyer is refusing to represent you.”

“That is impossible.”

“The cameras recorded you forcing a hospital employee to change the father’s name in Lea’s record. We also have a recording of your conversation about the plan to appropriate the child’s mother’s property.”

Derek looked at Brittany.

“You promised me you deleted the video.”

Brittany put a hand to her lip.

“I didn’t delete it.”

This was the moment when Derek first heard his own voice from the mouths of others.

The police officer played the recording.

“I’ll throw Emma out of the house. If the child is not mine, no man will enter her life.”

His own voice.

His own words.

Derek lowered his eyes. It was as if he were listening to a man he did not know. But we all knew that it was his voice.

“I didn’t say it like that,” he whispered.

“You did,” Brittany replied.

That one word proved heavier than everything.

The police officers took out handcuffs. Derek tried once more to come toward me.

“Emma, Lea is my family.”

“When you stood beside her, you could not say that.”

“Please.”

“I will no longer protect you from the consequences you created yourself.”

They handcuffed him.

Brittany was also charged with falsifying records and participating in a fraudulent scheme. She stood silently, her arms wrapped around her pregnant belly, but this time she was no longer smiling.

Luka walked to the glass.

Lea had opened her hand in her sleep.

“May I?” he asked.

I was silent for several seconds.

Then I nodded.

He picked up his own daughter for the first time.

His hands, which forced the most dangerous people in the city to make decisions, held the baby’s back so carefully, as if Lea were made of glass.

“Hello, little moon,” he whispered.

My eyes filled with tears.

“Why did you recognize her at first sight?”

Luka looked at Lea’s wrist. A small, crescent-shaped dark mark was visible there.

“Because the same mark is in my family. I had this mark in my childhood photographs. My mother told me that you recognize Moretti blood even at a glance.”

Then he took the silver pen from his pocket. He moved the small moon hanging from the top of the pen with his fingers.

“It belonged to my mother. On the night you left me, I wanted to give it to you. I did not manage to.”

“Why did you come back now?”

“Because the doctor called me. She said someone had changed the child’s record and you were left alone. For the first time in my life I realized that being late can also be a crime.”

That evening I did not leave the hospital alone.

Luka did not tell me that his car was ready, or that he had booked a hotel for me. He simply waited while I packed Lea’s things.

His silver pen lay in my bag.

Three days later I received a letter from Derek’s lawyer. Then another one. Finally he called me himself.

“I only want five minutes,” he said.

“For what?”

“To explain.”

“I have already heard your explanation. On the recording.”

“I was a different person then.”

“No, Derek. Then you were the person I see now.”

I ended the call.

Luka asked me nothing.

He neither read my phone nor asked who was calling.

It was the first trust he had not asked of me.

Four weeks later I rented a small apartment by the river. I could see the bridge from the window, and in the morning the sound of water woke me instead of the city.

I started working in the administration of a children’s clinic. Every day I met mothers who held documents in their hands and had fear in their eyes.

Now I knew what it was like when one blank line could destroy an entire life.

Lea was growing quickly.

At three months she laughed for the first time.

Luka entered the room that day, holding a small wooden toy boat. Lea moved her legs at the sight of him.

“So she remembers me,” he said.

“No,” I smiled. “She just liked the boat.”

“Then I will bring boats every day.”

The first snow came at the end of December.

I brought Lea to the window. She sat in my arms and tapped the glass with her finger.

Luka stood on the floor and looked at her drawing. The child had drawn three figures on the sheet: herself, me, and a tall man in a large black suit.

“Is that me?” Luka asked.

Lea said something unintelligible and drew a small crescent moon on the picture.

Luka was silent for a long time.

Then he carefully put the sheet away.

Months later Derek sent me his last message.

“If we ever need to talk, I will still be here.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier I had looked for hope in such words.

Now I saw only exhaustion.

I replied:

“Lea and I are already where we should be.”

Then I blocked the number.

That evening Luka brought me a new copy of the birth certificate. His name was already written where the father’s name belonged.

But for me the most important letters were not on the paper.

What mattered was that Lea was sleeping peacefully, and I no longer flinched at every sound of the door.

I placed the silver pen, with the little moon, beside the baby’s crib.

Once it had meant filling a blank line.

Now every night it reminded me that my life no longer depended on someone else’s signature.

Snow was falling outside.

Lea smiled in her sleep.

I touched the pen and turned off the light.

The moon was already beside her name.