Part 4 — I fed the billionaire’s hungry daughter on his plane, but when I wanted to return home, his guard turned pale

The call ended immediately.

I was looking at the folder scattered on the floor, while Mateo clung to the phone as if he were holding a living heart in his hand.

“That was my son,” I said.

“Both of your sons may be alive.”

“‘May be’?”

Mateo closed his eyes.

“In that recording Marko said that he sent them to the nanny. I found the nanny. She was killed three weeks ago.”

“And you still kept silent?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Were you trying to protect my children too?”

He had no answer to that question.

The airplane doors opened. Four black cars stood outside, but no one moved on the illuminated airport ground. It was as if the whole world were holding its breath.

Mateo looked over at the guards.

“Lock all exits. Niko, call the lawyer.”

Niko took out his phone.

“Which one, sir?”

“Not the one who takes money. The one who will refuse if the case reaches Viktor.”

The lawyer called in twenty minutes.

“Mateo, I cannot sign this,” he said. “If the recording is genuine, we must go to the police.”

“My brother’s people sit in the police.”

“Then to federal investigators.”

“They will not find my boys.”

“But you can no longer hide this. If the children are alive, every minute may kill them.”

Mateo ended the call and looked toward me.

“I am going to the old station.”

“I am coming too.”

“No.”

“I heard my children’s voice.”

“It is a trap.”

“Then it is my trap anyway.”

He struck the table with his hand.

“You do not understand whom you are opposing!”

“You also do not understand whom you no longer get to tell where to go.”

Silence fell in the cabin.

Lucia moaned quietly. The child was hungry again, but this time Mateo looked at me and carefully handed her over.

“Feed her first,” he said.

It was the first time he was not giving me an order.

We arrived at the old station at two o’clock at night. The building was abandoned. Water stains ran down the walls, and near the rails the wind made a rusty wheel rattle.

Mateo walked ahead. I was behind him, holding Lucia in one hand and pressing the bag with the other.

“The door is open,” Niko whispered.

Inside, a small lamp flickered.

On the table lay two children’s drawings. One showed two boys, the sun, and a house. On the other, the mother had long brown hair.

In the corner of the drawing one word was written: “Mom.”

My breath caught.

“They were here,” I said.

The sound of applause came from behind.

Viktor Volkov came out of the shadows. Two armed men stood beside him.

“At last, Mateo,” he said. “I always knew that the woman would become your weakness.”

Mateo slowly drew his weapon.

“Where are my children?”

Viktor smiled.

“First tell me, what is that woman doing on your airplane?”

“Where are the children?” Mateo repeated.

“They are alive. For now.”

I stepped forward.

“Show me my boys.”

Viktor tilted his head.

“You are Marko’s wife. The man who hid money stolen from me.”

“Not money. Evidence.”

Viktor’s smile disappeared.

Mateo moved his hand toward his pocket, but I looked at him and shook my head. I had already given the recording to the lawyer. While leaving the airplane, Niko sent the files to the investigators.

“You killed my brother,” Mateo said.

“Your brother?” Viktor chuckled. “I only did what you yourself had been doing for years. Whoever gets in our way disappears.”

His man raised the weapon.

At that moment sirens sounded outside the building.

For the first time Viktor looked frightened.

“Mateo, what did you do?”

“For the first time, everything I should have done.”

The doors opened at the same time. Investigators rushed in. Viktor’s people dropped their weapons. He himself tried to escape, but Niko tripped him and threw him to the ground.

Mateo stood in front of him.

“Why?” he asked.

Viktor smiled with a bloody lip.

“Because you thought power was passed down to you by inheritance. In reality, it consisted only of fear.”

Viktor was arrested. Together with his men.

Then a woman came in through another door, holding a blanket, with two small boys.

The first boy stopped.

“Mom?”

I ran to them.

One had a small scar near his left eyebrow. The other had a green paint stain on his shirt. Both were alive. Both were very thin. Both were mine.

I hugged them and for the first time in three months cried loudly.

Mateo stood beside us. Lucia was sleeping on his chest.

“I cannot return to you what you lost,” he told me.

“I know.”

“But for what I hid from you, I will be guilty all my life.”

“You wanted to save me. Only, saving must not take away freedom.”

He lowered his head.

Several days later his lawyer came to me.

“Mr. Volkov offers you an apartment, protection, and as much money as you request.”

“I need nothing.”

“The children’s treatment is expensive.”

“The costs of their treatment will be covered by Marko’s insurance and Viktor’s confiscated property. This will be officially confirmed in court.”

The lawyer looked at me in surprise.

“Nothing from Mateo?”

“No. I want only one thing from him.”

“What?”

“That he no longer decide my life instead of me.”

The case continued for months. The investigation confirmed that the accident had been planned, that Marko’s murder too had happened on Viktor’s order, while my boys had been hidden by the nanny for money and afterward she could no longer care for them. She confessed and told the investigators everything.

Mateo also gave testimony.

His empire collapsed.

Some accounts were closed, some men were arrested, and he himself was left alone for the first time in his life before his own decisions. I was not happy about his pain. I simply no longer tried to save him from it.

Three months later I moved to a small seaside town.

In the mornings I walked the boys to school. At midday I worked in a small bakery. In the evenings I visited Lucia, because after the trial Mateo allowed me to give the child milk until her health fully recovered.

Lucia was already smiling.

And my boys asked me every evening whether I would be home tomorrow too.

“Tomorrow too,” I answered.

One day the elder, Levan, gave me his drawing. Three houses were drawn: one ours, one for a little girl, and one by the sea.

“This is our new life,” he told me.

“Why is there a third house?”

“Because we should have guests.”

That evening Mateo wrote to me for the first time.

“Lucia says your name before going to sleep. If you can ever, I want us to have dinner together again. This time you choose the place.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote:

“You will always see Lucia, if she wants it. But I am not going back.”

No answer came.

I went to the window. The first snow was falling outside. The silver moon brooch hung on my bag. It was no longer the key to a secret, nor part of someone else’s plan, nor the remnant of my lost life.

Now it was simply a little moon.

And this time, I was choosing the path.