Part 4 — The day before our fifth anniversary, I overheard my husband’s secret conversation, and when I entered the room, his smile vanished.

Part 4

“— …before that person reaches us,” Levan finished.

That same night, three phone calls came through.

The first was from the police. They informed me that Vakho had been transferred to a temporary detention facility and a search was currently underway at his house.

The second call was from the bank. Someone was attempting to activate a land sale contract under my name.

The third call belonged to Datuna, the lawyer whose voice had been recorded on the memory card.

— “Mrs. Nino,” he spoke with unnerving calmness, “perhaps we can resolve this misunderstanding before it goes to court.”

— “You were stealing my property.”

— “The word ‘stealing’ is quite harsh.”

— “Then tell me why your voice was on that recording.”

The line went dead.

Ten minutes later, Datuna called back.

— “I was merely carrying out Vakho’s instructions.”

— “Vakho is in prison.”

— “Which is precisely why I am calling you. He can no longer protect you from the people who have been waiting for this land for a very long time.”

— “I don’t need a husband for protection.”

— “You don’t yet realize how massive a situation you’ve found yourself in.”

— “No, now I realize exactly what it is.”

I ended the call.

I was scheduled to appear in court the following morning, but before that, I met with Vakho one last time. In the small interrogation room at the station, an iron cup rested on the table, bearing an old scratch along its rim. Vakho sat opposite it, rhythmically tapping his fingers against the wooden surface.

— “Why did you come?” he asked.

— “To hear your words.”

— “You’ve already said everything.”

— “No. I heard the recording. Now I want to see in your eyes whether you really said it.”

Vakho raised his head.

Levan switched on the device.

Vakho’s voice echoed across the room:

“She will sign it herself. All I have to do with Nino is look her in the eyes and tell her I love her.”

Vakho froze.

His own voice, recorded and played back into the room, hit him like a physical blow. For the first time, he heard himself through someone else’s ears.

— “Turn it off,” he said.

— “Why? Don’t you like how the truth sounds?”

— “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

— “You weren’t planning an ending. You were planning my life.”

A desperate flame ignited in Vakho’s eyes.

— “In the beginning, my father forced me. He had been chasing your grandmother’s land for years. He told me that if I got close to you, everything would stay in our family. Then I actually fell in love with you.”

— “Yet you kept going.”

— “I couldn’t stop anymore.”

— “You could have stopped every single day.”

He had no answer left to give.

During the court proceedings that same day, it was revealed that Datuna had been involved in several similar schemes over the years—utilizing forged evaluations, hidden loans, and contracts drawn up under the names of elderly landowners.

The investigation into my grandmother’s death was officially reopened as well.

Medical records revealed that someone had altered her medication dosage. Her passing had originally been logged as natural causes, but pharmacy security footage confirmed that the altered prescription had been picked up by Vakho’s father.

Vakho’s father was arrested the following day.

Datuna testified.

Vakho testified as well.

Not because he had suddenly grown a conscience, but because hearing his own recorded words made him realize that nothing could be hidden any longer.

The court invalidated all fraudulent contracts, returning the vineyard and the land fully to my ownership. Vakho’s assets were frozen, and he was sentenced to several years in prison. I did not attend his sentencing.

His defense attorney contacted me the day before the final hearing.

— “Vakho wants you to adjust your testimony,” he told me. “In exchange, he will cede a portion of the funds from the property sale to you.”

— “I no longer care about the money.”

— “You hold the power to change his future.”

— “He changed his future himself.”

I ended the conversation.

A few days later, I walked into our house alone.

The wedding photo was still hanging on the living room wall. But the space beside it stood empty—it was where my grandmother’s portrait used to hang before Vakho told me years ago that it gave the room an “outdated look.”

The bedroom wardrobe was half-empty.

His belongings had been taken by the police. Only the small brown leather strap remained on the floor—the one whose key fitted the iron box, the one Vakho had worn since childhood.

I picked it up.

I stared at it for a long time.

It was no longer a token of love, nor a childhood memory. It was merely leather and a worn lock that truth had finally opened.

Three months later, I moved to Tsablaru.

I renovated a small room next to the vineyard and arranged the necessary equipment for the medical center. My grandmother’s dream gradually materialized into a real building. In the mornings, I drank mint tea instead of coffee, since coffee in the village always turned out burnt when I made it. In the evenings, I walked to the natural spring and listened to the water cascading into the stone basin.

Levan called me once a week.

— “Are you doing well?” he would ask.

— “For the first time, truly.”

One day in early winter, my nine-year-old nephew, Andria, came to visit. He spent the entire day running through the vineyard, and in the evening, he handed me a drawing.

— “I drew you,” he told me.

Drawn on the paper was a small house, a spring beside it, and a woman holding a watch box in her hand.

— “Why a watch box?” I asked him.

— “Because you used to say that old objects sometimes hold time.”

I chuckled, though tears welled in my eyes.

— “I don’t have that watch anymore.”

— “Then buy a new one.”

— “For a new time?”

Andria shrugged his shoulders.

— “You can’t go back to the old time anyway.”

That night, a letter arrived from Vakho sent from prison:

“Nino, I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I want you to know that when I look back at our childhood, not every memory was a lie. I truly loved you. It’s just that my love proved to be so selfish that it left no room for your own life.”

I read the letter to the very end.

Then I folded it and tossed it into the fireplace.

I wrote no reply.

Two weeks later, another message arrived from his lawyer:

“Vakho begs you to meet him just once. He says he only wants to hear your voice.”

This time, I sent back a single reply:

“You heard my voice for years. You simply never listened.”

I wrote nothing more.

The first snow arrived in mid-December.

White frost coated the windows of the medical center. Children carved a small path through the snow in the courtyard while I sat by the door, looking at the brown leather strap resting on the shelf.

For a long time, I couldn’t decide what to do with it.

At last, I took a small pair of scissors and cut the strap down the middle. I set the lock aside and buried the leather in the soil of my grandmother’s vineyard, right beside a young vine.

I no longer needed to conceal time.

It was time to begin.

That evening, I opened the small wooden watch box, replaced the old leather lining with white fabric, and placed my grandmother’s letter inside.

I closed the latch.

Snow was falling outside.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t running away from anything.

I simply walked forward.