Part 4 — I changed my cards after the divorce, and that very evening, a waiter smiled at my ex-husband’s table and looked at his face.

Part 4

I could still hear the former accountant’s voice through the receiver when Andriy took a step toward me.

— “Give me the phone.”

— “Back away.”

— “Maria, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

— “For the first time in my life, I know exactly what I am doing.”

Tamar gestured toward the door with her hand.

— “Andriy, you need to leave.”

— “This is my family!”

Victoria raised her head.

— “No. You are neither my family nor the father of this child.”

Those words echoed through the room with a weight far heavier than the genetic test results. Andriy froze. He held his phone in his hand, his own reflection visible on the dark screen.

Two police officers appeared in the clinic hallway. They calmly presented their credentials and informed Andriy that they needed to speak with him regarding the misappropriation of corporate funds and signature forgery.

— “This is a misunderstanding,” Andriy said.

— “You can clarify that at the precinct,” one of them replied.

Andriy turned his gaze toward me.

— “Tell them I worked with you.”

— “You did.”

— “Tell them I had authorization.”

— “You didn’t.”

— “Maria, please.”

It was the first time in nine years that I heard fear in his voice instead of a command. Surprisingly, it brought me no joy. I felt only an overwhelming sense of exhaustion.

The officers did not put handcuffs on him. They simply escorted him outside. Yet Andriy walked as though each step were stripping away a piece of who he was.

Victoria sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

— “He lied to me too,” she whispered.

— “I know.”

— “Do you hate me?”

I stared at her hands for a long moment. The expensive polish on her nails was chipped.

— “I despised what the two of you did to me. But I bear no malice toward your unborn child.”

She looked up at me for the first time.

— “You are better than I am.”

— “No. I am simply no longer willing to answer for his actions.”

That same evening, Father and I met the former accountant, Nino, at a small café. It was six in the evening. Raindrops pattered against the windows, and Nino’s fingers pressed down on folded receipts spread across the table.

— “Andriy arranged all of it,” she said. “It started with small amounts. Then he realized you rarely checked the physical authorizations because you trusted him.”

— “Why didn’t you call me?”

— “I tried several times. He told me you were ill and couldn’t handle any stress.”

Father spread out the documents one by one.

— “These are shell suppliers. The account holders are Andriy’s personal friends.”

Nino nodded.

— “Some were registered under Victoria’s name, others under her brother’s.”

— “Did Victoria know?” I asked.

— “Not about the full extent of the money. She knew Andriy was using your company, but she believed you were fully aware of it.”

Later that night, we met Andriy’s defense attorney at Tamar’s office. He was a man in his late forties who laid his pen on the desk as if he already knew the case was lost.

— “My client is prepared to return a portion of the funds,” he stated.

— “A portion?” Tamar raised an eyebrow.

— “If an agreement is reached, perhaps criminal proceedings need not move forward.”

I quietly looked down at the items inside the evidence folder: the forged signature, the club bill, Victoria’s recorded statement, and the surveillance printout.

— “I will consider an agreement under one condition only,” I said.

— “And what are those terms?”

— “A full confession, complete restitution of all funds, compensation for company losses, and a written undertaking that he will never seek access to me or my employees again.”

The attorney shook his head.

— “He will not agree to that.”

— “Then let the law decide.”

Over the following weeks, everything moved rapidly. A financial audit confirmed the drain of eleven million hryvnias. The club officially submitted its surveillance footage. The bank secured all corporate accounts. The court placed an interim freeze on a portion of Andriy’s personal assets.

One morning, his call came through.

— “Maria, I still love you,” he said.

I stood by the window as the season’s first snow began to fall outside.

— “Love is not an access code, Andriy.”

— “I’ll make everything right.”

— “Things are already being made right. You’ll just have to live through it without me.”

— “Are you really abandoning me this easily?”

— “I didn’t abandon you. I simply walked away from a place where I had been standing alone for a very long time.”

He could find no reply.

Three months later, my company relocated to a new office—a bright space where employees brewed their own coffee in the morning and no one concealed expenses under someone else’s name.

I restructured our financial governance entirely. I personally verified every authorization, no longer out of fear, but out of respect for my own life.

Nino returned to work with us. I appointed Levan as financial director. Father stopped by once a week and checked the door lock, though he did it with a smile now.

I received a letter from Victoria. She wrote that she intended to raise her child alone and asked for no assistance. She repeated a single sentence: Forgive me, if you ever can.

I replied: Forgiving you may take time. But I will not blame a child for what adults have done.

Andriy’s criminal trial finally took place in early summer. He pled guilty to partial counts, signed the restitution agreement, and was ordered to indemnify the company for its losses. No one saw his triumphant smile in the courtroom anymore. He sat in complete silence as his own voice recording echoed through the speakers:

“Your wife won’t notice a thing anyway.”

It was his voice.

Andriy lowered his head.

I did not look in his direction.

After the session, Father asked me outside:

— “Are you alright?”

— “For the first time in a long time.”

— “Does it hurt?”

— “Yes.”

— “Then you are still alive.”

A few weeks later, I stepped into the empty rooms of my new apartment. No pictures hung on the walls yet. Only a single box rested on the floor.

Inside were old belongings: our wedding photo, a set of keys, and the small ceramic cup I had carried on the day of the divorce.

The crack near the handle had widened. The cup could no longer stand straight and tilted slightly to one side.

For a second, I thought about throwing it away.

Then I set it down on the kitchen counter.

Not every item that has a crack needs to be discarded.

In the autumn, my niece, Elene, drew a picture for my new office. It depicted a large window with a woman standing beside it, holding a small, tilted cup in her hand.

— “Is this me?” I asked her.

— “Yes. Nobody shouts at you here anymore.”

— “How do you know?”

— “Because you’re smiling.”

Those words hit my heart harder than the court’s verdict ever could.

Andriy sent his final message on the first morning of winter:

“Let’s just have a coffee. For old time’s sake.”

I stared at the screen for a long time before typing:

“Old times no longer exist. And the peace I hold now is not for sale at the cost of a meeting.”

Then I blocked the number.

I prepared a fresh cup of coffee in the kitchen, poured it into the small ceramic cup, and stood by the window.

Outside, snow fell silently over the city, blanketing the streets in white, as if everything were being written anew.

A thin ray of sunlight rested inside the cup’s crack.

This time, it didn’t spill over.

And neither did I.