Part 4 — Three hours after the honeymoon ended, he swung a belt at me, but at the sound of the elevator bell his face suddenly turned pale

The color did not return to Irakli’s face.

“This photograph was taken now,” he said.

“Where is the safe?”

“In your father’s old office.”

The office stood at the other end of the city, behind dust and locked windows. Only Irakli, my father’s accountant Marika, and I entered it.

The police took Ethan away. Victoria’s calls came one after another, but I no longer answered.

A few minutes later another number called. It was Ethan’s lawyer.

“Ms. Nina, my client is ready for an agreement.”

“What agreement?”

“If you do not release the recording, he will sign the divorce and waive any claim.”

“The recording of the violence is already with the police.”

“You will also suffer if the case reaches court.”

“I already suffered when he picked up that belt.”

“Think about it.”

“For the first time in my life, I am thinking exactly.”

I ended the call.

In the morning Ethan asked the court to cancel the protection order. His lawyer argued that the camera had been installed illegally and that the recording had been taken out of context. But his own voice could be heard in the audio. His laughter. His words. His mother’s instructions.

That turned out to be the hardest thing for him.

The recording was played in the small courtroom.

“After the wedding I will make her sign. If she refuses, I will use force.”

Ethan sat on a chair. The voice moved around the room and returned to him again.

The judge raised his head.

“Is that your voice?”

“I do not know.”

“But were you present during that conversation?”

“It could have been edited.”

I looked at him.

“You told me everything that night. You simply thought I could do nothing.”

For the first time, he could not answer me.

The protection order remained in force. The investigators also added the forged property-transfer document to the case. The signature examination confirmed that it was not mine.

But I still could not stop thinking about the photograph of the safe.

That same evening we went to my father’s office. The old wooden floor creaked in the hallway. Dust lay on the windowsill, while my father’s bronze pen still lay in the same place on the desk.

We found the safe door open.

There was almost nothing inside.

Only one bag, in which there were old papers and a small voice recorder.

Marika said quietly:

“Your father left this device.”

I turned on the recorder.

My father’s voice sounded faintly, but clearly:

“Nina, if you are hearing this, it means that someone has reached for my property. Do not blame Irakli. He knows only what I told him. You already know the person you should beware of.”

The recording ended there.

I looked at Irakli.

“Who knew the safe’s code?”

“Me, Marika, and your brother.”

Levan came to the office that evening. He was angry and tired.

“I did not open it,” he said.

“I know.”

He put a small piece of paper on the desk.

“I found this on the windshield of my car.”

There was one address written on the paper. The city’s old boxing gym.

We went there the next day. The gym had been closed for years, but in the back room we found Sandro, the accountant’s former assistant. He confessed everything.

Victoria had been paying him. Sandro found the safe’s code in Marika’s old records, then prepared the false document. Ethan had participated in the plan, but his mother had assigned the forgery of the signature to someone else.

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked.

Sandro lowered his head.

“Because Ethan told me that if you resisted, ‘the wife had to be frightened.’ Then I understood that this was no longer only about the property.”

His testimony was finally connected to the case. Victoria was arrested a few days later. Ethan requested a plea agreement, but the prosecutor refused because of the recording of the violence, the threatening message, and the forged documents.

I was not glad about his situation.

I simply was no longer going to save him from the consequences he had created himself.

Months passed.

The divorce was finalized. The property remained in my name, but I sold all of my father’s buildings except one. I kept the small building where I opened an old boxing gym on the first floor.

Children trained there. Some were afraid of the first punch. Some were afraid of their own shadow.

I taught them both things: how to protect themselves and how not to become the person they were afraid of.

Levan came once a week. Marika sent me the accounts. Irakli was still beside me, but now he was no longer only a lawyer. He became a person with whom I could sit silently and explain nothing.

The first snow came at the end of November.

White spots appeared on the gym’s windows. A little girl, Salome, brought me a drawing. Two people stood on the paper: one large, one small. Both had their hands raised.

“Is this me?” I asked.

“No,” she told me. “These are the people who are no longer afraid.”

In the evening, after closing the gym, I received a letter from Ethan. It was not from prison; it had been sent from his lawyer’s address.

“Nina, now I understand everything. Mother used me. I still love you. Come, talk to me at least once.”

I looked at the paper for a long time.

Then I wrote a reply.

“Managing your feelings is no longer my responsibility. I will no longer save your life for you. I wish you peace, but you cannot return to me.”

I folded the letter and put it in an envelope.

That night I stayed alone in the gym. The old clock ticked on the wall. The marks of the children’s shoes could be seen on the floor. And my red gloves lay on the shelf.

They were still scratched. Still faded. The silver stitching mark near the thumb had become slightly loose.

If Dato had been alive, he probably would have told me, “Sew it on again.”

But for the first time, I was no longer in a hurry.

I picked up the gloves, went to the window, and looked at the snow that had fallen outside. The room where they had once wanted to impose rules on me was now filled with children’s laughter.

No one was holding the belt anymore.

And I put the gloves on again.

This time not for a fight.

For life.