Part 4 — The Mafia Boss Paralyzed Me Hired Me, but When a Strange Box Was Found in His House, the Lawyer Stopped Smiling

And then I understood for the first time that the photographs I had seen in the folder were only half the truth.

The uniformed woman introduced herself. Her name was Nata Kobakhidze, and she worked in the city investigative service. Two investigators stood behind her, while several more people moved in the corridor.

“The memory card contains recordings from the cameras in your house,” Nata said. “Dario himself gave them to us.”

Enzo smiled bitterly.

“Dario never gives anything for free.”

“This time he did, because he wanted to save his own life.”

Luka reached toward the weapon, but Nata immediately aimed at him.

“Don’t you dare.”

Luka stopped.

I looked at Enzo. The whole room was supposed to be under his control, but now his fingers trembled so much that he could barely grip the armrest.

“Reni, stand away from me,” he told me.

“Why?”

“Because if you stay here, they will take you too.”

“I am already here.”

Nata looked at the folder.

“These documents are for you. We know that Enzo illegally obtained information about your family. But we also know that he covered your brother’s debt from Dario’s people and that you did not come to his house of your own will.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you have the right to choose. You will come with us or stay here. But first you must see this.”

She connected the memory card to the screen.

The video began.

The recording showed my car in front of the diner. I was handing Gabe an envelope. Then two men appeared in the frame. One grabbed Gabe by the arm. The other looked toward me and called someone on the phone.

Then Enzo appeared on the screen.

He was still in the rehabilitation center then and was sitting in a chair. Luka stood beside him.

“The girl must not become involved,” Luka was saying.

“She is already involved,” Enzo answered. “Dario will use her too.”

“Then get rid of her.”

Enzo’s voice was stern:

“I promised her mother that if her children ever found themselves in danger, I would not abandon them.”

The video stopped.

Everyone in the room was looking at me.

And I was looking at Enzo.

“When did you make this promise to my mother?”

“The night she died,” he said. “I was standing beside her bed, but you and Gabe were not there. She knew that soon she would no longer be able to speak.”

“And you watched me all my life for this?”

“At first only to keep danger away from you. Then…” He lowered his eyes. “Then I realized that I wanted to see you.”

These words turned out to be more painful than a threat.

“You did not want to see me. You studied my life.”

“I know.”

“You stole my trust.”

Enzo nodded.

“I know.”

Nata prepared the handcuffs.

“Enzo Marchetti, you have the right to contact a lawyer.”

“Nata,” I said, “he did not order Dario’s murder.”

“The court must decide that.”

Enzo looked toward me.

“Reni, you are not obliged to take my side.”

“Nor against you.”

They left. Luka was arrested that same night because the recordings showed that he had delivered the threats to Gabe. Dario was caught at the border the next day. Later it was discovered that the accident, my mother’s death, and my brother’s debt were part of one scheme.

But the heaviest story turned out to be something else.

Enzo’s lawyer called me in the morning, when the house was empty.

“He left a letter for you,” he told me. “And one more request.”

“What request?”

“He says that if you do not testify in court, he will take everything upon himself.”

I immediately understood that Enzo was still trying to control my life. Only this time, in order to punish himself.

Before the trial, in his temporary cell, I requested permission to meet him.

The room was small. The walls were white, the table metal, and the window so narrow that from outside only one strip of sky could be seen.

Enzo sat in the chair.

“Why did you come?” he asked.

“Because you will no longer make decisions in my place.”

“My case does not concern you.”

“It concerns my mother. It concerns Gabe. It concerns me too.”

He lowered his head.

“If you testify, the case against Dario will become stronger.”

“And if I do not?”

“I will prove that I did everything alone.”

“You are saying this because you want to be punished.”

His eyes hardened.

“Some things deserve punishment.”

“Maybe. But you also steal my mother’s promise when you decide that death will fix everything.”

For the first time he could not answer me.

Nata played in the court record the video in which Enzo said: “I would not abandon her children.”

Enzo heard his own voice.

Only the cold sound of the device could be heard in the room.

“The girl must not become involved.”

“Dario will use her too.”

“I would not abandon them.”

Enzo was looking at the screen and seemed to be seeing for the first time the man who had said those words.

“That is me,” he whispered.

“Yes,” I told him.

“Did I speak like that?”

“You spoke like that.”

He hid his face in his hands.

Then I understood that repentance is not always loud crying. Sometimes it is hearing one’s own voice and realizing that returning is impossible.

In the end, the court dropped part of the charges against Enzo because it was confirmed that he had not ordered Dario’s murder. However, he still received a sentence for illegal surveillance, old money-laundering cases, and managing a weapons network.

Dario heard a much heavier sentence.

Gabe’s debt was canceled.

And I left that house.

On the day I left, my room was almost empty. I left only one book on the bed, and by the window I found a small copper whistle. The one my mother had given me. I did not know how it had gotten there.

Luka told me that Enzo had found it in my bag and hidden it in the room.

“If something happens, let her make noise,” he had told him.

At first I wanted to be angry about it. Then I simply sat and looked at the whistle for a long time.

Three weeks later I moved into a small apartment near the river. In the mornings I worked at the hospital, and in the evenings I attended physiotherapy courses. My life slowly, quietly, began returning to its place.

Gabe came every week. He found work in an auto-repair shop and, for the first time in years, no longer watched the door at every noise.

“Did you really come back?” he asked once.

“Where was I supposed to go?”

“To that man.”

The whistle lay on the small table by the window.

“I no longer care for him,” I said. “But that does not mean I can no longer see his pain.”

Several months passed.

Letters came from Enzo in prison. I did not open the first ones. I opened the fourth.

“Reni, I know that I cannot ask you to return. I simply want you to know that I am continuing physiotherapy. For the first time, I do not threaten anyone when I am in pain. You taught me this.”

The last page said:

“If you ever write to me, I will no longer answer you as a person who is obliged to protect you. I will answer you as a person who misses your trust.”

I folded the letter.

That same evening I called his lawyer.

“Tell him that I am well,” I said. “But I will not return.”

“Finally?”

“Finally.”

For the first time in my life, this word did not frighten me.

On the first day of winter, snow fell onto the window. Gabe’s little daughter, Nina, sat on the floor and drew with colored pencils.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A house,” she answered.

“Why does this house have wings?”

“Because a house can fly away if you feel bad inside it.”

I looked at her drawing. The house was small, but yellow light came from its windows.

“Then this is a good house.”

“Will you live here?”

“Yes.”

Nina drew a small circle in the corner.

“What is this?”

“A whistle. If someone gets lost, we will find them.”

The copper whistle lay on the table. For years I had thought that my mother had given it to me only for self-defense. Now I understood that perhaps she had also taught me something else: never hide your own voice.

Another letter came that night.

From Enzo.

“Today, for the first time, I moved independently from the bed to the exercise board. I fell. I am trying again. I do not know whether this matters to you, but I wanted to tell you.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time.

Then I wrote a reply.

“It matters that you are doing this not for me, but for yourself. Be well, Enzo.”

Nothing more.

No promise.

No return.

Only the truth.

I stood by the window. The city lights dissolved in the snow. The room smelled of Nina’s pencils, and the kitchen of fresh bread.

I picked up the copper whistle. It was cold, but it no longer seemed heavy to me.

I blew into it.

The sound scattered through the street.

This time I did not need it because of fear.

I simply knew that I had my own voice.