Part 4 — Every night he took a different woman home, but one question of mine suddenly erased his confidence

That person turned out not to be Marcus.

Below the sheet, an address was written in my mother’s handwriting. Beside it was a name—Helene Prescott, David’s older sister.

David took the sheet from my hand.

“This is impossible.”

“You always said that your family was against Victoria,” I told him.

“Helene could not stand Victoria.”

“Maybe she could not stand her. But she tolerated money very well.”

Marcus immediately called his lawyer, Levan. We got an answer only on the fourth ring.

“Levan, call the police,” David told him.

A tired voice sounded from the phone:

“I am already on my way.”

“Send me Helene’s financial records.”

Silence.

“David, I cannot yet.”

“Why?”

“Because her lawyer has already contacted me and said that if I get involved in your case, he will no longer keep me as a client.”

David smiled bitterly.

“Then you are no longer my lawyer.”

“You cannot do that.”

“I already did.”

He ended the call.

Victoria was still standing by the door. Police sirens could be heard in the distance, but she looked strangely calm.

“You cannot prove anything,” she said.

“I already proved it,” I answered.

“One recording is nothing.”

“Not one recording. Bank transfers, signed files, threats from your number, and my mother’s video.”

Marcus picked up the phone.

“And also the fact that I have been recording all this live.”

Victoria’s face grew tense.

“You would not dare.”

“You always told me that,” Marcus said. “That is exactly why I let you burn yourself.”

The police entered several minutes later. They handcuffed Victoria. She looked first at David, then at me.

“He will never love you the way you want,” she told me.

David was about to answer, but I stopped him with my hand.

“There is no need to prove anything to her anymore.”

Victoria was taken away.

That same night Helene called David. Her voice could be heard clearly through the intercom.

“You are my brother. I would not harm you.”

David turned on the recording.

Her own words, recorded several hours earlier, sounded in the room: “If Maya stays here, you will lose everything. The girl’s mother must not learn anything more about us.”

Helene fell silent.

For the first time David heard his own words through someone else’s ears. His face emptied.

“It was you,” he said.

“I was acting only to protect you.”

“I did not ask for your protection.”

“Victoria was destroying your company.”

“And therefore you stopped my mother’s treatment?”

“Your mother had to remain silent.”

After this sentence David closed his eyes.

“It is over, Helene.”

“You will be left alone.”

“Maybe. But for the first time being alone no longer frightens me.”

He ended the call.

My mother’s operation was performed in the morning.

I sat in the hospital corridor, holding the small copper pendant in my hand. Its edge cut into my finger, but the pain helped me not to fall.

David sat beside me. Neither of us said that everything would be all right.

Sometimes that phrase sounds like a lie.

Five hours later the doctor came out.

“The operation went well.”

My mother survived.

David lowered his head, as if allowing himself to breathe only after the doctor had left.

Three weeks later I entered his study at home. Victoria’s things had already been taken away. All the accounts in Helene’s name had been frozen. An independent inspection had begun at the company, while Marcus had appointed a new lawyer.

But one thing in the room caught my eye most of all.

The small table beside David’s bed stood empty. Only my water glass from the first evening remained there. Beneath the glass was the small imprint of my pendant, as if the copper had left its own mark on the stone surface.

“You can throw everything away,” I said.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because that night did not end in the morning for the first time.”

I looked toward him.

“You are still afraid.”

“Very.”

“Of what?”

“That you will stay and then leave.”

This time I did not run away. But I did not stay to save him either.

After my mother’s recovery, I moved to another city. I lived in a small, bright apartment from whose window I could see the tram line. I began working in the hospital administration and walked home every evening.

David transferred the money directly into my mother’s fund, and transferred nothing to my account.

That was his first real act of respect.

Six months later my mother could already climb the stairs independently. The kettle whistled in the kitchen, and the first snow clung to the windowpane.

“Does that man still call you?” she asked me.

“Sometimes.”

“And you?”

“Sometimes I answer.”

“Why?”

I placed a plate of buns in front of her.

“Because now I choose the answer. Before, I lived only according to his demands.”

My relationship with David was built slowly. Not with expensive dinners, but with ordinary things: walking through the market on Sunday mornings, bringing medicine for my mother, and the fact that when I said “no,” he no longer asked me “why.”

One day he held out the key to his house.

“This is not an invitation,” he told me. “It is a choice.”

I did not take the key.

“I like my house for now.”

“Then let your house be yours.”

“And in your house?”

“The door will be open, but I will not wait for you by the window.”

“That already sounds healthy.”

“Do not tell Marcus. He still makes fun of me.”

I smiled.

A year later Victoria sent a letter. It was not a request for release from court. There was no apology either.

Only one sentence was written: “Tell David that he will not be able to live without me.”

David tore the letter in front of me.

“You do not need an answer,” he told me.

“Not for her.”

“Then for whom?”

“For myself.”

I threw the torn pieces into the trash bin.

That evening he called me again. This time his voice was calm.

“Maya, if you ever want to come back…”

“I do not want to come back.”

He fell silent.

“I know.”

“But I may come.”

“I know that too.”

“And if I do not come?”

“Then I will still be able to live.”

In the silence I heard his breathing.

“Do you really believe that now?”

“For the first time now.”

That night we opened the small wooden box in my mother’s kitchen. The memory card was no longer inside. Only Mother’s old letter remained, and my copper pendant, which had somehow ended up there.

Mother looked at me.

“I kept this for you when you were a child.”

I took the pendant in my hand. Its edge was still cold, but it no longer hurt me.

I went to the window. Snow fell silently on the street, and far away the tram bell sounded.

That night nobody was waiting for me to save them.

And for the first time, that was enough.