Part 4 — The Loan Shark Threatened My Brother, but After My Answer Everything Suddenly Fell Silent in the Office and He Lost Color

And at that very moment I realized that Doyle’s most dangerous move was still ahead.

Marchetti did not put his hand on the gun. He only took one step forward.

“Lock the door, Luca,” he said.

The woman pressed the folder more tightly against her chest.

“One more step and I’ll change his medicine.”

“No,” I said. “You are not a doctor.”

Her smile disappeared.

“How do you know?”

“A real doctor would not address Colin by his name. The file says Colin Haley, but you said ‘patient’ three times, as if you did not know his name.”

The woman’s fingers clenched.

Luca locked the door. Two guards appeared from the other side of the corridor.

The woman stepped back.

“You still won’t be able to stop Doyle.”

“Maybe,” Marchetti said. “But we have already stopped you.”

One of his men approached the woman and took the folder from her. Inside they found ordinary saline solution, and on top of it, forged signatures.

Marchetti’s telephone rang.

“It’s Doyle,” Luca said.

Marchetti turned on speakerphone.

“The boy’s life is in my hands,” Doyle said. “Nadia must come alone to the warehouse. If you call the police, the man here will kill her brother.”

“Your man is already lying on the floor,” Marchetti answered.

Silence fell.

Then Doyle laughed quietly.

“You still don’t understand, Martino. The problem is not one man in the hospital. Your entire house is mine.”

“You will repeat that in court soon.”

“Come to the warehouse first.”

The call ended.

I gripped Colin’s hand. His fingers were cold, but alive.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“No,” Marchetti said.

“If my brother is in danger, I’ll go.”

“That is exactly what he is waiting for.”

Luca took out a second telephone.

“The federal investigators sent us a response. The memory card and the recordings are enough to obtain a search warrant from a judge. They are already on the way.”

Marchetti looked into my eyes.

“Now he has no time. For the first time.”

Two hours later, we were standing near the old warehouse. The sky was heavy with rain. I held my red lighthouse pendant in the pocket of my coat, and its small metal edge pierced my palm.

Doyle was waiting inside. Vito stood beside him, holding a pistol.

“I asked you to come alone,” Doyle said.

“I came alone,” I answered.

“Where is Marchetti?”

“He isn’t standing behind you.”

Doyle smiled.

“You lie badly.”

Vito looked toward the window. At that very moment, a horn sounded outside. Both doors of the warehouse opened at the same time, and armed investigators rushed inside.

“Weapons on the floor!” one of them shouted.

Vito tried to shoot, but Luca twisted his arm. Doyle did not manage to escape. Marchetti emerged from the shadows, although he held neither a gun nor a victorious smile on his face.

Doyle was frightened for the first time.

“You can’t prove this against me.”

Marchetti took a small recorder from his pocket.

“You proved it yourself.”

The next morning, Doyle was made to listen to his own voice in a room. It could be heard how they would put air into the transfusion. It could be heard how he planned Colin’s death. It could be heard how he called Marchetti’s murder “handing over the business.”

Doyle sat on a chair and listened, pale.

“This was edited,” he said.

The investigator stopped the recording.

“It is your voice.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“We have the cameras too.”

Doyle lowered his head for the first time. When you hear your own words from the mouth of a stranger, their cruelty looks different. He did not understand what he was doing until he heard his own laughter.

Vito gave testimony. He admitted that he had been stealing money from Marchetti’s shipments and preparing a plan with Doyle to kill him. The fake hospital doctor and the security guard were also arrested.

Colin continued his treatment.

As for me, I never returned to Marchetti’s house.

On the day I left, my room was almost empty. Only a folded uniform remained on the bed. In the wardrobe door, however, I found a photograph—Colin and me as children, on the seashore, both holding small paper lighthouses in our hands.

Marchetti was standing at the door.

“You can stay,” he told me.

“I don’t want to live here anymore.”

“I’ll give you money.”

“You have already given me enough.”

He asked nothing.

“The money for your brother’s treatment has been transferred,” he said at last. “It is not a debt.”

I looked at him for a long time.

“Then thank you.”

“Nadia.”

“Yes?”

“When you save a person, it does not mean that they are given the right to own your life.”

For the first time, I heard warmth in his words.

“I know,” I said.

Several weeks later, Colin left the hospital. He had almost no hair left, he tired quickly when walking, but he still joked.

We moved to a small seaside town. During the day I worked in a kitchen, and in the evenings I took administration courses. For the first time, I had a desk that had only a drawer instead of a lock.

Colin hung a drawing on the wall. Two people stood by the sea, and above them a red lighthouse shone.

“That is us,” he told me.

“I know.”

“Now the lighthouse is bigger.”

“Because we are no longer hiding from anyone.”

The first snow came in December. In the morning I opened the window and looked at the white silence in the yard. On my desk stood a cup of tea, and beside it lay the red lighthouse pendant.

Doyle’s trial lasted several months. He was sentenced to years in prison. Vito received a sentence too. Marchetti’s company handed all the accounts over to the investigation, and in the city his name was mentioned without fear for the first time.

I went to court only once.

Doyle saw me as he was leaving the courtroom.

“Nadia,” he called to me. “You know that Marchetti did all this. He wanted to use you.”

I stopped.

“Maybe,” I told him. “But you planned to kill my brother.”

“I only wanted money.”

“No. You wanted control.”

His face grew tense.

“You will need me again.”

“Never again.”

Those were the last words I said to him.

A year later, I received a letter from Marchetti. Inside, there was only one sentence: “If you ever need anything, you know where to find me.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time. Then I put it in a drawer, but I did not send a reply.

Not because I hated him.

Because for the first time I did not need to save anyone, neither myself nor someone else.

That evening Colin called to me from the kitchen.

“Nadia, the tea has gone cold!”

“I’m coming right now.”

I took the red lighthouse pendant, hung it on the windowsill, and looked at the snow-covered street.

This time, the light was lit by my choice.

And I quietly closed the door behind me.