Part 4 — At one in the morning I came in to fire my secretary, but her notes contained the cause of my son’s death and someone lost color

Jonathan’s voice disappeared from the line, but his last words remained in the room.

Marcus was smiling.

And I understood for the first time that this was not only a poisoning case. For three years, money had been stolen in my name, false documents had been prepared, and they had been turning me into a murderer.

“Block everyone,” I told the guards. “The elevator, the stairs, the roof. Nobody leaves.”

Marcus freed his hands.

“You cannot stop me.”

“Not tonight, Marcus.”

The phone calls began immediately. My bank manager, the head of security, the legal department. They called one after another, as if the whole building had realized that its foundation was shaking.

The bank director called first.

“Mr. Cross, we will have to stop transfers from your accounts. We have received signed orders.”

“With my signature?”

“Yes.”

“Do not carry out a single new instruction. Freeze everything.”

“It is already too late. The audit begins at six in the morning.”

The second call was made by a lawyer. It was not Jonathan. My chief lawyer, Celine Moore, had checked all my contracts for three years.

“I will no longer defend you,” she told me.

“What do you mean?”

“The documents are drawn up as if you issued the orders against Erin. If you do not have the truth, I cannot stand beside you.”

“I have the truth.”

“Then find it before the false truth about you reaches the police first.”

She hung up.

Marcus heard all of it and chuckled.

“You see? No one stands beside you.”

“And who stands beside you?”

“Money.”

“Money cannot speak.”

“They make the recordings speak.”

The guards sat him in a chair. Erin was taken away by the hospital emergency team, which arrived as soon as I called. She stopped at the door and looked back at me.

“Do not go to the old harbor,” she said.

“I will not go there.”

“Damian, he knows the baby is yours. Now he can no longer blackmail you only with my life.”

“He could not have done it before either.”

Erin shook her head.

“Before, I was afraid of losing you. Now I am afraid only that you will become like him.”

Those words hurt more than any accusation.

I went to the hospital, but on the way I called Jonathan. He did not answer. Ten minutes later a file arrived on my phone.

An audio recording.

I listened to it in the car, in a dark parking lot.

My own voice could be heard in the recording.

“Erin Walsh’s problem must end. If we cannot save the baby, both are a danger.”

Then Marcus’s voice.

“The doctor will do everything.”

Then my voice again.

“I do not want noise. Make her death look like an illness.”

The audio ended there.

I sat alone in the car and listened to my own words.

I knew it was my voice. Every pause, every heavy breath. But the sentences were not mine. Someone had assembled my voice like a weapon.

At that moment I understood for the first time what it meant when another person steals your face.

At five in the morning Celine called me.

“The recording is fake, but it was made skillfully. We need an expert to prove it.”

“Bring one.”

“I already have. Jonathan found the source of the audio. Marcus used recordings of your old meetings.”

“Where is Jonathan?”

Celine fell silent.

“In the clinic’s underground parking lot. He is wounded, but alive.”

I met him in the hospital corridor. His shirt was soaked with blood at the shoulder, but he was still holding a folder.

“Marcus’s biggest mistake was thinking he alone had all the documents,” he told me.

“What did you find?”

He opened the folder.

“Your signature is not real. He is missing only one sheet that could prove it.”

“Where is it?”

Jonathan showed me Erin’s amber box. Its broken lid had been completely removed from the inside.

“The camera was not only recording video. There was a small memory card inside it. A second card.”

The missing sheet was found inside the camera. It showed Marcus’s fingerprints, the doctor’s handwriting, and the complete list of transfers.

At eight in the morning I did not go to the old harbor.

Instead, the police, the prosecutor, and federal investigators entered my office.

Marcus tried to escape.

He fell on the stairs when one of the security employees blocked his way. They put handcuffs on him while he shouted that everything had happened on my orders.

“Damian, you will go down with me too!” he shouted.

I stood calmly before him.

“Perhaps. But everyone will hear your voice now.”

The investigator played the audio recording. Marcus heard his own words from the room’s speakers for the first time.

“Two more weeks and the baby will not survive.”

He fell silent.

“We will tell Damian that Erin was ill.”

His face collapsed.

“I did not say that,” he whispered.

“You did,” the investigator answered.

Marcus shook his head.

“No.”

But everyone had heard it.

Dr. Whitfield was arrested that same day. The clinic director confessed to the crimes he had taken upon himself when the financial records were shown. The level of poisonous substance in Erin’s blood was still high, but with timely treatment it became possible to save the baby.

I did not leave the hospital for four days.

I sat on a small chair beside the window in Erin’s room. The amber box lay beside her bed. The doctors had temporarily fastened its broken lid with transparent tape.

“I was going to fire you that night,” I told her.

Erin opened her eyes.

“I know.”

“How?”

“I saw the order on your desk.”

I lowered my head.

“I am sorry.”

“Sorry because you were taking my job away, or because you did not notice me?”

“For both.”

She looked at me for a long time.

“Then promise me one thing.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Do not raise the child as the heir of your empire. Raise the child as a human being.”

“I promise.”

Several weeks later the case against Marcus was sent to court. His crimes were confirmed: poisoning, financial fraud, falsification of medical records, and artificially assembling my voice. In court I no longer shouted. Not once did I look at him with hatred.

I simply answered every question.

Celine invalidated the documents drawn up against my name. The company’s board of directors took Marcus’s share from him. I closed my old office and founded a small transportation company on the other side of the city, where no wall was mahogany and no door was for a secret.

Six months later Erin gave birth to a girl.

She named her Lea.

The very first night, when I took the baby in my arms, her fingers wrapped around my thumb. She was so small that I was even afraid to breathe.

“She has your eyes,” Erin told me.

“I hope she has your courage too.”

We did not live together immediately. Erin needed time so that being beside me would be a choice and not fear. And I learned for the first time that saving someone does not mean making decisions in their place.

I rented a small house in the city’s northern district. In the morning I went to the transportation office, and in the evening I sat beside Lea’s bed. She drew three figures on the wall with chalk: one tall, one short, and in the middle a small child with a yellow sun above her head.

Every morning I looked at the drawing.

The first snow came in December. Lea’s little shoes stood on the windowsill. Erin was making tea in the kitchen, while I was arranging documents in my work bag.

At that time I received a letter from Marcus.

“I did not want everything to end this way. You know that we needed each other. Send me a lawyer. Meet me at least once.”

I looked at the letter for a long time.

Then Erin asked me:

“Will you write him an answer?”

“Yes.”

On the back of the sheet I wrote only one sentence:

“I will no longer help you.”

It was neither a threat nor revenge.

Simply the truth.

I sent the letter back and put the amber box into the side pocket of my work bag. Its lid was still broken, but now it was no longer an object of fear. It reminded me of the night when I nearly lost everything and nevertheless learned how to protect the person who depended on me.

Outside, the snow began falling more strongly. Lea put her finger against the window and whispered:

“Daddy, where is the lighthouse?”

I took her hand.

“Where the road becomes dark.”

The small lighthouse engraved on the amber box lit up in the window’s light.

This time it no longer hid the road from me.