Part 4 — No one could withstand the wounded Dominik Rossi, but when he heard my refusal, his face suddenly turned pale

The child’s crying continued in the phone for several seconds, then the sound cut off.

Dominik got out of the bed.

Blood seeped from the wound again, but this time he paid no attention to the pain.

“Where is my son?” he asked.

No one answered.

Leo quickly closed the door.

“Little Andrea is at the garden house, on the other side of the lake. There should have been two guards there.”

“Should have been?” Dominik looked toward him.

“Their phones are turned off.”

Vito raised his hands.

“This is not my business.”

“Because of you, everyone here is on the verge of death,” I told him.

Vito moved toward me, but Dominik stood in front of him.

“Do not touch Nora again.”

“You can barely stand.”

“I’m still standing above you.”

The sound of glass breaking came from downstairs.

Leo drew a weapon, but Dominik stopped him with his hand.

“Don’t shoot. Not yet.”

“They have entered the house,” Leo said.

“I know.”

Dominik turned toward me.

“Can you drive a car?”

“My car no longer works.”

“You’ll go in my car now.”

“You?”

“I’m coming too.”

“You’re losing blood.”

“Then we have to move quickly.”

For the first time I saw power and desperation become confused on his face. He could frighten people, buy them, destroy them. But the fear of losing a child could threaten no one.

Leo took a small metal box from under the bed.

“All your father’s accounts are here,” he told me. “And one more recording.”

“Why didn’t you give this to Dominik earlier?”

“Because Vito was holding my mother hostage. This morning he called me and told me that he had killed her.”

There was such emptiness in his voice that for the first time I understood why he had helped Dominik so late.

We went down by the back stairs. The smell of burnt oil stood in the kitchen. Through the window I saw men dressed in black moving through the garden.

Dominik took my hand.

“If anything happens, go with Leo.”

“I won’t leave your son alone.”

Something broke in his eyes.

“That is exactly why I hired you.”

“You didn’t hire me. Leo called me.”

“I told him to find you.”

These words fell on me like cold water. All this time I had not ended up in this house by chance. Dominik knew my name, my father, and my financial situation. He knew that I would not be able to refuse.

“You used my hardship.”

“Yes.”

“That is not the answer I wanted to hear.”

“But it is the truth.”

The journey to the lake house took nine minutes. There we found Andrea hiding behind a wardrobe. His knees were muddy and he was holding a small wooden horse.

“Dad!”

Dominik knelt in front of him.

The child looked at the wound.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Less now.”

“You’re lying.”

Dominik smiled for the first time.

“A little.”

That same night Leo called the investigator. In the morning several cars stopped in front of the house. Vito tried to escape, but they were already waiting for him on the road.

The evidence of his father’s murder, attempted poisoning, extortion, and falsification of documents proved sufficient against him. Leo testified. Dominik handed over his own records, including the one in which he had maintained cooperation with Vito for years only in order to catch him.

Several hours later, the investigator placed a small device in the room.

Dominik heard his own voice.

“Nora should enter only when she is desperate enough that she can no longer turn back.”

Silence fell over the room.

Dominik lowered his head.

“I said that.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then I did not consider what this would take away from you.”

“It did not take away my money. It took away my choice.”

He looked at me for a long time.

“You can leave. I will pay your rent.”

“I don’t want to live on your money anymore.”

“Then I’ll give you something else.”

“You will give me nothing. You simply will not put me before a choice anymore where one door is hunger and the other is danger.”

Dominik nodded.

“Fair.”

Three weeks later, Vito’s trial began. I did not enter the courtroom. It was enough to know that my father’s name was written as a victim in an official document for the first time, and not as a man who had run away.

Leo found a small apartment for me in the city. Dominik did not pay its rent. The money came from a fund named after Daniel Hayes, which was created after the investigation and in whose management I took part.

In the end, I began working at a hospital again.

Every morning I got up at six o’clock. I made coffee, checked my work bag, and left a small pot of rosemary by the window. My father loved its smell.

Andrea visited me once a week. He drew the house, the lake, and three people standing hand in hand. He drew Dominik as the smallest figure, because he said that “Dad is no longer the biggest now.”

Dominik slowly recovered. He closed part of the business. He gave the rest of the money to the hospital. After Vito was arrested, he could return to his old life again, but for the first time he chose not to return.

One evening, in the first snow of winter, he sent me a short message.

“If you ever need me, I will come.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote to him:

“Now I do not need the one who will come. I need the life that I can protect myself.”

No answer came from him anymore.

That night I placed my father’s copper badge on the kitchen shelf. For years I had carried it in my pocket, as if I could protect it from being lost that way. Now I was no longer afraid to leave it somewhere.

I placed Andrea’s drawing beside it.

In the drawing, a large house stood in the snow, but lights were burning in the windows.

For the first time I was no longer standing at a closed door.

The key was in my hand.