Part 4 — After the Shooting, My Fiancée Stopped Even Entering My Room, but One Caregiver Said Something and the Smile Disappeared from Her Face

Dominic still had not heard the worst news.

Ilia immediately reached for the phone.

“Lock the rear gate. Do not let anyone leave.”

The heavy steps of security men and the hoarse sounds of radios could be heard from below. Aria stood in the middle of the room. The five-carat ring no longer shone on her hand. Her fingers trembled as if the metal had become heavier.

“Vincent, listen to me.”

“I have been listening to you for six months.”

“I did not want you to die.”

“You just wanted me to be alive, but useless?”

She lowered her eyes.

Tessa stood against the wall and turned the small copper key in her hand. The wooden bead quietly tapped between her fingers.

Ilia went onto the balcony and called the police. Ten minutes later three cars entered the house. Dominic was found near the rear road in the garden. In the trunk of his car were money, two passports, and an empty weapon case.

The financial director, Raphael, was brought down from the second floor. He was still trying to convince everyone that he knew nothing.

“I only managed the accounts!”

Ilia looked at him.

“Then why is your signature on the powers of attorney you executed in Vincent’s name?”

Raphael opened his mouth, but did not find an answer.

Aria remained with me.

A police officer placed an audio device in the room. The recording that we had already heard on the screen now had to be played as sound. Dominic and Aria were sitting in the next room. The door was open.

The recording brought their voices to life again.

“I can no longer live with a man who cannot get out of bed.”

Aria suddenly stood up.

“Turn it off.”

The police officer shook his head.

“This is your voice, ma’am.”

“I was angry then.”

“But you said it.”

Aria sank into the armchair.

And for the first time inside the walls of my own house, I heard what her voice sounded like to someone else. She said that my body was a burden to her. She said that my property would be freedom for her. She said that the bullet might turn out to be a better solution.

I did not scream.

That was what surprised her most.

That night Ilia arranged all the documents beside my bed. The power of attorney, the forged signatures, the bank transfers, the video recording, and the bullet examination were placed in one folder.

“Tomorrow they will be officially charged,” he told me.

“I only want my company back.”

“The state will decide the rest.”

“And Aria?”

Ilia was silent for a while.

“She will have to live with her choice.”

The next morning Aria asked to speak with me alone. Her eyes were red, but I no longer knew whether it was remorse or exhaustion.

“If I ask you not to abandon me, will you help me?”

“You needed help when you canceled my therapy.”

“I loved you.”

“Perhaps you loved the man who controlled every decision in the street.”

She saw the ring lying beside my bed.

“You can still change everything.”

“No, Aria. I can only stop protecting you from your decisions.”

She placed the ring on the table and left.

Several weeks later I heard her words once again in court. This time they did not show the recording from my room on the screen. Only the sound. Dominic denied everything until the prosecutor read the bank transfers. Then his face collapsed.

Raphael made a deal and named all the accounts. Dominic confessed to the crime. Aria denied it for a long time, but the recording, the power of attorney, and her messages left her no chance to resist.

After the trial I returned home.

I found my office emptied. The maps had been removed from the walls. Only one photograph remained on the shelf—the one taken on the evening of our engagement. I picked up the photograph and turned its face toward the wall.

There were no longer any of Aria’s clothes in her room. Only the scent of expensive perfume remained, and one empty hanger hung in the closet.

In the place where I had once arranged my business plans, Tessa placed a folder.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then do not start today.”

She opened the window. Sea air entered and carried the heavy smell out of the room.

Three months later I began a new program at a physical therapy center. For the first time I took two steps between two parallel handles. My knees trembled, my forehead was covered with sweat, but Tessa did not hold on to me beside me.

“Try it yourself,” she told me.

“What if I fall?”

“I will lift you up.”

“And what if I cannot do it?”

“We will try again tomorrow.”

That was everything I needed then.

The new foundation of my company covered the cost of treatment for Tessa’s sister. At first Tessa refused.

“I do not want charity.”

“It is not charity either,” I told her. “You gave my life back to me. This is only part of my debt.”

She accepted the money only on the condition that the foundation would also help other caregivers.

Six months later I bought a small apartment in the northern part of the city. The harbor could be seen from the window, but there no one fell silent anymore upon hearing my name. In the mornings I made coffee myself, and in the evenings I checked the company’s accounts. A child’s drawing hung in the room—it had been drawn for me by Tessa’s niece: two people stood between handles, and above them was an enormous yellow sun.

The first snow came in December.

That evening I received a message on my phone.

“I know that I hurt you. I only want to speak with you once. The court took everything from me, but you can still help me.”

It was Aria’s message.

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote:

“You should have asked for help when I still believed in you. Now I no longer control your life.”

I deleted her number.

Tessa came to me that evening and placed a small box on the table.

“I found this in your office,” she told me. “I thought it was important to you.”

Inside the box was the small copper key. Tessa’s key. With its worn wooden bead.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“Because that day it opened a door for me. Now perhaps it will open your door.”

I took the key in my hand. The metal was cold, but for the first time cold no longer meant loneliness.

Outside the window, snow was silently falling onto the roofs of the harbor. Inside the room, only the quiet sound of the clock could be heard.

I still could not walk freely.

But I already knew where I was going.

And this time I opened the door myself.