Part 4 — When the Sick Maid Was Found in His Bed, His Father’s Marriage Deal Collapsed and the Lawyer Suddenly Began to Turn Pale

After the call from the hospital, Marcus did not waste a single second.

“Prepare the car,” he ordered the guard.

Dario freed his hand and ran toward the door, but two guards stepped in front of him.

“You are staying here,” Marcus told him.

“I am not your enemy.”

“Today you said something for the first time that we both know is a lie.”

Bianca stood against the wall. The lower part of her white dress had become wet with rainwater. She looked at her father as if she were seeing his real face for the first time.

“Did you know that girl was sick?” she asked.

Dario looked away.

“This matter does not concern you.”

“It was my wedding. You used my name.”

Marcus handed the folder to Victor.

“All bank records will be handed over to the police. We must save the clinic’s account before it is frozen.”

Victor nodded.

“Money can be withdrawn from the foundation only with your personal confirmation.”

“Then do it.”

“If this money was obtained illegally, you will also become part of the investigation.”

Marcus looked him in the eyes.

“Take the entire foundation. Just do not let the children’s treatment stop today.”

Victor shook his head for the first time.

“No.”

Everyone in the room looked at him.

“I am no longer going to protect you, Marcus. But I cannot cover your crime either. We will transfer the money to a legal account, with all the documents. If you have to go to prison, you will go under your own name.”

Marcus said nothing for several seconds.

“Do it correctly.”

Those words were not for Dario.

Marcus said them to himself too.

I went to the hospital with him. The doctors immediately took Eli into surgery. Marcus stood in the corridor, his hands in his pockets, looking at the ice-white wall.

“You can leave,” I told him.

“I know.”

“Then why are you staying?”

He did not look toward me.

“Because until now I left everyone who expected something from me. At least once I must understand what it is like to stay.”

The doctor came out two hours later.

“He made it through the critical night,” he said. “The danger has not passed yet, but the blood transfusion worked.”

I leaned against the wall. My knees gave way.

Marcus extended his hand to me, but immediately stopped, as if he had no right to touch me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded.

“For the first time, I am.”

In the morning Dario’s people were arrested. Dario himself was taken away several hours later with a lawyer. Bianca gave testimony, because for the first time she understood that protecting her father would take her to the same prison too.

But Dario had still saved his final move.

That same evening Marcus listened to the recording on my small memory card again. Victor sat beside him. I stood at the door.

On the recording was the voice of his father, old and hoarse.

“If you ever hear this, Marcus, know that I did not create the foundation only for the clinic. It is for the people whom our family harmed. Dario left everything for himself after my death. If the foundation is destroyed, revenge will take more children than our war.”

Then there was a pause.

“And one more thing. Sedi’s mother, Anna Kowalski, was my financial manager. She discovered Dario’s fraud. I promised to protect her children. I failed to keep that promise.”

The recording ended.

The room was so quiet that I could hear the sound of the wall clock.

Marcus raised his head.

“Your mother worked for my father?”

“Yes. But I only knew that one night she left and never came back.”

Victor lowered his eyes.

“Anna’s death was recorded as an accident. Now it is clear why Dario wanted you to disappear.”

Marcus turned the recording on again.

This time he was listening to his own father’s words with his own ears.

“Our family caused harm.”

That phrase hung heavily in the room.

For the first time Marcus saw himself not as a ruler, but as the son of a man who had left debts to others.

“All my life I thought nothing remained to me from my father,” he said. “It turns out his debt remained to me.”

“You did not incur the debt,” I said.

“But I decided to pay it.”

That same night he transferred all the foundation’s legal assets to the clinic’s account. The state seized Dario’s stolen money. In court Marcus testified against his own family as well.

He did not hide the prison. Nor did he demand a crown.

In the courtroom the judge asked:

“Why do you accept responsibility for crimes you did not personally commit?”

Marcus looked toward me.

“Because silence is also a decision.”

Dario lowered his head. This time no one needed to tie his hands. He was already defeated at the moment Bianca gave testimony.

Several weeks later the Reyeses’ mansion became strangely empty.

The guards left. The expensive cars were sold at auction. In the eastern wing only one bed remained, on which I had lain with a fever.

Marcus did not redo the room.

“Why?” I asked.

“I want to remember where I was late.”

I found a small copper bell in my old wardrobe. One of its edges was scratched, but it still rang.

Eli left the hospital three weeks later. His hair had almost completely fallen out, though he still tried to joke.

“Is this your boss?” he asked Marcus when he saw him for the first time.

“He is no longer my boss,” I answered.

Marcus looked at Eli.

“If your sister allows me, I may be a friend.”

Eli thought for a long time.

“Friends bring ice cream.”

Marcus went out and returned ten minutes later with two large boxes.

Eli laughed.

It was his first real laugh that winter.

Three months later I started a small cleaning service in the southern part of the city. I managed it myself. The employees had sick days, their pay was deposited on time, and I no longer forced any of them to come to work with a fever.

Eli tried to return to school. Every morning he sat at the kitchen table, ate porridge with milk, and drew houses in his notebooks.

One day he drew a large house with yellow light burning in every window.

“Is this the Reyeses’ house?” I asked.

“No,” he answered me. “This is the house where no one is afraid.”

Marcus no longer lived in that house. He rented a small apartment beside the river and began working on the clinic’s supervisory board. His work now was not making deals, but checking every dollar of money.

We met each other sometimes.

There were no promises, expensive gifts, or loud words of love.

Once he told me:

“You do not have to be with me because of what I did.”

“I know.”

“And if you never want to see me again, I will accept that too.”

“I know that too.”

After that he smiled peacefully for the first time.

At the beginning of spring I received a letter from Dario. It had been sent from prison. The letter said that he could tell more in court about my mother if I came to a meeting with his lawyer.

I did not open the letter all the way.

Marcus asked me:

“Do you want us to send an answer?”

“I already sent one.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

Marcus nodded.

“That is the strongest answer he has ever received.”

That evening I entered Eli’s room. He was sitting by the window and drawing. Outside, the first warm rain of the season was falling.

A small copper bell hung from my bag. Its scratched edge caught the light from the window.

Eli did not look up from the paper.

“You did not ring the bell today.”

“Because you are no longer afraid?”

He put down the pencil.

“Because I know you will find me anyway.”

I enclosed the bell between my fingers.

For a long time I listened to the silence.

This time it was no longer empty.

The bell rang once.

I was home.