On New Year’s Eve, I came home and found my wife and infant frozen, but when I turned on the cameras, my mother lost her smile

On New Year’s Eve, in our own kitchen, my wife fell to the floor while our eleven-day-old infant silently trembled from the cold.

“Where is Maria? Where is Luka?” I asked when I opened the door and entered the dark apartment.

In response, I heard only the baby’s weak crying. The wall clock showed 23:27. The sound of fireworks came from far away, but in our apartment there was neither music nor laughter nor the smell of New Year. Only the buzzing of a burned-out light bulb and the cold coming from the refrigerator.

Eleven days earlier, Maria had undergone an emergency operation. The doctors told me that she needed several weeks of rest and food. And I was checking factory machinery in Stuttgart, Germany, calling home every evening. I transferred fourteen thousand dollars to my mother, Elene, my sister Keti, and her husband Mark so that they would take care of Maria and little Luka.

For New Year’s, I secretly changed my ticket, paid a fortune for the last seat, and told no one that I was returning. In my suitcase were warm clothes for the baby, medicines for Maria, sweets for my mother, and expensive perfume for Keti.

I still believed that they were my family.

Used diapers were scattered in the living room. Empty glasses stood on the table. I entered the kitchen and saw Maria.

She was curled up on a plastic chair. She was wearing thin pajamas, and an old vest was wrapped around her stomach. Her face was gray. Her lips were cracked. She was pressing her left hand against the wound, and a dark stain of blood was visible on the fabric. In front of her stood a cooled instant soup.

Luka lay in a knitted basket and was covered with such a thin blanket that the cold could be seen on his little body.

“David… why did you come back?” Maria tried to stand up.

“Don’t move.”

“I must welcome you… I’ll prepare something for you.”

Her knees gave way. I caught her in time.

“Where are my mother? Keti? Mark?” I asked, but my voice was already strangely calm. “Where is the food I bought?”

Maria avoided my eyes.

“They went to Miami for a few days. They told me that I should eat lightly. Please, don’t anger Elene. She will say that I control you.”

I opened the refrigerator. Inside there was only half a bottle of water. The meat, broth, fruit, milk, vitamins, and the baby’s special formula had disappeared.

A note written in Elene’s hand was stuck to the door: “We went to Miami to meet the New Year. Make do with whatever is in the pantry. Don’t start complaining to David.”

I crumpled the paper in my hand as if I were holding my mother’s throat.

“Do you know all this?” I asked Maria.

“They came every day… but then they told me that they were saving the money for you. Once they even locked the door from the outside.”

Something collapsed in my chest.

I wrapped Luka in a winter coat, picked up Maria in my arms, and carried her down to the taxi. On the way to the hospital, she began trembling from the fever. Fireworks exploded above the river, but I heard only her heavy breathing.

In the taxi, I opened the banking application and canceled all of my mother’s, Keti’s, and Mark’s cards.

At that same moment, they were drinking champagne in an expensive hotel in Miami and thought that my money was endless.

At the hospital entrance, security opened the car door for me. My phone was vibrating in my pocket. For the first time in several weeks, I restored access to the cameras at home. On the screen, Elene’s hand was slowly rising toward the camera, and her finger was approaching the lens…

Elene’s finger touched the lens, but the camera had already been recording.

In a small hospital room, Maria lay receiving an infusion. Luka slept beside a warming device. And I was looking at the phone as if my family’s true face should appear there.

“David, don’t watch this now,” Maria told me.

“I must watch it precisely now.”

In the first recording, Elene and Mark were standing in the kitchen. Mark was holding my boxes of food.

“Let’s take all this to the hotel,” Keti said. “He is in Germany anyway.”

Then Elene opened the door for Maria.

“If you call David, he will take the child away from you,” she told her.

Maria leaned against the wall. I paused the screen and forgot to breathe.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“I was afraid that you would not believe me.”

In the second recording, Mark turned off the heating switch. In the third, Keti put the baby’s formula into a bag. In the fourth, Elene entered my office and took a folder from the safe.

“What folder is it?” I asked.

Maria turned pale.

“Several days ago, they made me sign something. They told me that it was only for medical expenses.”

At that moment, I received a call from the police station.

“Mr. David, another recording has been found in your home,” the investigator told me. “If you want, come here. There is something here that gives your family problem a completely different appearance…”

The phone froze in my hand.

The phone froze in my hand.

“What recording is it?” I asked.

“The one in which your wife is forced to sign a document. And there is another person whose voice you probably know.”

It was four in the morning. Maria was still receiving an infusion, so I left a nurse beside her and went to the police station. Snow was beginning outside. My shoes left marks on the wet floor, and in my pocket I had Luka’s small warm sock.

The investigator Nikolოზ brought me to the monitor.

“We took this recording from the second camera in the house. You did not know that you had an additional camera installed in the storage room.”

Our bedroom appeared on the screen. Maria was sitting on the bed, pain written on her face. Elene, Keti, and Mark were standing in front of her.

“Sign it,” Elene said.

“I must call David.”

“You will call him and never see the child again,” Mark replied.

Keti scattered papers on the table.

“This is only consent for managing the property. We will withdraw the necessary money from David’s accounts, and you will be at peace.”

“I will not sign this.”

Elene looked toward Luka’s basket.

“Then you will see what raising a child alone is like.”

Maria was crying. In the end, she signed.

I was looking at the screen and wanted my head to be somewhere else. But it was my mother’s voice. Her words had been spoken within the walls of my home. Mark then took the papers and stood so close to the camera that the seal could be seen clearly.

“This is a power of attorney,” Nikolოზ explained to me. “They even included the right to use your accounts and sell the apartment. And they forced Maria to sign.”

“Where did the money go?”

“We have already received the credit-card statements. A hotel, expensive watches, jewelry, and payment to one of the private clinics.”

“A clinic?”

Nikolოზ opened a second file.

There was a copy of my signature there. As if I were confirming that Maria was psychologically unstable after giving birth and that custody of the child should be transferred to Elene.

“This is not my signature,” I said.

“We know. The examination has already confirmed it.”

I sat down on the chair. For the first time since I entered the house, tears came to my eyes.

“They were stealing my child from me.”

Nikolოზ nodded.

“And this morning they were planning to submit an application to the court.”

At that moment, my phone rang. It was Elene.

“David, you made a very big mistake,” she said. “If you do not restore the cards, Maria and the child will be left on the street.”

“You already left them on the street.”

“You have no idea whom you are fighting.”

The call ended. Nikolოზ looked toward the window.

“Mr. David, your family members will return soon. But before they come, there is one more thing you need to know.”

He put a photograph on the table. In the hotel recording, Elene was telling Mark: “David will be afraid only of losing money. Because of the child, he will sign anything.”

Nikolოზ quietly added:

“After these words, Mark called another number. The number belonged not to your mother, but to your former business partner…”

And then I realized that all this had not been only a family betrayal…