Part 4 — The company owner died in my arms in the elevator, but when he opened his eyes, his gaze froze me immediately

Nora placed the letter on the table, but Lucas did not open it immediately.

The sound of Victor’s handcuffs could still be heard in the room when the police officers led him into the corridor.

“Read it,” I told him.

Lucas raised his head.

“If this is your mother’s letter, you should read it.”

“Mother died five years ago. And you said her name as though you had known it all your life.”

Nora took a deep breath.

“Elena was Bennett’s chief financial auditor. She discovered that Victor had been stealing money for years. When she told Lucas, both of them were threatened because of it.”

“Why didn’t I know?”

Lucas lowered his eyes.

“Because I asked her not to tell you anything.”

The sound of the elevator bell rang again in my ears.

“You?”

“Your mother wanted you to leave the city. I sent you money, but she returned it. She said you would not accept help from me if you did not know where it came from.”

“I never received money.”

“I know. Victor stopped every transfer and hid the documents.”

Nora carefully unfolded the letter.

Lucas read the first line, then his face changed.

“What does it say?” I asked.

He turned the paper toward me.

“Lucas, if you are reading this letter, it means that the truth survived in the end after all. I never told Bailey that her father is you. Not because you did not love her, but because I was afraid your enemies would try to use her.”

The room emptied around me.

“This is impossible,” I whispered.

Lucas grabbed the chair.

“I left before you were born. Elena told me that you had lost the child.”

“She said that she raised me alone.”

“She knew that Victor was working against us. She thought that if she hid your existence, you would be safe.”

I held the letter with both hands. The paper smelled of mother’s favorite lavender. Exactly like the old woolen scarf in her closet.

“Why should I believe you?”

Nora took out a second document.

“Because we have already done the paternity test. Lucas voluntarily submitted a sample. The result came today.”

Lucas looked into my eyes.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent.”

My knees gave way.

“All my life I thought that Mother left me for loneliness. Now you are telling me that both of you decided to hide the truth from me?”

“I decided,” Lucas said. “Elena was simply trying to protect you.”

“And did that protect me? At night I cleaned floors, collected my mother’s bills, and convinced myself that I was worth nothing.”

Lucas lowered his eyes.

“I know that an apology is not enough.”

“No, it isn’t.”

The police officer turned on Victor’s voice in the recording device. His own voice could be heard in the recording:

“If Lucas does not sign tomorrow, I will finish his business too, and the girl who walks around the tower at night.”

My blood froze.

“He knew about me.”

“Yes,” Lucas said. “You were not hired here by accident. Victor was trying to watch you.”

“And you?”

“I realized it late.”

It was the first answer I could not object to.

We spent the next morning at the police station. Victor was charged with fraud, threats, and attempted intentional poisoning. The company was temporarily transferred to independent management. All its hidden accounts were opened.

I did not look at Victor in the courtroom.

He was still trying to regain his old power.

“Bailey, you understand nothing about business,” he told me during the recess.

“Maybe.”

“If you testify against me, you will regret it all your life.”

“I have already regretted all my life that I was silent.”

His lawyer immediately intervened.

“Ms. Hart, you may no longer speak with our client.”

“This really is the last time he is afraid of me,” I told him.

After the trial, Lucas told his lawyers that he did not want to pay me money as compensation for a crime or as the price of silence.

“I don’t want money,” I said.

“I know. That is why I prepared something else for you.”

He showed me the old nursing school building, which belonged to the company’s foundation. A free training center was to be opened there for people who had had to stop their studies because of finances.

“It will be named after your mother,” he told me.

“Don’t name it after me too.”

“Why?”

“First I want to build my life myself.”

He nodded at me.

For the first time I did not try to immediately accept the role of his child or father. Nor did he demand it from me.

We began slowly.

Once a week we met in a small café where a white ceramic pot stood by the window. Lucas asked me about Mother, and I told him how she sang while cooking and how she was afraid of thunderstorms.

He listened.

Sometimes that was all he did.

Three months later I no longer worked in the tower. I moved into a small apartment in the southern part of Chicago and enrolled in emergency-care courses. In the morning I had classes, and in the evening I taught first aid to people at the center.

I hung an old photograph of Mother in the room. She was holding yellow tulips and narrowing her eyes at the camera.

Lucas asked me once:

“Are you planning to move in with me?”

“No.”

“I thought you might want to.”

“I want that when I come to you, I come because I want to. Not because your house is now mine too.”

He smiled.

“Then I will expect you on Thursday.”

The first snow came at the end of November. The children at the center cut snowflakes out of paper. One little girl, Milisa, drew a picture for me: a woman in a red scarf, holding two hands pressed against her heart.

“This is you,” she told me.

“Why two hands?”

“One is for someone else, one is for you.”

I stuck the picture on the refrigerator.

That same evening I received a message from Lucas.

“The final decision in Victor’s case has come out. Twenty-two years in prison. I know this cannot erase your pain. If you ever want, I will speak to you not in my father’s name, but simply in Lucas’s name.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote:

“I will come to the café tomorrow. But I will talk about Mother.”

He replied with only one word:

“Okay.”

For the first time in years, I felt that this answer was enough.

Mother’s copper-colored bracelet was still on my wrist. The leather had worn out, and the words engraved on the plate had almost been erased.

“First breathe, then fear.”

That night I opened the window. Snow was falling silently over the city, while the sound of a train came from far away.

I put my hands on my heart.

First breathe.

Then everything else.