Part 4 — I Entered the Forbidden Compartment to Save a Child, but When the Billionaire Saw My Bag, the Color Left His Face

The black cars stood one behind another on the station platform.

Roman lowered the curtain.

“Victor, lock every exit.”

“There are too many people.”

“Then we will blend into the crowd.”

I held Jude against my chest. The other two infants were already breathing relatively calmly. My milk was not enough, but those few sips had bought them time to live.

Roman looked toward me.

“Can you walk?”

“I can.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Good. People who are not afraid often fail to notice anything.”

The train stopped.

The noise of people sounded beyond the door. Victor answered the phone, listened for several seconds, and then his face tightened.

“The lawyer says he will not meet us with the police at the station.”

“Why?”

“Kincaid has already reached an agreement with him.”

Roman gave a short laugh, but it did not sound happy.

“Every fortune has a limit.”

“He said he no longer wants to protect us.”

“No. He said he is afraid.”

Three knocks sounded at the door.

“Mr. Weil, we are representatives of the hospital,” a woman’s voice called. “The children must be transferred urgently.”

Roman leaned toward me.

“They are not doctors.”

“How do you know?”

“A real doctor would first ask the child’s name. They only said children.”

Victor did not open the door. After several seconds, heavy footsteps sounded outside.

I wrapped Jude in the blanket. My copper bird was attached to the corner of the blanket. I touched it with my fingers and suddenly realized that this little object was no longer only the last sign of my lost child. Now it was showing me the way.

Roman removed the lower panel of the wall. There was a narrow technical passage behind it.

“Did you think this train was your own house?” I asked.

“I worked on this line as a child. I know every door.”

“You have a billion and still live by running away.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Money opens a door. It does not tell you whom you are letting in.”

We crawled into the passage one by one. Victor stayed behind and wedged a chair against the door. A blow sounded from outside.

“Hurry!” he shouted.

We came out into the station’s service corridor. The smell of oil, dust, and wet iron hung there. I held Jude against my chest, while Roman carried the other two children.

At last we climbed the stairs and entered the station’s old warehouse.

One woman was waiting there.

Her face resembled the photo I had seen on the phone. Eliza.

No, this was not Eliza.

Her sister, Marina.

“You are late,” she said.

“Did you call me?” I asked.

“Yes. I was Eliza’s nurse.”

Roman laid the children on the table.

“Where is Naomi’s child?”

Marina lowered her eyes.

“He is alive. But I still do not know where they took him.”

The strength left my knees.

“That is not an answer.”

“I know. That is why I called you. Kincaid was switching children in private clinics. Your child was taken under another family’s name, but his bracelet accidentally remained in Eliza’s bag.”

“Then that paper?”

“Eliza found it. She knew that Kincaid intended to give your child to the man who wanted to destroy Roman.”

Roman froze.

“My enemy?”

Marina nodded.

“They would use the child to prove paternity. To put pressure on you.”

I looked down at Jude.

“But Jude is here.”

“Because Kincaid switched the children’s bracelets, although he did not manage to finish. Eliza returned one of them.”

Roman slowly picked up the paper on which “Jude Bell” was written.

“We have to find out through DNA.”

“We already found out,” Marina said. “Eliza secretly took samples.”

She placed a small sealed box on the table.

I took a step.

“The result?”

Marina looked at Roman, then at me.

“This child is Naomi’s son. Roman is his biological father.”

My body collapsed into the chair. Roman lowered his eyes. All the power that made others tremble at his name disappeared before one small child.

“I thought I had killed my son by failing to protect him completely,” I said.

“You did not kill him,” Marina told me. “You were deceived.”

Roman looked toward me.

“Naomi, I am not asking you to believe me.”

“I do not trust you either.”

“I know.”

“Then do only one thing. Find my child.”

“We will find him together.”

Iron struck the warehouse door from outside.

Victor shouted over the radio.

“They are here!”

Marina opened a second door, and we entered an underground tunnel. The police already had the recording Victor had sent, Eliza’s letters, and the financial documents of Kincaid’s clinic. But before they went to arrest Kincaid, he called Roman.

“Your child is not with me,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then I will take your woman.”

Roman looked at me over the phone.

“No. This time you lost, Kincaid.”

“Nothing is over yet.”

“It ended the moment your voice was recorded.”

Kincaid fell silent.

His own words had already been sent to the police in Victor’s recording.

Two hours later, they found my child’s trail at the clinic. He was alive, under another name. Three days later, after the final DNA result, I hugged the little boy for the first time.

I would not change his name.

Jude.

Roman heard all the recordings in pretrial detention. For the first time he heard his own voice from the outside: how he said money could buy everything, how he threatened Kincaid, how he refused to take the children to the hospital. He buried his head in his hands.

“Did I say that?” he asked.

“Yes,” the investigator answered. “You did.”

That day, for the first time, no one saved Roman from his own words.

Kincaid was charged with kidnapping children, forgery, and Eliza’s murder. Eliza’s death had not been an accident. Kincaid’s people had damaged her car’s brakes.

Roman’s lawyer left the case.

Victor chose to cooperate with the police.

And I returned to the hospital.

Not to my old job. To another department, where I helped the parents of newborns so they would not be left alone.

In the first weeks I flinched at every sound. I checked Jude’s breathing while he slept. I checked the door lock ten times a day.

Then, little by little, I learned that a quiet room does not always mean danger.

Six months later I moved into a small apartment. A bridge was visible from the window. In the mornings Jude drew with colored pencils on the kitchen floor.

One day he drew three large circles and added a fourth, small circle beside them.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Me, my brothers, and you,” he answered.

“Dad?”

Jude put down the pencil.

“Dad is far away.”

I nodded.

It was a truth I was no longer going to hide.

Roman sent me letters from prison. In some he apologized. In some he asked whether Jude had his first tooth.

The last letter was the shortest.

“If you ever can, I want to explain everything to you at least once.”

I looked at the sheet for a long time.

Then I replied.

“Everything has already been explained. Now Jude needs peace.”

I did not send the letter again.

The copper bird still hung from my bag. One of its wings was slightly bent, but I no longer straightened it. It had survived the day when I still thought I had lost everything.

One morning Jude took hold of the bird.

“Mom, will it fly?”

I opened the window. The first snow was falling outside.

“No,” I told him. “It will stay with us.”

He smiled at me and laid his head against my chest.

This time my body no longer hurt from loss.

It was simply breathing.

And the bird shone quietly by the window.