My Father Threw Me Out of the House Half-Naked, While My Mother Filmed Everything — But the Smile Disappeared from Both Their Faces at the Sight of the Lawyer

My father beat me and left me half-naked in the street, while my mother filmed the entire scene on her phone and laughed.

“Look at yourself, Elene. You are pathetic,” Natela told me, while my father, Andria, struck me once again.

Then everything went dark.

I opened my eyes behind an old supermarket. It was four o’clock at night. The cold asphalt dug into my back, and when I breathed, such pain pierced my left side as if my ribs were cutting me from the inside. Garbage bags swayed against the concrete wall, and the sound of trucks came from far away.

I was not wearing shoes. My clothes were torn. My bag, wallet, and phone had disappeared.

“Someone help me,” I barely managed to say.

In response, I heard only a dog barking.

For several seconds I thought that random robbers had attacked me. Then my memory returned in pieces: my father’s office, the heavy oak desk, the copper-colored wall clock hanging by the window, and the folder I had placed there with my own hands.

That folder contained statements from the inheritance fund left to me by my grandparents. Over the last six months, the money had been disappearing one amount at a time. I had only asked for an explanation.

“Where did this money go?” I asked my father.

Andria said nothing at first. Then his face changed.

“Mention the fund one more time and you will regret that you were ever born,” he whispered.

“I am your daughter. I have the right to know the truth.”

At that moment Natela entered the room and locked the door from the inside.

“Be quiet now, at least,” she told me.

The blow was so strong that the wall clock began to ring. Then the floor came toward me. And I heard my mother’s laughter more clearly than my own scream.

“Do not stop filming,” she told my father.

“I am filming,” Natela answered. “Everyone has to see what a madwoman she is.”

A car stopped by the roadside. An elderly man got out, raised his hands, and cautiously approached me.

“Do not move. I am calling an ambulance,” he told me.

His name was Nikoloz. He worked as a night guard. He draped his thick coat over my shoulders. The rough wool collar touched my skin, and for the first time that night I realized that I might survive.

I woke up in the hospital after fourteen hours. I had three broken ribs, a cracked cheekbone, a bruised body, and my temperature was dangerously low.

On the fourth day, a woman police officer and her colleague entered.

“Your parents say that you attacked your father yourself,” the woman told me.

“And then I ran away from home myself?”

She lowered her eyes.

“They say you had a psychological crisis.”

They had already called the relatives too. They also told my friends that I was dangerous and unstable.

They could not hide my body, so they had to destroy my voice.

When they returned my phone, I dialed one number—my lawyer’s, Maia Beridze’s.

“Is the folder with you?” she asked me.

“I did not leave it at home.”

Half an hour later, the ward door opened. Maia extended both hands toward me.

“Elene, before you tell me anything, tell me exactly where it is.”

I pointed to the small bag hidden under the bed. I took a folder with a copper-colored lock from the bag and handed it to her.

Maia checked the lock with her fingers. Fear appeared on her face for the first time.

“If what I think is in here is there, they have not only taken care of silencing you.”

Someone’s footsteps sounded in the corridor. Maia turned her head toward the door, then reached out to open the folder…

Maia’s fingers stopped above the lock. The sharp smell of antiseptic filled the ward, while the monitor ticked evenly.

“If the police saw this, why did they not take it?” I asked.

“Because we first need to know what we have in our hands.”

She opened the folder.

Inside were fund statements, copies of transfers, and several signed letters. The money disappeared on the same day each time and then appeared in small companies connected to my father.

Maia clenched her jaw.

“Andria is buying time,” she said. “He is spreading rumors against you while he makes the documents disappear.”

“Is Mother helping him too?”

Instead of answering, Maia took a small memory card from the folder’s last pocket.

“Why is this here?”

“Because I recorded their conversation that night. I was still at home then and realized that they were hiding something.”

Maia closed the card in her hand.

“We will not open this yet. Everything must be kept separately.”

She stopped at the door and said quietly to me:

“Your parents thought you were alone. Now they do not know whom they are fighting against.”

When she left, an unknown number lit up on my phone. I received only one message: “If you think the folder is enough, you are very wrong…”

Maia read the message and immediately returned to the ward. It was six in the morning. Raindrops struck the windows, while the copper-colored lock of the folder gleamed coldly on the table.

“Does this number belong to your parents?” she asked me.

“I do not know. Father always thought that he controlled everything.”

Maia locked the door and opened a small computer.

“Now we have to hear the truth.”

There was only one recording on the memory card. The voice was quiet at first, and then my father’s words were heard.

“The fund is already empty. If Elene finds out, we will go to prison.”

My mother’s voice immediately followed:

“Then we have to make her sign. Tell her that the new account is only temporary.”

“She will not sign anymore.”

“If she does not sign, we will tell everyone that she is ill.”

The sound of a chair being moved was heard in the recording.

“And if she still talks?” my father asked.

My mother answered with laughter:

“I will film her video. When she is hysterical, no one will believe her.”

Silence fell in the ward. I listened to the sound of the monitor and felt my hands growing cold.

“Those are their voices,” I said.

“A voice examination will confirm this,” Maia answered. “But first we have to connect the documents.”

She spread the statements across the table. In one of the companies, my father was listed as director, and in another, my mother. Part of the money was transferred to the account from which, several days earlier, the money to purchase my parents’ new house had been transferred.

“They transferred four hundred thousand lari from your grandparents’ fund,” Maia said. “And they signed the authorization in your place.”

“Is my signature forged?”

“Yes.”

At that moment the door opened. The woman police officer entered, and my father stood behind her. Andria’s face was tense, but he was still trying to maintain calm.

“My daughter is ill,” he said. “Her lawyer has no right to interfere in family matters.”

Maia turned on the recording.

My father’s own voice sounded through the ward: “The fund is already empty.”

Andria froze. Natela, who was standing behind him, turned pale.

“It is falsified,” she whispered.

“Then I will explain why your voices are in the recording,” Maia said.

My father took one step toward me.

“Elene, this is family. Are you destroying everything because of money?”

“You have already destroyed everything,” I answered.

The police officer requested a copy of the recording. Maia photographed the documents and closed the folder.

But at that moment her phone rang. She listened, lost color, and turned toward me.

“Elene, the bank called me. Last night the remaining money in the fund was withdrawn too. And the transfer was made in your name…”