Part 4 — My Maid Suddenly Asked Me for Money and to Leave, but the Scene I Saw at the Hospital Door Made Dominic Gallow Go Pale

The call sounded for the second time.

The third time.

Victor was watching me and waiting for when I would make a mistake.

But I did not pick up the phone.

“Call security,” I told my man, who was standing at the end of the corridor. “Everyone except the people who work with my mother.”

The color changed on Victor’s face.

“It is already too late.”

“No. It is too late for you.”

I put the phone in my pocket and walked toward him. The doctor moved toward the wall, while Linda stood by Luka’s bed. The child had the small wooden ship pressed to his chest.

“Did you hide my son from me?” I asked Victor.

“I was only carrying out orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“Your mother’s. She said that your heir would be a weak point.”

Victor tried to justify himself again.

“I was protecting your family.”

“No. You were protecting yourself.”

My lawyer called me at that very moment. His voice was calm, but he spoke the words quickly.

“Dominic, I received the hospital camera recordings. Victor was there on the night when Linda’s brother died too.”

Linda froze.

“My brother died in a car accident,” she said.

“It was not an accident,” I said.

Victor stepped back.

“Do not listen to him.”

The lawyer sent me the file. An old hospital corridor appeared on the phone screen. Linda’s brother, Niko, was talking to Victor. Then Victor put a small envelope into his hand. In the recording, the voice could be heard clearly.

“If you tell Dominic that the child is his, you will both die.”

It was Victor’s voice.

He heard his own words from outside for the first time.

His face tightened.

“The recording is forged.”

“Three cameras, two witnesses, and a bank transfer,” the lawyer answered from the phone. “Deny nothing anymore.”

Victor looked toward the exit, but my people were already standing there.

“Dominic, think. Your family will be destroyed.”

“My family was destroyed when you made my son remain alone in a hospital bed.”

“You did not know about his existence either.”

Those words struck me in the heart, because they were true. I did not know. But ignorance was no longer an excuse.

“Now I know.”

The police came in ten minutes. Victor did not resist. He only looked at Linda.

“He still will not forgive you for hiding him.”

Linda raised her head.

“I taught him to survive. And you knew only how to frighten.”

Victor was taken away.

My mother was waiting for me in my house in the morning. In her hand she held a silver cane, with a small black stone set into it.

“I did everything for you,” she said.

“No. You did everything for power.”

“The boy was used against you.”

“The boy is a child.”

“You are softening.”

“For the first time I am becoming a human being.”

She looked at the lawyer.

“You will not forgive this to the family.”

“Family is not the one who hides the truth from you.”

My mother left. That same day her accounts were frozen, because Victor’s transfers and evidence of concealing the crime appeared. The court charged both of them. I neither demanded their punishment nor tried to save them.

Their words were enough.

Several weeks later I entered one room alone in my old house. No one lived there anymore. In the closet hung Linda’s gray uniform, and in its pocket I found the small crystal fragment that I had picked up from the floor that day.

Along with the uniform, her brown bag was lying there too.

Empty.

Linda and Luka were already living in a small seaside town. I did not force them to move in with me. For the first time in my life I understood that love does not mean opening a door by force.

Luka’s operation went successfully.

Three months later he was sitting beside me, drawing with pencils on the kitchen table, and every few minutes he asked me:

“Dad, did I draw this ship correctly?”

“Very correctly.”

“Why is the sea green?”

“Because that is how you saw it.”

Linda opened a small sewing workshop. I closed the old harbor affairs and switched to legal transportation. I gave part of the money to the hospital, but I never told Luka how much it was.

In the mornings I took him to school. On the way we bought warm bread. In the evenings he put the wooden ship on the shelf and I checked whether it might fall.

One day the first snow came.

Luka stood by the window and drew small circles on the glass with his palm.

“Dad, are you home now?”

I looked toward him.

“Yes.”

“Forever?”

For a long time I had no answer to this question. Then I went over, knelt in front of him, and said:

“As long as you want me to be here.”

Several days later Victor’s lawyer sent me a letter. It was short.

“I want to talk to you. Everything was different.”

I did not show the letter to Linda. I did not send a reply either.

Some people had time to tell the truth, and they themselves lost that time.

That evening Luka took the crystal fragment from my desk.

“What is this?”

“Something I thought was broken.”

“And now?”

I carried the fragment to the window. Snow was falling outside, while light flickered in the small piece of glass.

“Now I know that even broken, it carries light.”

Luka took my hand.

And for the first time I was no longer afraid of the future.

I left the crystal fragment by the window.

There was nothing left to hide in the house.