Part 4 — I was waiting for Moretti to wake up in his mansion when I touched the forbidden scar and the head of security suddenly turned pale

Luka picked up the phone from the floor and looked at the screen for a long time.

“Who sent this?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“But he knows your name.”

Gabriel was still lying on the bed. His breathing was slowly evening out, although pain remained on his face.

“Lock the door,” he said.

Luka called the security officers.

“Block all exits. Let no one leave the building. Vincent Moretti is armed and we must find him immediately.”

The phone lit up again.

This time the call was from Adrian Weil.

The doctor’s voice was trembling.

“Did you remove the capsule?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then I have no reason left to remain silent.”

“What did Vincent do?”

“On the day of the operation he told me that it was only a temporary device. I thought he wanted to control Gabriel’s heartbeat. Then I found out that my signature was being forged and money was being transferred from my clinic’s account.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

The doctor exhaled heavily.

“The same car followed my daughter from school every day.”

Gabriel closed his eyes.

“Vincent was trying to kill me,” he said. “But why?”

I looked at his phone.

“Because there is some file in your name. Someone wrote that the main reason was not power alone.”

“Where is the file?”

“It was sent in my name. Probably to the agency’s email.”

Luka handed me my bag. Inside, in a small zippered pocket, I always had medical scissors tied with dark red thread. My father gave me these scissors on the day I graduated from nursing school. His initials were scratched into the handle.

That night I used those scissors while removing the capsule.

Now their tip was stained with blood.

“Turn on the computer,” I told Luka.

The file really was waiting for me in the email. The subject contained only four words: “Gabriel’s True Inheritance.”

The file contained an audio recording and several documents. Vincent’s voice could be heard in the recording.

“If Gabriel dies, the company is mine. But if he survives, on the very first day he will learn that his father changed the will.”

The second voice was Adrian Weil’s.

“He trusts the doctor.”

“That is exactly why he must not die quickly. First let him sign.”

Gabriel listened to the recording to the end. Then he turned his head toward the wall.

“Did my father change the will?”

“Apparently, he left everything to you,” I told him.

“Did Vincent know?”

“Yes.”

At that moment the sound of sirens came from below. Luka went to the curtain and looked at the street.

“The police have arrived.”

I thought that everything was over.

But Gabriel suddenly took my hand.

“Nino, there was a third voice in the recording.”

“What third voice?”

“At the back, at the end. A woman.”

I played the audio again. Indeed, for several seconds some woman was whispering.

“When Moretti dies, silence Kavtaradze too. She still does not know who her father was.”

Silence fell in the room.

My scissors fell from my hand.

“What does it mean, who my father was?” I asked.

In response Gabriel looked at Luka.

Luka lowered his eyes.

“I knew that your father was involved in this matter,” he said. “But I did not know that you too would end up in danger.”

The police broke down the door.

They found Vincent on the second floor, hidden in a service tunnel. Beside him lay a pistol, several empty ampoules, and documents prepared for signing.

After that everything developed quickly.

Adrian Weil gave testimony. The clinic’s records were seized. The capsule was sent for examination. It was confirmed that it was slowly destroying Gabriel’s nervous system.

Vincent called me from a lawyer’s phone on the very first day.

“Nino, I will pay you. Forget everything.”

“You killed a man,” I told him.

“He was my family.”

“You do not treat family like that.”

“You do not know what happens in this world.”

“Now I know that it is possible to leave your world.”

I ended the call.

The next day Gabriel heard in his own voice the words Vincent had said in the recording. Only four of us were in the listening room: me, Luka, Adrian, and Gabriel.

“First let him sign.”

That voice returned from the walls.

Gabriel lowered his head.

“Did I really speak like that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Adrian answered.

“And you helped me.”

“I was afraid.”

Gabriel closed his eyes.

“Fear is an explanation. Not an excuse.”

Vincent went to prison. Adrian lost his license and, after an agreement with the investigation, gave testimony. Luka left his position as head of security. He said that for years he had placed loyalty to the family above the truth.

Gabriel remained in rehabilitation for four weeks.

Strength slowly returned to his legs.

One morning, in the empty hospital room, I saw my medical scissors on the floor beside the bed. The red thread with which I had tied the handle had almost completely come undone. My father’s scratched initials were barely visible beneath the blood.

“You can buy new ones,” Gabriel told me.

“These are not new.”

“Then why don’t you throw them away?”

“Because they remind me why I help people.”

“And what do you remind me of?”

I could not answer his question immediately.

“That sometimes saving a person does not mean remaining in their life.”

For the first time he did not look at me angrily.

Three months later I left Chicago. In a small town on the shore of Lake Michigan, I began working at an emergency center. In the mornings I watched the fog from the window, and in the evenings I wrote down the patients’ stories so I would not forget anything.

Luka called me once a month. Adrian left the city and began working for a medical aid organization in another state.

Gabriel appointed independent management in his company and withdrew from the family business that had almost killed him. I met him only once.

In the yard of the rehabilitation center, a little girl was drawing in the sand. She was the daughter of Gabriel’s deceased sister. The girl handed me the paper.

“This is you,” she told me.

In the drawing a woman stood with a large red pair of scissors in her hand, and behind her an open door could be seen.

“Why do I have such big scissors?” I asked.

“Because you cut everything that is dangerous.”

I smiled.

“Sometimes I simply open the door.”

Several weeks later I received a short message from Gabriel.

“If you ever return, I want you to know that the door will be open.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote to him:

“Leave the door open. And I will remain on my path.”

No answer came.

The first snow came at the beginning of December. Returning from my shift at the center, I put my bag on the chair and went to the window. The city was wrapped in a white blanket.

My father’s old scissors lay on the table. I tied the red thread again, cleaned the handle, and the initials appeared once more.

That night, for the first time, I no longer felt that I had to turn back to save someone.

I folded the scissors.

I locked the door.

And I went out into the snow alone, but peacefully.