Part 4 — He Arrived with Divorce Papers, but Heard One Word in the Delivery Room and Lucian Lost Color

…and in the lower corner of the photograph hung the small silver key that Lucian had known since childhood.

Catherine immediately saw how his face changed.

“What is it?”

“This key was from my father’s office.”

Miriam handed the baby over to the doctors. An ambulance siren sounded outside, but Lucian already knew that their battle would not end at the hospital doors.

“You are not going alone,” Catherine said.

“You are going to the hospital.”

“My son is going there. I am going too.”

“Kate, you can barely stand.”

“I stood alone for seven months.”

These words struck harder than any bullet.

Lucian ordered security to prepare the cars. Miriam put the folder into her bag and covered Catherine’s shoulders with a blanket.

“The original recording stays with me,” she said.

“Why?” Lucian asked.

“Because in your family they burned too many things when they no longer needed the truth.”

The detained man was still sitting on the floor below. Lucian knelt in front of him.

“Where is Edgar?”

“At the old chapel.”

“Who else is with him?”

The man smiled.

“The one you trusted all your life.”

Lucian knew whom he meant, but still called the lawyer, Victor Dane.

“Victor, open the old archive of my father’s office.”

A long silence came in reply.

“Lucian, now is not the time for this.”

“On the contrary. Now is the only time.”

“You are emotional. Go to the hospital first.”

“If I do not have an answer from the archive in five minutes, I will count you on Edgar’s side too.”

Victor lowered his voice.

“Do not force me to tell you something you do not want to hear.”

“For seven months now I have been hearing what people hide from me.”

The call ended.

Catherine stood at the door, holding a small baby hat. Yellow stars were embroidered on the hat.

“Did you buy this?” Lucian asked.

“No. I found it in your house.”

“Where?”

“In your office, in a locked drawer.”

Lucian looked at the hat. Inside it, under the seam, a small piece of paper could be seen.

Miriam cut the seam with scissors.

Only one sentence was written on the paper: “When the boy is born, tell him that his father chose darkness himself.”

Catherine lowered her eyes.

“Is this your father’s handwriting?”

“No.”

Lucian turned the paper over several times.

“Edgar does not write like this either.”

At that moment he understood that the enemy was not only outside the family. Someone wanted him and Catherine to blame each other.

The road to the hospital took twenty minutes. Lucian stood beside the baby’s incubator the whole time, while Catherine was taken to the operating department because she began bleeding after the delivery.

“Father,” he said for the first time when Lucian pressed the fingers of his hand against the incubator glass.

One word.

But it seemed to Lucian as if his whole life had returned.

The telephone rang again. This time it was Victor.

“Did you open the archive?” Lucian asked.

“Yes.”

“What were they hiding?”

“Your father created a secret fund twenty-two years ago. Money was transferred every month to the woman who raised Edgar.”

“Wasn’t Edgar my brother?”

“He was. But not because you shared one mother. Your father adopted him from another family and then placed him in your inheritance.”

Lucian felt the cold floor beneath his feet.

“Why?”

“Because you were both raised against each other.”

“By whom?”

Victor exhaled.

“By your father’s order. But I carried out the orders.”

Lucian closed his eyes.

“Did you know about Catherine being watched?”

“I knew.”

“Who was watching my wife?”

Silence.

“Answer me.”

“Edgar. But in recent months someone else was helping him too.”

“Who?”

Victor said with difficulty:

“Your head of security, Marco.”

Lucian immediately looked down the hospital corridor. Marco was standing there, his hands in his pockets, watching the doctors.

Lucian went to him.

“Show me your gun.”

A small smile appeared on Marco’s face.

“Boss, such suspicion does not become you.”

“Who followed my wife’s car?”

“I was working for your safety.”

“Answer the question.”

Marco reached toward his pocket. At that same moment, Lucian’s security drew their weapons.

“Don’t,” Marco said.

“You already did.”

Marco was arrested. Messages to Edgar, Catherine’s addresses, and a plan of the hospital department appeared on his telephone.

Lucian saw a photograph of his own house on the screen. Under the photograph it said: “The baby will be born Friday. If Lucian returns, the plan will change.”

Catherine was brought out of surgery at that time. She was pale, but her eyes were open.

“The baby?” she asked.

“Alive.”

“You?”

“For the first time, me too.”

She held out her hand. Lucian took it.

They went to the old chapel together, the police and their people. Edgar stood at the altar. His face resembled Lucian’s, but there was old hatred in his eyes.

“I always knew that Father loved you less than me,” he said.

“Father loved no one.”

“You received everything.”

“You stole everything.”

Edgar smiled.

“I will take the baby. Through him I will take back your name.”

Lucian placed the folder on the table.

“Your recordings are already with the police.”

“Catherine’s recording?”

“That too.”

“You have no evidence.”

Lucian took the telephone from his pocket and switched on the recording. Edgar’s own voice sounded in the room: “You must leave the baby for us.”

Edgar froze.

For the first time, he heard his own words through another person’s ears.

“This… this cannot be.”

“You said it yourself.”

“I am your brother.”

“That is why I trusted you.”

Edgar reached for his gun, but the police acted faster. Within seconds, he had handcuffs on.

Lucian did not look at him again.

He returned to Catherine.

In the following days, the calls did not stop. The shareholders demanded answers. The police opened the archives. Victor gave up being a lawyer and gave his own testimony.

“I could not escape from you,” he told Lucian. “But now at least I can tell you the truth.”

Lucian only nodded.

Edgar’s trial began several weeks later. Marco also turned against him because he realized that no one would protect him anymore.

Lucian went to the courtroom once. Edgar was being read the charges. Catherine sat beside him, holding a photograph of the little boy.

When the recording was played, Edgar lowered his head.

This was the moment when Lucian finally understood that he no longer needed revenge. The truth had already found its own path.

When they returned home, Catherine opened the door of his office.

The room was empty. All the weapons, folders, and photograph of his father had been taken away. Only the starry baby hat lay on the table.

“Will you be able to live here?” Catherine asked.

“No.”

“Then where should we go?”

“Where the doors do not lock from the inside.”

Three months later they moved to a small town by the river. Lucian handed management of the company to someone else and began working on real, lawful projects for clean-air systems for hospitals.

In the mornings, instead of beside the baby’s incubator, he now woke beside a wooden crib.

Their son, Noah, was still small, but every morning he clung to his finger.

“Father, will you be here today too?” Catherine asked one evening.

“Until you yourself tell me that you want me to leave.”

Catherine smiled at him for the first time without fear in her eyes.

A sky painted with yellow stars hung on the wall of Noah’s room. Every evening Lucian opened the same window so that the smell of the river could enter the room.

A year later, the final verdict in Marco’s and Edgar’s case was delivered. Edgar received many years. Marco also admitted his guilt. Victor refused a reduction of his sentence and handed over all the documents.

Lucian did not curse any of them.

He simply no longer helped them escape the consequences.

On a rainy evening, a message arrived on the old number.

“You can come back. Let’s forget everything. We are brothers.”

Lucian looked at the message for a long time. Then he handed the telephone to Catherine.

“Do you want an answer?”

“Only if you want one.”

Lucian wrote several words.

“I am no longer returning to the place where I must lie to save my own child. I will no longer interfere in your life. Do not interfere in mine either.”

He pressed the send button.

Catherine asked quietly:

“Are you at peace?”

Lucian looked into Noah’s room. The boy held a small paper star in his hand.

“For the first time.”

That night Lucian hung the yellow-starred hat beside the child’s bed. The hat that had once hidden his father’s secret now held only the child’s scent.

The first snow appeared outside the window.

Noah spread out his hand in his sleep.

Lucian offered his finger.

This time he did not let go.