Part 4 — My husband told me that I had to leave the house that same night, but when I appeared in the hall, his smile began to disappear

At that very moment everything exploded again.

Below the sheet it said that not only had Dominic’s share in the company been transferred, but the life insurance policy taken out in my name had also been changed.

I was no longer the beneficiary.

Vanessa was.

Such silence descended in the hall that it was as if the city outside had stopped breathing.

“Is this your signature?” I asked Dominic.

He looked at the sheet.

“I don’t know what you are doing.”

“I am asking you for the first time.”

“I don’t know!”

Richard signaled to the head of security.

“Lock the doors. Let no one leave.”

Dominic took out his phone and called someone.

“Leo, freeze all the accounts immediately. No, all of them. Evelyn has come up with something.”

He listened for several seconds and his face changed.

“What do you mean, the bank refused?”

At the back of the hall stood Richard’s lawyer. He took a letter from the folder.

“Mr. Vale, all your personal accounts have already been suspended. The controlling package of the company has passed into the legal ownership of the fund. The freezing happened not by your order, but by a preliminary court injunction.”

Dominic looked at him.

“You are my lawyer.”

“From this moment, I am not anymore.”

Vanessa leaned against the wall. Her diamond earring was trembling.

“You told me Evelyn owned nothing,” she said in a whisper.

Dominic looked at her.

“Now is not the time for this.”

“For me, it is exactly now.”

Richard handed the phone to the security employee.

“Turn on the recording.”

Dominic’s office appeared on the screen again. This time the recording was new. Dominic was telling Vanessa that after the divorce nothing would remain for me and that if I resisted, the policy money would save both of them.

Vanessa’s face grew pale.

Dominic could not utter a sound.

Hearing his own words not through another person but in his own voice turned out to be much more cruel. He looked at the screen as if a strange man were standing there.

“Turn it off,” he said.

“You cannot turn it off,” I answered.

“Evelyn, please.”

This was the first time he had asked me for something.

“You yourself told me that I should not remain here until morning.”

The next morning investigators met Dominic. In the same week, the financial director of his company gave testimony. They signed the documents taken from the warehouse, the forged signatures, and the transfers that went to Vanessa’s account.

The trial took place months later.

At every hearing Dominic tried to say that everything was my revenge.

But recordings did not need revenge.

Neither did the documents.

The judge sentenced him to imprisonment for financial fraud and deception. Vanessa made a deal and left the city. Most of the company’s employees remained at their jobs because I decided not to close Vale’s company, but to save it.

This time it was run by me.

When the legal battle ended, only one room in the penthouse was empty. Dominic’s wardrobe was open. His old business card lay on the floor, with his position written on it in golden letters.

I picked it up and put it in the trash bin.

But something else hurt me most.

Behind our wedding photograph, on a small shelf beside the bed, they found the box of my copper-colored bracelet. Dominic had hidden it. He probably thought that if he took away the bracelet, he would also change the direction of my life.

I put it on my wrist again.

Three months later I moved into a small, bright house on the north side of the city. In the morning there was the smell of coffee in my new office. Trains passed beyond the window, and their sound no longer made me feel lonely.

Richard worked beside me, only now he no longer needed to hide my name.

“Are you ready?” he asked me one morning.

“For what?”

“For the company’s new name.”

On the table lay a drawing by an adolescent girl. It was a drawing by my niece, Lily. A small house was drawn on the sheet, and above the house was a compass with arrows.

Below it was written: Aunt Evelyn now owns the road herself.

I hung the drawing on the wall.

Weeks passed.

When the first snow came, Lily came with me onto the balcony and asked:

“Are you not afraid anymore?”

“Sometimes I am afraid.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

Snowflakes fell on the window. I touched the bracelet on my wrist.

“Because fear is not a direction.”

That evening I received a message from Dominic. It was from the prison’s official number.

Only one sentence was written: If you want, I will explain why I did this.

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote a reply.

“I no longer need an explanation.”

I deleted his number.

I felt neither victory nor joy. Only peace, which for the first time no longer awaited anyone’s permission.

That night Lily took my bracelet and looked at the compass.

“Does this arrow always show the right path?”

“No,” I told her. “Sometimes it simply reminds us that a path still exists.”

The bracelet shone in her small hand, while beyond the window snow quietly covered the city.

I fastened it on her wrist again.

This time the arrow showed north.

And I followed no one anymore.