Part 4 — My husband asked me to donate an organ to his ex-mistress, but the doctor turned pale after my calm response.

 

Part 4

Three minutes after receiving the message, Maksim called me again.

This time, it wasn’t his number.

He was calling from a different phone.

— “Elene, where are you?” he asked me.

There was no longer any threat in his voice—only rushed breathing and the fear he had kept hidden from me for years.

— “Why should I tell you?”

— “Because everything can still be fixed now.”

— “What can possibly be fixed?”

On the other end of the line, someone opened a door. I caught Maksim’s whisper:

— “My lawyer told me you made the documents disappear.”

Then he tried speaking to me again.

— “You shouldn’t trust Irakli. He’s after your assets.”

— “You already found my assets and transferred them to someone else.”

— “I was doing it for you.”

For the first time in my life, I laughed.

Not out of joy. That phrase had simply become so exhausting that hearing it felt absurd.

— “Were you offering up my liver for my sake too?”

Maksim fell silent.

That was my answer.

That same evening, Irakli informed me that an investigative team was auditing every document at the hospital. The doctor was cooperating, though he attempted to shift all accountability onto Maksim.

— “We need to go straight to the police,” Irakli told me.

— “I have to find the child first.”

He knit his brows.

— “This could be a trap.”

— “It might be. But if the child exists and Maksim is his father, I cannot abandon him simply because his presence disrupts Maksim’s scheme.”

I arrived near the old station at seven in the evening. Following the rain, the cobblestones glistened, and the scent of iron and coal lingered near the tracks. I still held that small copper brooch in my hand—the one my mother had given me on my wedding morning, instructing me to keep it close to my heart during difficult times.

A woman was waiting for me at the end of the platform.

She was roughly forty years old, holding a yellow toy train in her hand. A young boy stood beside her.

The boy looked first at my bag, then at the brooch.

— “Are you Elene?” the woman asked.

— “Yes.”

— “I am Sopho. I worked as a nanny for the child. His mother passed away a year ago.”

My heart struck heavily in my chest.

— “Who was the child’s mother?”

Sopho took the boy’s hand.

— “A woman to whom Maksim sent money every month. He insisted no one should ever learn of the child’s existence.”

The boy raised his head.

— “Is Father coming today?”

I knelt in front of him.

— “What is your name?”

— “Niko.”

His eyes mirrored Maksim’s—the same dark hue, the same slightly downturned eyelids.

Sopho pulled documents from her bag.

— “These are his mother’s letters. It’s written here that Maksim is the child’s father. A paternity test exists as well.”

That very night, we submitted the documents to the police. Two weeks later, genetic testing confirmed that Niko was Maksim’s son.

Marina had never been the mother of his child.

Her role turned out to be merely a piece of the financial puzzle, the patents, and the scheme.

It was then that Maksim realized the web of lies he had built his entire life upon was collapsing all at once.

He summoned me to the old conference room of my former office. The season’s first frost etched silver lines across the windows. His attorney sat at the table, organizing paperwork.

— “Elene, let’s reach an agreement,” Maksim said. “The divorce, the patents, the accounts… we will divide everything fairly.”

— “Fairly?”

— “I am ready to return your share to you.”

Irakli unclasped his folder.

— “Elene’s share does not need to be returned. It belonged to her from the very beginning.”

Maksim’s lawyer skimmed through a few pages, his expression darkening.

— “Maksim, I cannot sign off on this agreement.”

— “What do you mean, you can’t sign?”

— “You hid bank accounts, forged signatures, and concealed information regarding a child from me. I can no longer represent you in court.”

Maksim slammed his fist on the table.

— “Everyone is being bought off!”

— “No,” I said. “For the very first time, I am simply no longer selling my own truth.”

In the following days, events unfolded rapidly. The doctor’s medical license was suspended. A laboratory employee confessed to accepting money to modify test results. The accounts of “Marina Biotech” were frozen. The patent reassignment was invalidated after evidence established they were created using funds from my sold apartment and through my own labor.

Maksim attempted to regain control several times.

Once, he made a public statement claiming I was emotionally unstable.

On another occasion, he asserted that my refusal to donate an organ placed Marina’s life in jeopardy.

However, Irakli submitted the home security footage to the court.

Inside the courtroom, I heard my husband’s real voice echoing from a large screen for the very first time:

“You must replicate her signature precisely.”

“What if she becomes suspicious?”

“She won’t. I’ll place Marina’s life in front of her, and she’ll trust me again.”

A dead silence settled over the room.

Maksim stared at the screen, as if hearing what he had said for the very first time.

His lawyer’s chair stood empty.

The judge asked him:

— “Is that your voice on this recording?”

Maksim parted his lips.

— “Yes.”

That single word changed everything.

I felt no desire for vengeance—only an overwhelming exhaustion and a strange lightness. For six years, I had tried to cushion the consequences of his decisions for him. I finally realized that was not love, but a betrayal of myself.

Following the finalization of the divorce, our house remained almost completely empty. Maksim took everything that reminded him of a new life. In the living room, only a pale square outline remained on the wall where our wedding photo had hung.

In the bedroom wardrobe, I found the small wooden box for my copper brooch. Written across it in my mother’s handwriting was: “When you forget who you are.”

I had pinned that brooch to my dress on my wedding day. On that day, I believed I was stitching my future together.

Now, I pinned it close to my heart once more.

Niko didn’t move in with me right away. At first, he lived with Sopho, while we met several times a week. The child didn’t understand much of what was happening, but he sensed that the adults were hiding something.

One evening, three months later, we arranged colored pencils in my new apartment. Through the window, the river and distant city lights were visible. Niko drew a house on a sheet of paper. The house had two doors, and both stood wide open.

— “Is this your house?” I asked him.

— “Ours,” he replied.

— “I am not your mother, Niko.”

He placed his pencil on the table.

— “I know. But when I’m scared, I want to be with you.”

I couldn’t think of an answer to that. I simply hugged him.

From that day on, small, ordinary things returned to my life. In the morning, I walked to the legal firm and signed documents under my own name for the very first time. In the evening, I helped Niko with his schoolwork. On Sundays, we bought warm bread from the bakery, and the scent of fresh butter filled the kitchen.

By the end of winter, I established a new legal team, assisting small businesses so that no one else’s signature could usurp their ideas and hard work.

Maksim sent his final message six months later:

“I still love you. Niko should grow up with us. Let’s start everything over.”

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I typed back a single reply:

“Starting over is impossible where the truth has yet to begin.”

I blocked his number.

That evening, Niko sat on the living room floor, rolling a small wooden train. Beyond the window, the first snowfall began. Snowflakes swirled slowly in the glow of the streetlamps.

He noticed my brooch.

— “Why are you wearing that?”

— “My mother gave it to me so I would remember not to lose myself during difficult times.”

Niko carefully touched the copper surface with his finger.

— “You won’t lose yourself now.”

I walked over to the window. The brooch gleamed warmly in the light reflected from the snow.

On that day, I finally understood that freedom does not arrive with a roar. It does not come with applause, victorious fanfare, or the satisfaction of another’s defeat.

Sometimes, it is simply a small copper piece pinned close to your heart when you choose your own life for the very first time.

And for the first time in many years, my heart belonged to no one else.