Every day, I saw a huge motorcyclist waiting for an abandoned infant—but a single question from me would make the smile vanish from his face.

Part 1

That night in the neonatal intensive care unit, everyone fell silent when a huge, tattooed biker told me he wanted to hold the abandoned baby.

I am Nino, and I had been working in that department for almost eleven years. I had seen a lot of things, but I still couldn’t get used to his arrival. Every evening at exactly seven o’clock, a tall man in a black leather vest, heavy boots, and an iron chain around his neck would appear at the glass doors. Outside, his motorcycle engine would slowly cool down, while inside, his eyes searched for only one spot.

A tiny baby girl lay in the incubator. Her weight didn’t even reach one kilogram. Her mother vanished just a few hours after birth, no one answered the number provided, and the father’s line on the paperwork contained only a single short dash. We temporarily named the baby Lili, because the nanny wanted us to address her by a sweet name until an official one was chosen.

The man introduced himself as Giorgi Koberidze. All his identification documents were in order. The doctors said he wasn’t related to the baby, yet for some reason, he came every day and sat by the incubator for hours.

— “Mr. Giorgi, are you planning to stay long today as well?” I asked him one evening as a paper cup trembled in his hands.

— “As long as she breathes, I’ll be here,” he replied.

— “Did you know her mother?”

He looked toward the glass.

— “No. But when you see certain people for the first time, you feel like you’ve been waiting for them your whole life.”

That answer confused me. His stern face, an old scar running through his eyebrow, and the ink-embedded tattoos on his fingers intimidated everyone, but whenever the baby cried, Giorgi transformed instantly. His shoulders would drop, his lips would tense, and a fear would appear in his eyes that I had only ever seen in parents.

On Tuesday, at ten o’clock at night, Lili couldn’t settle down for a long time. The monitor flashed rapidly, and her tiny fists reached into the air. Giorgi looked first at the baby, then at me. It was as if he wanted to ask for something, but for a man who seemed fearless on the open road, those few words proved to be the most difficult.

— “If the doctor allows it, you can hold her in your arms,” I told him quietly.

— “Can I really?”

— “Only if you won’t be afraid.”

He let out a bitter smile.

— “I haven’t been afraid of many things in life. But I am terrified of this.”

He washed his hands, put on sterile gloves, and sat down in the armchair. When I placed the little girl on his chest, Lili cried at first. Then she listened to his heartbeat, rested her tiny head against his chest, and suddenly fell silent.

Giorgi froze.

An hour passed. Then another. A colleague offered him tea.

— “No, thank you. I can’t move right now.”

I watched Lili’s tiny fingers resting against his chest and thought for the first time that this encounter was no coincidence. When they took the baby for an examination, Giorgi carefully pushed himself up. His sleeve pulled back, and I caught sight of a tattoo on his wrist. It was just a single name—Lili.

— “Is that your daughter?” I asked.

He was silent for a long time.

Then he shook his head slightly.

— “She was supposed to be.”

That night, I couldn’t go home with a quiet mind. At six in the morning, when the department doors opened again, Giorgi was holding a black folder in his hands. He walked straight up to me, set it on the desk, and said:

— “Now you need to know why I keep coming here.”

His fingers touched the lock of the folder…

Part 2

His fingers touched the lock of the folder, but he immediately pulled back, as if something inside had the power to blow up the entire room.

— “If you know who the baby’s mother is, you need to tell the police,” I said.

— “The police already know all of this.”

— “Then why is the child alone?”

Giorgi clenched his jaw. The paper cup in his hand crumpled in half.

— “Because some people are only interested in the truth when they see money in hiding it.”

That morning, Dr. Maka explained the baby’s condition to us. Lili’s breathing had improved slightly, but she was still dependent on the ventilator.

— “She needs absolute quiet,” the doctor said. “Any extra stress will affect her heart.”

Giorgi asked immediately:

— “Can I hold her again?”

The doctor looked at him for a few seconds.

— “If Nino helps you and you keep a close eye on the baby.”

— “I will watch her,” Giorgi told me, as if making a solemn vow.

By afternoon, he had Lili resting on his chest once more. This time, the baby wore a small knitted cap on her head, its yellow pom-pom swaying with every breath. Giorgi closed his eyes whenever the little girl settled, but his fingers gripped the edge of the chair tightly.

— “Did you choose the name Lili yourself?” I asked.

— “I picked that name years ago.”

— “For whom?”

— “For my child.”

— “Where is she?”

Giorgi looked down at the baby.

— “I don’t know.”

That answer was so strange that it took my breath away for a few seconds.

— “How can you not know whether your child is alive or not?”

— “Because her mother left before I could find out the truth. Her family told me the baby died. I believed them because back then, I could barely keep myself together.”

There was no anger in his voice. Only exhaustion.

That evening, in the nurses’ room, Dr. Maka closed the door.

— “Nino, have you noticed that Giorgi feels far more for this child than usual?”

— “Do you think he is the father?”

— “I think someone hid far too much in this story.”

At that exact moment, the department telephone rang. It was an unfamiliar woman.

— “I’m calling regarding Lili,” she said.

— “Who is speaking?”

— “The mother’s attorney.”

I looked at Giorgi. He heard the voice and stood up immediately, his chair scraping against the floor.

— “Do not hand the baby over to that man,” the woman whispered through the phone. “If he comes, tell him that the mother is afraid of him.”

— “Which man are you talking about?”

Instead of an answer, silence fell on the line, and then the woman added quickly:

— “And remember one thing: nothing written in the paperwork about the girl is entirely true.”

The call disconnected.

Giorgi stepped closer to me.

— “Who was that?”

— “A woman claiming to be the mother’s attorney.”

— “Did the mother call you?”

— “No.”

His face turned ash-gray. For the first time, I saw his phone slip from his grip.

— “Nino, if you find in my folder what I think you will find, please don’t just take my word for it because I speak with pain. Trust the documents.”

— “What is supposed to be in there?”

— “Proof that Lili is my daughter. And one recording that shows why they hid her from me.”

— “Why haven’t you opened it until now?”

Giorgi looked toward the glass door, behind which a monitor measured a tiny heart’s rhythm.

— “Because if this turns out to be true, certain people will lose everything. If it turns out to be a lie, I will lose the child that was already stolen from me once before.”

Just then, an unfamiliar man appeared at the end of the corridor. He wore a dark coat and held a police identification card in his hand.

— “Giorgi Koberidze?” he asked.

Giorgi pulled Lili closer.

— “Who are you?”

The man held the badge up.

— “Child Protective Services. We have an order for the immediate transfer of the child.”

I grabbed the folder. Giorgi moved toward the door.

In that moment, I knew everything would be revealed in a matter of seconds, but I didn’t yet know who to believe…

Part 3

In that moment, I knew everything would be revealed in a matter of seconds, but I didn’t yet know who to believe.

The man brought two more uniformed officers into the corridor. One held a plastic folder in his hand, while the other carried a small body camera.

— “We must temporarily transfer the child,” the first officer said. “It is a written request from the mother.”

Giorgi let out a bitter smile.

— “The mother sent you a letter, yet she doesn’t answer her phone?”

— “That is none of your concern.”

— “It is my concern if the child is my daughter.”

The air seemed to drain from the room. Dr. Maka looked over at me, and I set the black folder down on the desk.

— “Before you take the child, an attorney needs to look at this,” I said.

The officer extended his hand toward me.

— “You are a nurse, not an investigator.”

— “System protocol dictates that while this child is in my unit, her safety is my responsibility.”

Giorgi opened the folder. Inside lay several sheets of paper, a sealed envelope, and a small voice recorder. Written on the envelope was: Genetic Report — Giorgi Koberidze and Newborn Lili.

The officer took a step back.

— “That means nothing,” he said.

— “We haven’t even opened it yet,” Dr. Maka replied.

Giorgi’s hands trembled so violently he couldn’t unseal the envelope. I handed him a pair of scissors.

— “If you aren’t ready, I can open it.”

— “No,” he told me quietly. “This is my child. I should be the first to hear it.”

He opened the envelope and unfolded the paper. His eyes locked onto a few lines, and it was as if all strength drained from his body.

— “What does it say?” I asked.

Giorgi couldn’t utter a word.

Dr. Maka took the paper and read it. Then she covered her face with her hands.

— “The probability of paternity is ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent,” she said.

Giorgi lowered his head. His shoulders shook, but he didn’t cry. He simply approached the baby’s incubator and rested his hand against the glass over her forehead.

— “Lili,” he whispered. “Daddy is here.”

Complete silence fell over the room.

The uniformed officer pulled out his phone.

— “This test is not court-certified.”

— “Yet you already knew he was the father,” I told him. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be this afraid.”

He turned sharply toward me.

— “Watch your step.”

— “No, you watch yours.”

Giorgi picked up the voice recorder. A single file remained on the small device. He hit play.

A woman’s terrified voice echoed through the speaker first:

“If anything happens to the girl, tell Giorgi that I didn’t abandon her. My father told me he would put him in prison over that past car accident. He forced me to sign the documents and told me he would place the baby with another family.”

Then, a man’s heavy, cold voice cut in:

“If Giorgi shows up here, you will never see the child again. You will lose your freedom, and so will the girl.”

The recording stopped.

Giorgi leaned against the wall, his eyes hollow.

— “That voice belongs to my former father-in-law,” he said. “Levan Kavtaradze.”

The uniformed officer immediately backed away.

— “That recording was obtained illegally.”

— “Yet you still cannot take the child,” Dr. Maka interjected. “We now have evidence that the mother was coerced, and paternity has been established.”

At that exact moment, the phone rang again. An unknown number flashed on the screen. Giorgi answered.

— “Giorgi,” a woman’s raspy voice came through, “it’s Ana. Lili’s mother. I am alive, but they are outside my house. If you want to see your daughter, leave the hospital alone and come to the old train station.”

Giorgi froze.

— “Where are you?”

— “Don’t tell anyone yet. And there’s one more thing you need to know… Levan didn’t just plan to hide our child. He did something far bigger to you…”