Alexander stopped by the door.
His hand gripped the iron handle, but he did not open the door.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Robert placed the phone on the table.
“The fund is empty. Six million dollars are gone.”
Chloe looked toward him.
“Did you transfer it?”
“Be quiet,” Alexander shouted at her.
This was the first time Chloe heard fear in his voice. She stepped back and pressed the sleeve of her white jacket against the dusty wall.
Robert calmly continued:
“The money was transferred during the night. But not to an account connected with my client. It went to the fund that, under clause seven of the agreement, is subject to Katherine’s control.”},{
Alexander’s face changed.
“Impossible.”
“You signed it yourself,” I said.
“That clause takes effect only after the divorce.”
“No. It takes effect immediately when the director commits intentional fraud in the company’s name. That is exactly why you demanded that the document be in fine print.”
The siren of a police car sounded outside.
Alexander took out his mobile phone and called someone.
“Stop all transfers immediately. No, I do not care how. I am the director.”
He listened to the answer on the other side, then the phone fell from his ear.
“The bank froze the account,” he said.
Robert nodded.
“Because at eight in the morning I received a temporary order from the court.”
Alexander looked at me.
“Did you plan all this in advance?”
“No. I simply protected myself for the first time when I realized that you were using my life and my name.”
The police officers entered. Alexander immediately changed his expression and softened his voice.
“This is a family misunderstanding,” he told one of the police officers. “My wife is emotionally unstable.”
I said nothing.
Robert, however, turned the laptop around.
“Then listen to yourself.”
He played the recording again.
Alexander’s voice rang out in the dusty warehouse:
“Use her code. If anything happens, you will say that Katherine instructed you.”
Then his second voice came:
“She understands nothing. After the wedding, everything will be in our names.”
Alexander stared at the screen as if a stranger were appearing there.
“I did not say that,” he whispered.
“You said it yourself,” Robert replied.
Chloe sat down by the wall. The diamond ring glittered on her hand, although now it was only a heavy, cold object.
“Alexander, you told me that you had already divorced Katherine.”
“We did not have time.”
“You told me that the company would remain ours.”
“Be quiet.”
“You told me that she was only a woman signed onto a document.”
Alexander’s face turned pale.
The police officer held his hands out in front of him.
“Mr. Alexander, we must continue this conversation at the station.”
“Katherine, tell them this is a mistake.”
For the first time, there was no command in his voice.
Only a request.
I looked at him and realized that for three years I had been doing exactly this — convincing everyone that his cruelty was a mistake. But now I no longer wanted to save him at the price of my own truth.
“This is no longer my mistake,” I said.
Alexander was taken away.
Chloe sat motionless for several minutes. Then she removed the ring and placed it on the table.
“I did not know,” she said.
“You knew about the money transfers.”
“I thought he had divorced you.”
“You should have asked.”
Chloe lowered her eyes.
“What will happen to me now?”
“You will answer for what you did. But I am not going to punish you.”
Robert handed the audio recording and bank documents to the police. That same day the company board removed Alexander from the position of director. My controlling share was temporarily activated, while the court transferred the company’s money to a protected account.
Alexander’s lawyer called me in the evening.
“An agreement is possible,” he told me. “Your husband is ready to apologize publicly.”
“He will no longer be my husband.”
“You can end everything peacefully.”
“Ending peacefully does not mean that I must hide the truth.”
“He may go to prison.”
“That is no longer my decision. It is the result of his decisions.”
After a silence, the lawyer ended the conversation.
That night I entered the penthouse alone for the first time. Everything in the living room stood in its place: the glass table, the tall windows, the wine glasses arranged on the shelf. But the house no longer looked like a home.
I found the bedroom closet half empty. Alexander had taken his clothes. On my side only one thing remained — a small wooden box in which I kept the clasp in the shape of my father’s old compass.
I bought this clasp three years ago, when I was going to sign the contract with Alexander. Four small directions were engraved on it, and it always reminded me that a person chooses the road himself.
I picked up the clasp.
For the first time I was not ashamed that I had lost.
For the first time I knew that I had survived.
Three weeks later the court charged Alexander with fraud and intentional falsification of the company’s finances. Chloe gave testimony to the investigation and returned part of the money. Her wedding did not take place.
I did not smile at a single hearing.
Not even when Alexander finally signed the divorce through his lawyer.
I simply signed and put the pen aside.
Four months later my father’s transport company began operating again. I became head of its finance department and hung new maps on the office walls. No one used the old warehouse anymore; in its place we opened a children’s logistics training center.
On the first day a little girl drew me a truck with an excessively large sun above it.
“Is this you?” I asked.
“No,” she told me. “It is a truck that goes home.”
I placed the drawing on my desk.
Every morning I opened the window, made coffee myself, and no longer left the cup in a room filled with the smell of burnt coffee. On Sundays I went to my father. He no longer asked me whether Alexander had called.
One morning he did call me.
“Katherine, meet me just once,” Alexander told me. “I explained everything. Chloe deceived me.”
“Your voice was on the recording.”
“I made a mistake.”
“No. You made a choice.”
“I still love you.”
The first snow was beginning outside the window. Snowflakes fell on the roofs of the trucks and silently covered the street.
“I will not return to you,” I told him.
“Will you just leave me like this?”
“You left me a long time ago. Now I have only stopped walking behind you.”
I ended the conversation.
I put the phone on the table and returned to my work.
I still had the invitation. I attached my father’s old compass-shaped clasp to its back so that the wind would not scatter the paper.
The gold letters slowly grew cold.
And for the first time I knew where I was going.
The compass needle pointed north.
I was not turning back anymore.
Missed the beginning?
