In the underground parking lot, deep within the business center, the roar of the massive ventilation fan drowned out every step. Roman descended to the minus second level, buttoning his soft cashmere coat as he moved.
The air carried a characteristic mix of raw concrete, exhaust fumes, and cooled asphalt, lending a cold, metallic scent to the dimly lit space.
Twenty minutes ago, he had left the meeting room, leaving his business partner, Oleg, behind. The conversation had been one that no one would wish on their enemy.
Oleg had long been pushing for the sale of their company to a large monopoly, but Roman had firmly resisted. Oleg slammed the glass door behind him in a flush of anger and redness.
Roman pressed the remote control button. The huge black SUV flashed its headlights warmly in the dim light.
He was already reaching for the cold, chrome door handle when a soft, rustling sound came from the side. Someone tugged at the edge of his coat.
Roman turned sharply. Just a step away, a girl of about eight stood. Her clothes were faded, clearly someone else’s coat, with the sleeves rolled up three times, and a gray hat pulled down to her eyebrows.
She wore crooked glasses on her nose, the thick lenses crudely taped around the edges. She clutched a worn notebook in her hands.
“Uncle, you mustn’t go there!” whispered the tiny visitor of the parking lot, glancing nervously at the concrete pillar. “The brakes have been cut.”
“What? How did you get here?” Roman instinctively crouched, looking around the dim space.
“I was sitting behind the pipes. Warmth comes out from there through the grate,” she said, pointing with her dirty finger to the darkest corner. “And two people went to their big car.
One slipped with the lamp, and the other stood and said, ‘Quick! If it goes onto the road, it will fly on its own, and we stay clean.’”
A shiver ran down Roman’s spine. He knew that tonight he was heading to the winding mountain road. Only Oleg knew about this.
He pulled out his phone.
“Stas, come down to minus two! Immediately! And bring the guys with good lights.”
Five minutes later, the security chief crawled out from under the SUV’s front bumper, groaning. Oil glistened on his fingers.
“The equipment is damaged. They worked skillfully, Roman Sergeyevich,” Stanislav said grimly, wiping his hands with a rag.
“There are barely any puddles in the parking lot, but if you hit the pedal a few times, everything would spill in a minute. There would have been an accident on the first slope.”
Roman looked at the girl. She stood at his side, shifting from foot to foot in worn shoes.
“Come on,” Roman extended his hand to her. “What’s your name, little savior?”
“Katya,” she said softly, sliding her icy little fingers into Roman’s broad palm.
On the first floor, the bright café smelled of freshly ground coffee and vanilla syrup. Katya held the pot-bellied mug of hot chocolate with both hands.
She took tiny sips, leaving a playful moustache of foam on her lips, and quickly bit into the warm croissant, brushing the crumbs into her hand.
“Why were you alone in the parking lot, Katya? Where are your mom and dad?” Roman asked, setting aside his own drink.
“Dad isn’t here. At all. And mom, Mom, she’s working at the cannery now,” the girl replied, carefully wiping crumbs on a napkin. “She works two shifts.
By the time I’m asleep, she comes home. I take the bus from school to get here. The security guards aren’t angry here, it’s warm. I draw people. Those who like it give me coins. Mom collects them.”
“For what?”
“For specialists’ help. If we don’t do anything, soon I won’t be able to see anything. I have a serious, incurable disease if it’s not treated.”
Roman studied her face. In the line of her narrow eyes, the stubborn shape of her chin, he saw features that scratched at long-buried feelings inside him.
“Will you show me what you draw?”
Katya pulled out the worn notebook. Roman began flipping through the grayish pages. Grim courier faces, a sleeping guard in a chair, a street cat. On the last page, a sketch of a woman’s face.
Tired wrinkles at the corners of the mouth, a strand of hair escaping from a tight bun, and that heavy, stubborn gaze that seemed to look at him from under the eyebrows.
Roman’s fingers trembled. He immersed himself in the faint pencil lines. From the page, Mom looked at him—the girl he had lost nine years ago.
Nine years ago, Roman had not yet worn a cashmere coat. He worked as a furniture maker in a small-town workshop, always surrounded by the smell of sawdust and glue. Mom was in her final year at the accounting and finance technical school.
They could sit for hours on the old riverside railing, eat pistachio ice cream, argue about what color the wallpaper should be in their future apartment.
But their path was blocked by Lidia Markovna—Mom’s grandmother. A strict woman who had previously worked at the city council. The first floor of her apartment smelled of flowers and soap.
“Why are you here?” Lidia Markovna said, crossing the threshold, folding her dry arms over her chest. “Trying to sneak in again with your sawdust?”
My granddaughter does not sit over books in the middle of the night to patch the socks of some wretched man. She should find a normal, promising person, and leave you alone.
“Grandma, enough!” Mom shouted, rushing down the hallway, grabbing Roman’s hand, pulling him toward the staircase.
They paid no attention to the old woman’s grumbling. Then came that October trial.
On the old suspension bridge, they tried to take a shortcut outside the city. The wind was fierce, bending the dry branches along the riverbank. When Roman and Mom reached the middle of the bridge, an unpleasant metallic creak sounded.
The rusty right support, unchecked for years, broke. The planks slid sharply from under their feet.
Roman tried to grab Mom’s coat, but his fingers slipped on the smooth fabric, and the next moment, the icy water of the mountain river poured over them.
The current was wild. Roman slammed hard against the rocks, suffering severe injuries as he hit an old concrete pillar.
He regained consciousness in a ward at the district hospital. The smell of chlorine and boiled porridge filled the room. A nurse hooked him up to an IV. Once Roman could stand, ignoring the excruciating pain in his ribs, he headed to Mom’s house.
The door opened to reveal Lidia Markovna. She wore a black headscarf.
“Where is Mom? Which hospital is she in?” Roman shouted hoarsely, clutching the doorframe. His body collapsed, yet he stood.
The old woman looked at him with empty, unblinking eyes.
“Mom is gone. The river took her. Because of her, foolish boy. You took her onto that bridge. Go. And don’t let me see you here again.”
Roman left town that same day. He took any work he could on construction sites in the capital, slept four hours a night, organized his crew, then started his own company. He kept busy to avoid being alone with his thoughts.
He could not know that the old woman had lied to his face. Mom had survived. Two kilometers downstream, fishermen rescued her. She lay in a small-town clinic.
Lidia Markovna arrived by bus and sat on the squeaking edge of the bed, telling her granddaughter, “Roma is gone. He’s gone from life, they only found his coat by the dam.”
The old woman genuinely believed that this lie was the only way to keep the grandson away from the “hopeless” boy forever.
When Mom was discharged from the hospital, she discovered she was pregnant. Lidia Markovna could not accept the news. Her heart gave out, and three months later she passed away.
Mom sold the grandmother’s “two-room” apartment and moved to a neighboring region, far from the river and the painful memories.
She rented a room and began looking for how she could buy her own place. At the local church, she struck up a conversation with a kind woman, Zhanna.
The woman listened to Mom’s story, sighed, offered tea from a thermos, and suggested a great opportunity: a good room in a dormitory, urgently for sale, for pennies.
Zhanna offered to help with the paperwork. Exhausted from pregnancy and solitude, Mom handed her all the money directly in the car in front of the administrative office, without asking for a receipt.
Zhanna “went to stand in line” and never returned. The police just shrugged—the handover had no official proof.
With newborn Katya in her arms, Mom ended up on the street. They were lucky; an elderly factory guard let them into an old suburban warehouse.
The building was tilted, corners covered with mold, and mice ran around at night, but there was a stove. Later it became clear that Katya’s vision had been severely impaired.
Roman sat in the café, staring at the pencil drawing. The edge of the paper trembled slightly in his hand.
“Katya…” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Where do you live? Far from here?”
“An hour by bus, then on foot from the stop, through the pipes,” the girl gathered the crumbs in her hand.
“We’re going in my car. Right now.”
As they went, Roman called the security team. Stas executed the task precisely: Oleg was caught at the city exit with two bodyguards. The parking lot camera footage and the statements of the hired men were more than enough for arrest.
The next morning was damp. Mom stood in the warehouse yard, the wind tearing the wet clothes from the line. She rinsed the bedding in a zinc tub. Her fingers reddened from the icy well water. She wrapped herself in an old gray sweater, trying to warm up.
The heavy sound of motorcycles broke the silence of the abandoned street. Mom lifted her head, brushing back wet strands of hair. A huge black SUV arrived at their decaying fence, followed by two escort vehicles.
The SUV door opened. A tall man stepped onto the weed-choked ground. He took a few steps, then stopped at the gate.
Mom’s fingers relaxed. The wet blanket fell heavily into the mud. Her breathing faltered.
“Mom…” Roman’s voice broke.
“Roma?” she took an uncertain step, stumbling on the tub’s edge. “But… how? Grandma said… the river took him…”
“That’s what she told me too.”
He pulled open the gate, stepped up to her, and simply hugged her. He held her so tightly it was as if he might vanish. Mom buried her nose in his neck, inhaling the forgotten scent, the mixture of expensive cologne.
Katya ran out to the tilted porch. She adjusted the glasses crudely taped around her eyes and stared at the man from yesterday in amazement.
Roman stepped away from Mom, approached the porch, and crouched before the girl. He carefully removed her heavy glasses.
“Go, pack your things. You’re not staying here anymore.”
A week later, Roman’s lawyers tracked down Zhanna in a neighboring county.
A few stern talks with the strong men from the security team worked wonders—the con woman repaid the full amount in cash, every single bill, suddenly remembering the debt.
Katya received the necessary treatments at a good state clinic. When the specialists completed the rehabilitation, the little girl looked at the world for the first time without the distorting lenses. She turned to Roman standing in the doorway, smiling shyly.
Six months later, Roman, Mom, and Katya visited the old port city cemetery. They stood at Lidia Markovna’s grave. Mom placed a bouquet of carnations on the yellowed grass. She did not resent the grandmother.
Light, slanting rain fell, washing the gravestones clean of dust. Roman took off his coat, draped it over Mom, and held Katya in his arms. They turned and walked toward the exit, leaving behind the hardest trial of their lives.
