After the funeral, the road seemed endless and unfamiliar. Luxury cars slowly left the cemetery one after another.
Alex stood by the fence, clutching a crumpled flower in his hand. He was only ten years old. He did not yet fully understand what death was, but he felt all too clearly the emptiness that had suddenly settled inside him.
His father had gone too quickly. Just a month earlier, the doctors had spoken about treatment, and ten days later his heart simply stopped. That was what the adults said. Alex had not had time to ask a single important question and did not know how to go on living. In that final moment, his father had only squeezed his hand tightly and whispered softly, “Forgive me, my son.”
Not far away stood Victoria. The widow in an expensive black suit, with a perfect hairstyle and a cold gaze. She had married his father two years earlier, when Alex was still a child, and from the very beginning she had looked at him as an unnecessary detail in her life.
Now his father was gone, and the boy was left with a woman in whose eyes there was neither pity nor warmth.
After leaving the cemetery, they got into the car. Victoria drove in silence, without saying a single word of comfort. Alex looked out the window, expecting the familiar turn toward home, but the car drove out of the city. An hour passed, then a little more time. Finally, the SUV turned onto a narrow dirt road and stopped abruptly.
There were no houses or people around. Only an empty road.
“There’s a village over there. Walk straight—you won’t die. I don’t need a burden; the entire inheritance will be mine anyway,” Victoria said curtly, gesturing toward the door.
Alex did not immediately understand what was happening. He got out of the car, still hoping it was a cruel joke. Victoria smirked, slammed the door, and started the engine. The boy took a step forward, but the car was already turning around.
He stood there, watching the black car disappear around the bend. He had no money and not even a phone. His father had been buried only an hour earlier, and he himself had been left on the roadside like a useless object.
Victoria returned from a luxurious vacation, tanned, satisfied, and confident. She drove up to the house she considered hers, but was stopped at the gate by security.
“You can’t enter here. You are no one here anymore.”
Victoria laughed, not believing what she was hearing.
“How can that be? I’m the owner of this house. My husband left everything to me.”
The guard looked at her calmly.
“No. He left all his property to his son, whom you tried to get rid of, but whom we fortunately found. And since he is still a minor, all of his finances will be managed by his guardian.”
“Yes, that’s me,” Victoria said sharply.
“No. The guardian is Margarita.”
Victoria turned pale.
“Our housekeeper?”
“Yes, exactly. Your late husband trusted her very much. Everything is stated in the will. And now I ask you to leave the house, otherwise I will have to call the police.”
“And my husband didn’t leave me anything?” Victoria hissed.
“Of course he did. He said you may take all the things you bought with his money during his lifetime.”
Victoria turned around in silence and left. No one ever saw her again.
