Everything fell into place with terrifying clarity. Her innate kindness, her quiet melancholy that sometimes showed behind her smile. The weariness in her eyes. She wasn’t just working to pay for her education. She was fighting to keep the man I had destroyed alive. The irony was so cruel, so perverse, I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.
“I… I didn’t know,” I managed to mutter. My voice was foreign, hoarse.
“Of course you didn’t know,” she replied, a thin note of contempt creeping into her tone. “People like you don’t care about the consequences. You just keep going, building your empires on ruins.”
Every word she said was like a whiplash. I deserved it. I deserved every bit of that pain.
At that moment, a young man appeared from the next room. He was tall and thin, with lush brown hair and eyes that burned with the same fire that I had once seen in the eyes of young Naum. But while Naum’s fire was of enthusiasm and dreams, the boy’s was cold and sharp, forged with anger. He was carrying a stack of textbooks and stopped abruptly when he saw me.
“What is this guy doing here?” he hissed, looking first at me and then at his sister. There was no question in his voice, but accusation.
“Dejan, please…” Lilia began.
“No, Lilia! What is Assen doing in our home? Has he come to enjoy his creation? To see how far he has brought grandpa?”
Deyan, obviously her brother, stepped towards me. I stood still, unable to defend myself, unable to even find the words. All my negotiating skills, all my power and self-confidence that had brought me to the top, evaporated before the pure, unadulterated hatred in this boy’s eyes.
“Thirty years ago you stole everything from him,” Deyan continued, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. “You stole his idea, his patents, his company, his future. You left him in debt and a ruined name. Because of you he could never work in his field again. Because of you my father had to work in three places until he got sick and died. Because of you our mother lived in constant fear and anxiety. Everything, every misfortune in this family, starts with you!”
He was right. It was all true.
The memory exploded in my mind with the brightness of lightning. Naum and I, young, full of energy, in our small, battered office. We were more than partners, we were brothers. Naum was the genius, the inventor. He had the vision, creating innovative projects in the field of communications that were decades ahead. I was the businessman, the person who found financing, who convinced investors. Our company, Iskra, was our common child.
The breakthrough came with a project that Naum called “Helios”. It was a revolutionary data transfer system, something unprecedented until then. We knew that this was our golden ticket. But we were small. The big fish were already circling around us. Then an offer came from a huge conglomerate. They wanted to buy us, but they offered pennies. Naum was categorical – we refuse. He believed in the power of our idea.
But I got scared. And I got greedy. I saw a shorter path to the top. Behind Naum’s back, I met with their competitors. I offered them a deal. I would give them all the documentation and patents of Helios, and they would give me a controlling stake in a newly created subsidiary that would develop the project. The name of this company was Imperia.
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