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Lucia loved violets very much. Quiet, delicate, with petals the color of night. They were her only comfort in a home where love had long since faded. After her mother's death, her father quickly remarried—to a fat, tall woman who always left a trail of heavy perfume mixed with the smell of cutlets behind her.
The stepmother did not shout; she was a generally unquarrelsome woman. Martina acted silently, methodically, and ruthlessly, like a surgeon who cuts away everything unnecessary during an operation. And Lucia gradually disappeared—first from photographs, then from memories, and later from the house.
The sun rarely shone into her room, which overlooked an old olive grove, but the violets liked it and bloomed almost all year round. Ordinary, semi-double, double, star-shaped — they had always been and remained her consolation. That day, they stood on the windowsill, their petals closed, like silent witnesses. One day, her stepmother brought some documents. “You need to sign these. They're for Banco Santander,” Martina said. Lucia was emotionally exhausted, so she signed them without saying a word. A week later, her stepmother simply kicked her out. No explanation, no money, just a small suitcase on wheels.
Lucia wandered around the city, but it started to rain, so she had to go into a small cafe to drink some hot tea. It smelled of buns and mocha. She sat in the corner at a table and looked out the window at the pouring rain. On the table was a pot with a violet, the only thing she had managed to grab. The waitress who brought the tea admired the flower and warned that they would soon have to ask Lucia to leave the establishment. But when asked if there were any inexpensive rooms available, she nodded affirmatively.
Going up to the second floor, the girl fell onto the bed in tears. She didn't sleep that night. She took out her laptop and turned it on. Her fingers slid across the keyboard, opening her email. There was only one unread letter in her inbox. And, unsurprisingly, it was from her father: “If you are reading this, it means she did what I feared she would do. But I have something saved for you. You are stronger than you think.” Next was a short instruction on how to find and return her father's savings.
Carefully digging up the violet, Lucia began to rake the soil. Under the roots lay a small plastic, airtight capsule. Inside it was a handwritten note with passwords and a flash drive. She plugged in the flash drive. The screen displayed access to a crypto wallet, and the balance showed over a million dollars in USDT.
In another folder was a hidden and password-protected archive: videos, documents, and recordings of conversations. All of them were with her stepmother, as evidence of her crimes: threats, forged signatures, and withdrawal of funds from the company's bank accounts.
Lucia no longer hesitated. She turned to a lawyer, the police, and journalists. When the investigation began, her stepmother denied everything. But the evidence was irrefutable, and Martina was arrested. The trial lasted a long time. But Lucia endured.
A year later, she returned to her home. It was empty, but no longer cold. She placed a violet on the windowsill. The same one that had quietly guarded her parents' secret. It bloomed.
