# “Sir, Don’t Get Into That Car… Someone Cut Your Brakes”
The roar of the ventilation system echoed through the underground parking garage, drowning out every other sound. Roman strode across the concrete floor toward his black SUV, buttoning his cashmere coat as he walked. He was exhausted and angry.
Less than thirty minutes earlier, he had stormed out of a meeting room after a fierce argument with his business partner, Oleg. Together they had spent years building one of the region’s most successful construction companies, but lately they had been at odds over its future.
Oleg wanted to sell the company to a powerful corporation.
Roman refused.
The argument had ended with Oleg slamming the glass door so hard that the walls shook.
“You’ll regret this,” Oleg had hissed before leaving.
Those words were still ringing in Roman’s ears as he pressed the button on his key fob. The SUV’s headlights flashed in response.
He was reaching for the door handle when he felt a gentle tug on the edge of his coat.
Roman turned around.
A little girl stood behind him.
She couldn’t have been older than eight. Her oversized jacket looked as though it had belonged to someone else. The sleeves were rolled up several times. A gray knit hat slipped over her eyebrows, and thick glasses sat crookedly on her nose, one arm held together with electrical tape. In her hands she clutched a worn notebook.
“Sir,” she whispered nervously, “don’t get into that car.”
Roman frowned.
“Why not?”
The girl glanced anxiously around the garage.
“Because someone cut your brakes.”
For a moment, he thought he had misheard her.
“What did you say?”
“I was sitting behind the pipes where it’s warm,” she explained. “Two men came to your car. One crawled underneath with a flashlight. The other said, ‘Hurry up. Once he gets onto the mountain road, it’ll look like an accident.’”
A chill ran down Roman’s spine.
Only one person knew he planned to drive out of town that evening.
Oleg.
Roman immediately pulled out his phone.
“Stas,” he barked into it, “get down to Level Minus Two right now. Bring the security team.”
Within minutes, the head of security was inspecting the vehicle.
When he finally emerged from beneath the SUV, his face was grim.
“She’s telling the truth,” Stas said. “The brake line has been damaged professionally. You wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late. On a steep descent, you’d have lost control completely.”
Roman looked back at the little girl.
She stood quietly nearby, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Katya.”
“Well, Katya,” Roman said softly, “you just saved my life.”
A short while later they sat in a bright café on the first floor of the business center.
Katya wrapped both hands around a mug of hot chocolate, sipping carefully. A chocolate mustache formed above her lip as she nibbled on a warm croissant.
“Where are your parents?” Roman asked.
“My dad isn’t around,” she replied. “My mom works at a canning factory. Two shifts every day.”
“And you come here alone?”
Katya nodded.
“After school. It’s warm here. I draw people. Sometimes they give me coins.”
Roman studied her closely.
“What are you saving the money for?”
The girl lowered her eyes.
“My eyesight.”
Only then did he notice how thick her lenses really were.
“The doctors say I need treatment. If I don’t get it, I might stop seeing altogether.”
Roman swallowed hard.
“Can I see your drawings?”
Katya handed him the notebook.
Page after page contained pencil sketches of people she had observed: security guards, delivery drivers, office workers, even stray cats.
Then Roman reached the final page.
His hand froze.
The portrait showed a woman.
A tired but beautiful face. Determined eyes. A loose strand of hair falling from a tightly tied bun.
Roman’s heart nearly stopped.
He knew that face.
Anya.
Nine years ago, she had been the love of his life.
Back then, Roman had been a simple furniture assembler working in a small workshop. He smelled of sawdust and glue instead of expensive cologne and success.
Anya had believed in him when nobody else did.
They dreamed together.
They planned a future together.
Only one person opposed their relationship: Anya’s grandmother.
The elderly woman believed Roman was poor, irresponsible, and had no future.
Then came the accident.
One windy autumn afternoon, Roman and Anya crossed an old suspension bridge outside town.
Halfway across, a rusted support cable snapped.
The bridge collapsed beneath them.
Both were thrown into the icy river below.
Roman survived after suffering severe injuries.
When he was finally released from the hospital, he rushed to Anya’s home.
Her grandmother opened the door.
“Anya is gone,” she told him coldly. “The river took her.”
The words shattered him.
Believing he had lost her forever, Roman left town and buried himself in work.
Years passed.
He built a company.
Made a fortune.
But he never stopped missing her.
Now, staring at Katya’s drawing, he realized the impossible.
“Katya,” he asked quietly, “where do you live?”
The next morning, three vehicles rolled into a rundown industrial settlement on the outskirts of town.
A woman stood outside a crumbling shack, washing laundry in a metal basin.
At the sound of the engines, she looked up.
The wet sheet slipped from her hands into the mud.
“Roman?” she whispered.
“Anya.”
Neither moved.
Nine years of grief, loneliness, and lost time stood between them.
“My grandmother told me you died,” Anya said through tears.
Roman stared at her.
“She told me the same thing about you.”
The truth emerged piece by piece.
After the accident, both had survived.
But Anya’s grandmother had lied to each of them, believing she was protecting her granddaughter from a poor young man with no prospects.
Shortly afterward, Anya discovered she was pregnant.
Katya was Roman’s daughter.
She had raised the girl alone.
Life had been cruel. A con artist had stolen her savings. Poverty had followed. Then came Katya’s worsening eye condition.
Roman listened in silence.
Then he made a promise.
“You’ll never face any of this alone again.”
Within days, his lawyers tracked down the woman who had stolen Anya’s money and recovered every dollar.
Katya received treatment at one of the country’s best clinics.
Months later, the doctors removed her thick glasses.
For the first time in years, she saw the world clearly.
She turned toward Roman and smiled.
“I can see you now.”
Half a year later, the three of them stood together in a quiet cemetery.
Rain fell gently across the gravestones.
Anya placed flowers on her grandmother’s grave.
She no longer carried anger in her heart.
Roman wrapped an arm around her shoulders while holding Katya’s hand.
Together they walked toward the cemetery gates.
For the first time in nearly a decade, they were no longer walking away from the past.
They were walking toward the future they had almost lost forever.
