Psychro Killer: Chapter 18 - The Envelope

When Niko finally finds the strength to call his mother, his heart pounds in his chest. It had been months since they last spoke. Since arriving in Crete, he'd been too afraid of reopening the old wounds, of dragging her back into the shadows of her past. But now, with the truth laid bare before him, Niko couldn’t avoid it any longer.

The phone rang. A sound that seemed to stretch on forever. When Helena answered, her voice was cautious, nervous.

“Niko? Mou? Is that you?”

For a moment, he was overwhelmed by the weight of everything he’d learned. The fractured stories, the dark suspicions that had haunted his family for so long. But his voice was steady as he spoke. “Yes, Mama. I need to tell you something. About Dad.”

There was a pause, the kind that crackles with unspoken fears. Helena had avoided so many questions over the years, but now her son had broken the silence.

As Niko spoke, slowly unravelling the tangled myths and the half-truths, Helena said little. She barely breathed. But when Niko mentioned Hestia—the woman Vassilis had left behind, and Stamatios, Niko’s half-brother—Helena gasped softly. Her voice faltered, as if the ground she’d stood on for years was crumbling beneath her.

And then the most difficult moment of all: Niko handed the phone to Yannis, who had been standing nearby. Yannis had remained stoic, but his eyes softened as he took the phone from Niko. It had been so many years since he had spoken to his sister. “Helena?”

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. Niko couldn’t hear what Yannis said to his sister, but he could see the strain of decades in Yannis’ expression—the mixture of relief and guilt, of anger and sadness. Their conversation was short, stilted. So much time had passed, and yet the bond between siblings, though weathered, had not completely withered away.

Meanwhile, Hestia sat by the edge of the courtyard, her shoulders less rigid but still tense in the unfamiliar surroundings. She had lived in the shadows for so long that being thrust into the light felt alien to her. She watched her son, Stamatios, from a distance, seeing the joy in his eyes as he talked to Niko. Stamatios, delighted to have a half-brother, was already planning how they could stay in touch. “I’ll come to visit,” he insisted, “but the farm… I have to get back soon.”

Niko, leaning heavily on his cane due to his leg, nodded. “I understand. But we’ll keep in contact. Your family.”

How the village would respond to this new information hung in the air. The revelation that Vassilis was not the man they thought he was—that he hadn’t committed the crimes they had whispered about for years—would shock the community. There would be no grand welcoming ceremony, no immediate celebration. It was far too complicated for that. Old grudges ran deep, but the truth, Niko knew, would eventually trickle into the minds of those who had judged his father so harshly. Perhaps there would be peace in the end.

Before Helena’s arrival, Niko stood in the doorway of his mother’s old bedroom. It felt strange, almost like trespassing, but he had come so far, uncovering so many dark corners of his family’s past, that this drawer—this last secret—felt inevitable. The wardrobe creaked as he opened it, the smell of old wood and lavender sachets flooding out, dragging him back to his childhood. How many times had he seen his mother reach into this very drawer, her movements always quick, secretive? He hadn’t noticed then. Now, he couldn’t ignore it.

His hand hesitated at the knob. This felt like crossing a line—one that could not be uncrossed.

Zoe would have said, he mused, that it’s not the crossing that matters, but the reasons for doing it. And wasn’t this exactly what he came here for? Truth. As messy and painful as it was.

Niko fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a thin piece of wire. After a few clumsy attempts, the drawer gave way with a sharp click. His hands trembled as he slid it open, unsure of what he was expecting to find, but driven by a strange sense of purpose.

The drawer revealed a stack of old letters, yellowed with age. Some were folded carefully into neat piles; others seemed hastily shoved in, as though they had been looked at in moments of great emotion. These were his father’s letters to Helena, his handwriting unmistakable in its earnest, boyish scrawl. Niko flipped through a few, reading snippets of words—"my love," "forgive me," "I wish I could make it right." They were painful to read, evidence of a man who had loved deeply, but who had, in his own way, ruined everything.

As he thumbed through them, one of the folded pieces of paper slipped from his grasp, fluttering to the ground. He bent to pick it up, but his fingers brushed against something else—something stuck between the floorboards. Frowning, Niko crouched down, peering closer. There, wedged in the narrow crack between the floor and the wall, was an envelope. Old, dust-covered, as if it had been forgotten long ago.

He pulled it free, wiping the grime off with his sleeve. The paper felt rough in his hands, the envelope unmarked, except for a faint, barely legible scrawl in the corner. "Yannis."

Niko’s heart raced. He stared at the name, barely able to breathe. This wasn’t meant for his mother. It was addressed to his uncle. The letter had been lost, misplaced for God knows how long, hidden in the very room where it might never have been found.

With trembling hands, Niko slid a finger under the envelope’s flap and tore it open. Inside, the letter was folded neatly, as though Vassilis had taken care in writing it. Niko’s eyes scanned the first few lines, his pulse pounding in his ears as he began to read. The words spilled out in his father’s familiar script, but they felt different—more raw, more desperate.

As he read, the truth he had chased for so long began to reveal itself. Vassilis’ confession, his apology to Yannis, the night by the caves with Hestia—it was all there. The affair, the pregnancy, the fear of the village discovering his secret. And the moment when it all went wrong—Hestia’s screams, the witness accusing him, and Vassilis’ decision to run.

Niko sank to the floor, the weight of it all crashing down on him. This was the truth. His father hadn’t been a murderer. He had been a coward, a man caught in a web of his own making, but he had not killed her.

He folded the letter slowly, his hands trembling, and placed it back in the envelope. For the first time in months, the fog of confusion lifted from his mind, but it was replaced by something else—a crushing, bittersweet relief. The man his father had been was not a monster, but still, Niko wasn’t sure whether he could ever forgive him.

The letter, this lost fragment of his father’s past, had been waiting all these years, hidden and unread. But now, finally, it had found its way into the light.

What sins could still be hiding in here, Father? he thought bitterly. What else did you leave for me to unravel?

There was no going back now. His fingers tore gently along the seal, breaking it open with a soft, dry crackle. Inside was a letter, not long, but dense with the tension of years gone unspoken. As he unfolded it, a small piece of paper, folded into the shape of a bird, fell into his lap—a childish remnant of a different time.

Niko placed the bird aside and began to read.

My Brother, Yannis—

I have no right to ask you for anything, not after what I’ve done, but I beg you to listen to me. You deserve the truth.

I love Helena, truly. Every step I take with her feels like my salvation, like I had found my way back from something darker. But in my stupidity and weakness, I did something that will shame me forever.

You already know about Hestia. It was a mistake—one I wish I could undo. But when she told me she was pregnant, everything became worse. I tried to speak with her, tried to tell her it couldn’t go on. That she could...end it. But Hestia was not having any of it. She lashed out, screaming, pushing me away like I was the devil himself.

And that’s when someone heard us. I don’t know who it was, but they yelled at me, accused me of hurting her. I swear to you, Yannis, on everything I have left, I never laid a hand on her. The moment I heard them shout, something snapped inside me, and I ran like a coward.

By the time you read this, Helena and I will be gone. I wanted to say goodbye properly, but I couldn’t risk it—not with the rumours, the whispers, and the hatred that would surely follow me.

I don’t expect forgiveness. I barely expect you to believe me. But I hope one day, when you think of me, you’ll remember the man who wanted to make things right, even if I failed at it.

I hope you will find peace.

—Vassilis

The letter shook in Niko’s hands as the final words sank in. His chest tightened, a knot of grief and rage twisting in his gut. His father’s sins had haunted him for years, like ghosts whispering just beyond the reach of reason. But to see them now—laid bare on the page—was both a relief and a curse.

Not a murderer, he repeated in his mind. A coward, a liar, but not a murderer.

It wasn’t a full exoneration, but it was enough. Enough to let the air back into his lungs. He could breathe again. He could feel his father’s mistakes, his regret, but also... his love. It was something. Something fragile, but real.

And yet, Niko couldn’t shake the sadness that clung to him. His father had been willing to die with this truth locked away. How different could things have been if he had just shared it? If he hadn’t been so afraid of the consequences?

He felt a deep, aching regret—not just for his father, but for the lost time, the wasted years of pain and distance. We could have been better than this, he thought. We should have been.

He glanced at the small paper bird, gently lifting it between his fingers. His father had once folded these for him as a child. Simple shapes, but they had felt like magic then. Now, it felt like a broken promise. Yet it was still something—still a reminder that even in his father’s failings, there had been moments of tenderness.

With the letter crumpled in his fist, Niko allowed himself to cry—softly at first, and then harder, as the years of anger and misunderstanding flooded out of him. His father had been so many things: a traitor, a fool, but he wasn’t a murderer. That knowledge, however small, lifted something heavy off his chest.

Niko would have to tell Yannis and his mother what he had found. The truth wasn’t perfect, but it was here, waiting, as it always had been.