Svetlana was sitting at the kitchen table when her phone suddenly came alive with the sharp sound of an incoming message. She glanced at the screen automatically — and froze.
The text was short, but every word hit like a slap:
“Stop calling my husband. I know who you are and where you work. If you don’t stop, you’ll regret it.”
“What kind of nonsense is this?” she muttered, reading the message again.
Svetlana checked the sender’s number. The digits looked familiar, though she couldn’t immediately remember why. She opened her contacts and began comparing the number. When she found the match, her breath caught.
It was the number of Igor Petrovich, her boss.
“No. This has to be some mistake,” she whispered, feeling goosebumps crawl up her back.
At that moment, Arthur walked out of the next room. He was a tall, fit man of thirty-five, moving with the lazy confidence of someone who had never doubted his own charm.
“What are you mumbling about?” he asked, opening the refrigerator.
“Arthur, something strange happened…” Svetlana turned to her husband. “I got a weird message. From Igor Petrovich’s wife, can you imagine? She wrote that I should stop calling her husband. But I haven’t been calling him! We only speak at work, about business.”
Arthur froze with a bottle of mineral water in his hand. A strange expression flashed across his face — surprise mixed with something else, something Svetlana didn’t have time to catch.
“Show me,” he said shortly.
Svetlana handed him the phone. Arthur read the message carefully, his brows drawing together.
“Maybe she got the wrong number,” he suggested, handing the phone back.
“How could she get the wrong number? She wrote that she knows who I am and where I work!”
“Jealous wives can do all sorts of things,” Arthur shrugged. “She probably saw your number in her husband’s phone and decided that you… well, you understand.”
“But that’s ABSURD! Igor Petrovich is my boss, nothing more! I’m sixty-two, and he’s nearly seventy! What are we even talking about?”
Arthur gave a dry laugh.
“Svetlana, you’re naive. You think age stops anyone? Maybe the old man decided to flirt with his young secretary, and his wife found out. Now she’s suspicious of everyone.”
“I’m not a secretary! I’m the chief accountant of the company!”
“What difference does it make?” Arthur waved it off. “Just ignore it. Delete the message and forget about it.”
But Svetlana could not forget. Something about the situation felt wrong, as if the pieces of a puzzle refused to fit together.
The next morning, the office had its usual working atmosphere. Svetlana tried to focus on the quarterly report, but her thoughts kept drifting back to that strange message. When Igor Petrovich entered her office with another folder of documents, she tensed involuntarily.
“Svetlana Nikolaevna, here are the invoices for last month,” he said, placing the folder on her desk. “They need to be checked by the end of the week.”
“Of course, Igor Petrovich,” she replied, trying to sound calm. “And… how is your wife? Is she well?”
Her boss raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Marina? Thank you, she’s fine. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just asking…”
Igor Petrovich lingered by the door.
“Svetlana Nikolaevna, is everything all right? You seem a little tense today.”
“Everything is fine. Just a lot of work.”
After he left, Svetlana took out her phone and read the previous evening’s message once more. Then she opened her call history. Over the past month, she had called Igor Petrovich only three times, all during working hours, and none of the calls had lasted longer than a minute.
That evening, she found Arthur at home sitting with his laptop. The moment he saw her, he quickly shut it.
“Work?” Svetlana asked.
“Yes. I’m finishing a project,” he replied without looking her in the eye.
“Arthur, I still can’t stop thinking about that message. Maybe I should call Marina and explain everything?”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Arthur snapped, then immediately caught himself. “I mean… why create unnecessary trouble? You said yourself that nothing happened. So why justify yourself?”
“But it’s a misunderstanding…”
“Svetlana, FORGET about it. The more you dig, the worse you’ll make things. Trust me.”
His tone left no room for argument. Svetlana said nothing, but her uneasiness deepened. Arthur was acting strangely. After twelve years of marriage, she had learned to read his moods, and now something was definitely off.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. Arthur was breathing peacefully beside her, while she lay awake thinking. Suddenly, an idea struck her — what if she checked the messages on her husband’s phone?
No, that was wrong. She shouldn’t invade his privacy. But the worm of doubt had already settled in her heart.
In the morning, while Arthur was in the shower, his phone rang. Svetlana automatically glanced at the screen. An unknown number was calling. She didn’t answer, but the number seemed vaguely familiar.
“Who called?” Arthur asked when he came out of the bathroom.
“I don’t know. Some unknown number.”
He grabbed the phone quickly, looked at the screen, and frowned.
“Probably some advertisement.”
But Svetlana noticed how pale his fingers had become as they gripped the phone.
During her lunch break, Svetlana decided to take a desperate step. She called the number from which the hateful message had been sent.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.
“Marina? This is Svetlana Nikolaevna, the chief accountant. I work with Igor Petrovich.”
“Svetlana Nikolaevna?” The woman sounded genuinely surprised. “Hello! Has something happened? Is Igor all right?”
“Yes, everything is fine with him. Marina, forgive me for the strange question, but did you send me a message yesterday?”
“A message? No, of course not. What message?”
Svetlana read the text aloud. Silence fell on the other end of the line.
“That is complete madness,” Marina finally said. “I definitely didn’t write that to you! And why would I? I’ve known you for five years. You’re an excellent professional and a decent person. Igor always speaks of you with respect.”
“But the message came from your number…”
“From my number? That’s impossible! My phone is always with me. Although… wait. Yesterday morning I couldn’t find it for about twenty minutes. Then I found it under the seat in my car. I thought it had fallen out of my bag…”
“Yesterday morning?” Svetlana felt something click in her mind. “Where were you before that?”
“At the gym. I go to Pilates three times a week. Why?”
“Marina, which gym do you go to?”
“FitLife on Michurin Street. But what does that have to do with—”
Svetlana felt the ground shift beneath her feet.
Arthur went to the same gym.
“Marina, thank you so much. You’ve helped me a great deal.”
“Wait! Svetlana Nikolaevna, what is going on? Who sent that message from my phone?”
“I don’t know for certain yet, but I will find out. Thank you again.”
Svetlana ended the call and leaned back in her chair. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form a horrifying picture. Arthur had been at the same gym. Arthur could have taken Marina’s phone.
But why?
What was he planning?
That evening, Svetlana came home earlier than usual. Arthur was not there yet. She went into his study and turned on his computer. She knew the password — their wedding date.
What she found made her choke with anger.
The browser history was full of legal consultation websites. The search queries read: “divorce because of spouse’s infidelity,” “how to prove wife’s affair,” “division of property in divorce due to wife’s fault.”
In the Documents folder, she found a draft divorce petition. The reason stated was “the spouse’s immoral behavior and inappropriate relationships at the workplace.”
“You snake,” Svetlana breathed.
Now everything made sense. Arthur wanted a divorce, but he wanted it in a way that would give him the greatest possible advantage in the property division. The apartment had been bought with money she inherited from her parents. The car, too. If he simply filed for divorce, he would only get a share of their modest jointly acquired property. But if he could prove she had cheated…
The front door slammed. Svetlana quickly turned off the computer and left the study.
“Hi,” Arthur said, hanging up his jacket. “You’re home early.”
“Yes. I didn’t have much to do.”
She looked at her husband and wanted to slap his handsome face. But she restrained herself.
She had to figure out how to expose him.
For the next two days, Svetlana behaved as if nothing had changed. Arthur relaxed, convinced that his plan was working. He even became especially attentive — bringing her coffee in bed, asking about her day, suggesting they go to a restaurant.
“Bastard,” Svetlana thought, smiling back at him. “Playing the caring husband before the divorce.”
On the third day, she received another message:
“I warned you. Now everyone will know what you really are.”
A photograph was attached. It showed Svetlana getting out of Igor Petrovich’s car. The photo had been taken a month earlier, when her own car had broken down and her boss had given her a ride to the metro. But the angle had been chosen so cleverly that the situation looked ambiguous.
Svetlana looked at Arthur, who was sitting across from her with a cup of coffee.
“Another message from my boss’s wife,” she said. “This time with a photo.”
Arthur pretended to be outraged.
“This is unbelievable! Maybe you should go to the police. This is blackmail!”
“I think you’re right,” Svetlana nodded. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Arthur choked on his coffee.
“You mean… seriously? Maybe you shouldn’t. It’ll create unnecessary noise, a scandal…”
“Why unnecessary? I’m being blackmailed and threatened. That’s a criminal offense.”
“But… if you go to the police, they’ll start investigating… they might misunderstand…”
“What exactly might they misunderstand, Arthur?” Svetlana looked straight into his eyes. “That my boss gave me a ride when my car broke down?”
“Well… people might think all sorts of things…”
“Let them think. I have NOTHING to hide.”
Arthur stood up from the table.
“Do whatever you want. I have to go to work.”
After the door closed behind him, Svetlana called her friend Olga, who worked at an IT company.
“Olga, I need your help. Can you track what device these messages were sent from?”
“Theoretically, yes. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. Can you do it today?”
“Come by after work.”
That evening, after looking through Svetlana’s phone, Olga gave her verdict.
“The messages were sent through a special app for scheduled sending. The IP address… wait, let me check… Oh! This is your home IP address!”
“What?”
“The messages were sent from your apartment, Svetlana. Someone used your home Wi-Fi.”
Svetlana bit her lip. She had evidence now, but it wasn’t enough.
She needed to make Arthur confess.
At home, she found her husband eating dinner.
“Arthur, we need to talk.”
“About what?” he asked without lifting his head.
“About the divorce.”
His fork froze in midair. Arthur slowly raised his eyes.
“What?”
“I know you were the one sending messages in Marina’s name. I know about your plan to file for divorce and accuse me of cheating. I saw the draft petition on your computer.”
Arthur turned pale, then flushed red.
“You… you were digging through my computer?”
“And you STOLE another woman’s phone to slander your own wife!” Svetlana felt a wave of fury rise inside her. “Did you think I was some obedient little fool? That I’d keep quiet? That I’d be scared of a scandal?”
“Svetlana, you don’t understand…”
“SHUT UP!” she shouted so loudly that the glasses on the table trembled. “Twelve years! TWELVE YEARS I supported you! The apartment is mine, the car is mine, even your wardrobe was bought with my money! And you decided to destroy me?”
“Don’t scream at me!” Arthur snapped.
“I WILL SCREAM!” Svetlana grabbed a plate from the table and hurled it against the wall. “Did you think I’d stay silent? Did you think I’d be afraid of your filthy insinuations? GO TO HELL!”
Arthur jumped to his feet.
“You can’t prove it was me!”
“Oh, yes, I can!” Svetlana pulled out her phone. “The IP address the messages were sent from is our home IP. The scheduled-message app is installed on your phone — I checked while you were asleep. And Marina will confirm that her phone went missing exactly when you were at the gym.”
“You… you’re bluffing!”
“Check if you want. Call your lawyer and ask him what happens when someone tries to falsify evidence in a divorce case. And while you’re at it, ask about stealing a phone and blackmail!”
Arthur stood in the middle of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. His carefully planned scheme had collapsed like a house of cards.
“Svetlana, let’s talk calmly…”
“CALMLY?” She threw a cup at him, and he barely dodged it. “You wanted to paint me as a tramp, take MY apartment, and now you want to talk calmly?”
“I… I was wrong…”
“GET OUT!” Svetlana shouted. “Get out of my house! RIGHT NOW!”
“This is my home too!”
“Not anymore! The apartment is in my name and was bought before our marriage with my parents’ inheritance. You are nobody here! GET OUT!”
She grabbed his jacket and threw it at him.
“Get out! And don’t let me ever see you again!”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Arthur asked, suddenly lost.
“GO TO HELL FOR ALL I CARE! Or maybe go to the woman you did all this for. You think I didn’t figure that out? You wanted someone younger, but you had no money for her. So you decided to rob me!”
Arthur tried to argue, but Svetlana grabbed a frying pan.
“Are you leaving on your own, or should I help you?”
Seeing her determination, Arthur backed toward the door.
“You’ll regret this! I’ll sue you!”
“GO AHEAD!” she shouted. “Let’s see what the judge says about your tricks with someone else’s phone and fake messages! By the way, I’ve already sent all the evidence to my lawyer. And Marina is ready to testify!”
Arthur rushed out the door. Svetlana locked every lock and leaned her back against it. The adrenaline slowly faded, leaving behind exhaustion. But along with it came a strange relief, as if a heavy weight had finally slipped from her shoulders.
Her phone rang. An unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Svetlana?” a hesitant female voice said. “This is Karina. I’m… Arthur’s girlfriend.”
Svetlana smirked.
“Well, how interesting. He kept denying there was anyone else.”
“He told me you were getting divorced… that he had already filed the papers… He said that in a month he would be free and we would get married…”
“And now?”
“He just came over. He said you threw him out. That everything fell apart. He’s demanding that I let him stay. But… I only have a one-room apartment on the outskirts! And I don’t understand what’s happening!”
“I’ll explain,” Svetlana said, sitting down on the floor right there in the hallway. “Your Arthur decided to divorce me in a way that would let him take my property. He came up with an entire scheme involving fake evidence of infidelity. He just failed to consider one thing — I’m not stupid.”
“Oh my God…” sobs came from the other end of the line. “He said you were a rich witch, that he would have money after the divorce… That we would buy an apartment in the city center…”
“He won’t have anything. Not a single kopek. You can tell him that tomorrow I’m filing for divorce. And I’m also filing a police report for attempted blackmail. He’d better find himself a good lawyer. Though I doubt it’ll help.”
“What am I supposed to do now? He’s sitting in my kitchen and demanding dinner!”
“That, dear, is your problem now. You wanted him — you got him. A free bonus with your love story. Enjoy.”
Svetlana ended the call. A minute later, the phone rang again. It was Arthur. She rejected the call and blocked his number.
Two months later, the divorce was finalized. Arthur tried to assert his rights, but the evidence of his scheme was undeniable. The judge not only refused to give him any share of Svetlana’s premarital property, but also ordered him to pay her compensation for emotional damage.
Karina threw Arthur out after just one week of living together. It turned out that a handsome man with no money, no job, and no home was not very attractive to her after all. He tried to come back to Svetlana and even waited outside her building with a bouquet of roses. But she called the police, reminding them about her blackmail report.
The last thing Svetlana heard about him was that Arthur had moved to another city and found work as a sales manager at some small company.
As for her, she signed up for the Spanish courses she had dreamed about for the past five years, bought a ticket to the Canary Islands, and for the first time in many years felt truly happy.
When Igor Petrovich learned the whole story, he was shocked.
“Svetlana Nikolaevna, why didn’t you tell me right away? I would have helped!”
“Thank you, Igor Petrovich. But I handled it myself.”
“And you did the right thing!” Marina unexpectedly supported her as she entered her husband’s office. “Men like that need to be put in their place! You know, I never leave my phone unattended anymore. A lesson for life.”
But Svetlana learned a different lesson.
Sometimes, instead of enduring everything in silence, you have to let righteous anger speak. It was that anger that helped her destroy Arthur’s vile plan and begin a new life — a life without lies, betrayal, and humiliation.
Sitting on the plane on her way to the Canary Islands, she raised a glass of champagne.
“To a new life! And may every scoundrel get what he deserves!”
The woman sitting next to her, an elderly lady with kind eyes, smiled.
“You look so happy! Are you going on vacation?”
“I’m going into a new life,” Svetlana answered. “Without fools and traitors.”
“That’s right, dear! At our age, we should live for ourselves!”
Svetlana laughed.
Yes, at sixty-two, she was starting over.
And it was wonderful.