“Tell me something, Veronika. Why do you even bother coming here?”
Boris Arkadyevich stood in the middle of his office with his hands buried in the pockets of his expensive trousers. He looked at her as though she were a stain on the polished floor.
“To collect a salary? You’re supposed to work for that. Work. Do you understand?”
Veronika said nothing.
She stood beside his desk with her back straight and her gaze turned slightly away, listening. It was not the first time.
Boris Arkadyevich enjoyed these Friday “conversations.” He would summon someone to his office toward the end of the day, when everyone else was already packing their bags, and begin.
Quietly. Almost gently.
Yet every word struck like a nail.
“You’re nobody here,” he finally said. “I fire people like you by the dozen. Without a second thought. Hand in your security pass.”
That was it.
Friday. Six in the evening.
Veronika walked down the street without feeling her legs.
Four years.
She had spent four years at Premium Media, a company that produced glossy catalogues for large retail chains. She had risen from assistant editor to senior content manager. She knew every client by name. She remembered which one should never receive layouts on Wednesdays because the marketing director went out for lunch and never returned.
She knew that Boris Arkadyevich could not stand serif fonts on covers. She knew that a parking space near the entrance always had to be kept free for his personal driver.
Four years, reduced to two words.
Hand it over.
Her phone vibrated.
It was her husband, Viktor.
“Nika, where are you? I bought some fish. I thought you could make that dish you—”
“Vitya,” she interrupted. “I’ve been fired.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Boris Arkadyevich. Today. Just now.”
Another silence, longer this time.
“All right. Come home. We’ll figure it out.”
He did not ask why.
Viktor rarely asked unnecessary questions. Sometimes that was comforting. Sometimes it hurt a little.
The apartment smelled of fried fish and cat food. Their ginger cat, Stepan, was already sitting beside his bowl with the offended dignity of an aristocrat.
Viktor stood at the stove wearing a ridiculous apron that said “Head Chef,” a birthday present from their daughter. He was forty-one, with gray already appearing at his temples, yet in that apron he looked like a university student.
“Sit down,” he said without turning around.
Veronika left her handbag in the hallway, kicked off her shoes and walked into the kitchen. She sat on a tall stool beside the breakfast bar and watched him turn the fish in the pan.
“He told me I was nobody,” she said evenly. “He said he fired people like me by the dozen.”
“Sounds like a line from a terrible movie,” Viktor replied.
“It wasn’t a movie line. It was my life half an hour ago.”
He turned the heat down, set the pan aside and faced her.
He studied her for a long moment.
“Nika, you’ve been telling me for three years that you hate that job.”
“Two and a half.”
“Fine. Two and a half. Maybe this isn’t a disaster.”
She wanted to say something sharp and justified, but instead she picked up the saltshaker and began turning it between her fingers.
“Maybe not,” she finally admitted. “But I wanted to leave on my own terms.”
She did not sleep that night.
She lay staring at the ceiling while Viktor breathed steadily beside her. Stepan curled up at her feet, purring some private feline philosophy.
One question kept circling through her mind.
What now?
Then, suddenly, she remembered Larisa.
Larisa Yezhova.
They had met three years earlier at an industry conference, exchanged business cards and occasionally messaged each other. Larisa worked for Context Media, one of Premium Media’s direct competitors.
It was a smaller company, but lively, ambitious and involved in interesting projects.
A month earlier, Larisa had written to her.
“Nika, we’re opening a department head position. Have you ever thought about making a change?”
At the time, Veronika had given a vague answer.
Everything was fine. She would think about it. They would see.
She reached for her phone.
12:47 a.m.
She typed:
“Lara, are you still looking for someone?”
The answer came surprisingly quickly. Apparently, Larisa was awake too.
“Nika! Yes, the position is still open. Can you come in on Monday?”
Veronika smiled for the first time that evening.
Saturday passed strangely. It felt slow and heavy, yet unexpectedly light at the same time.
She took her daughter Polina to the shopping center and bought her the trainers she had wanted for a month. Then they went to see an animated film about robots.
Polina was twelve and already considered herself practically an adult. Yet at the cinema she still ate popcorn by the handful and laughed louder than anyone else.
That evening, Veronika’s mother called.
“Veronika, what happened? Viktor wrote that you were having trouble at work.”
“Mom, everything is fine,” Veronika said automatically.
“He wrote that you were fired.”
“Mom.”
“I just want to know what happened.”
Veronika stepped onto the balcony and closed the door behind her.
“Boris Arkadyevich fired me. Friday evening. Without warning.”
“That…” Her mother paused, clearly searching for the right word. “That man with the expensive watch you showed me in the company photo?”
“That’s him.”
“Veronika, I always told you there was something wrong with that place. Remember when you told me how he fired Svetochka while she was pregnant? He isn’t a human being, he’s—”
“Mom, I’m all right,” Veronika interrupted gently. “Honestly. I already have a few ideas.”
After the call, she remained on the balcony for a long time.
She watched the city lights, the cars moving below and the illuminated windows of the building across the street, where other people’s lives continued as usual.
Somewhere among those lights, Boris Arkadyevich was probably sitting comfortably, pleased with himself and completely convinced that the world worked exactly as it should.
We’ll see, she thought.
On Sunday evening, Veronika opened her laptop and began updating her portfolio.
Four years of work were not nothing.
They were twenty major projects, eight long-term clients and three complete relaunches of corporate publications.
Those achievements belonged to her.
Boris Arkadyevich could say whatever he liked, but the figures were saved in her files.
And figures did not lie.
On Monday morning, she put on a new coat.
She had bought it in March but had never dared to wear it to the office because Boris Arkadyevich had once remarked that bright colors were “distracting.”
The coat was the rich red of ripe cherries.
She emerged from the metro at an unfamiliar station, found the address and climbed to the fourth floor.
Context Media.
Beyond the glass door, someone was laughing while another person spoke confidently on the phone.
Larisa met her near the entrance.
She was short, quick-moving, with cropped hair and the expression of someone who always knew what her next step would be.
“Nika!” She shook Veronika’s hand firmly. “Perfect timing. Something is happening here, and I need someone who won’t be intimidated.”
“What exactly is happening?” Veronika asked.
Larisa smiled, part mysterious and part exhausted.
“Sit down. It’s a long story. And it’s going to surprise you.”
Larisa’s office was small but full of life.
Three pots of jade plants stood on the windowsill. A corkboard covered with printouts, sticky notes and pencil sketches hung on the wall. The room smelled of coffee and faintly of printing ink.
After the sterile offices of Premium Media, where Boris Arkadyevich had forbidden employees from keeping personal belongings on their desks, Veronika felt as though she could finally breathe.
Larisa closed the door, sat opposite her and placed a folder on the desk.
“Do you know Atlas Group?” she asked without preamble.
Veronika thought for a moment.
“The retail chain? Home goods, somewhere between mass market and premium. They launched a rebrand about two years ago.”
“Exactly. Premium Media handled that rebrand. Boris Arkadyevich managed the contract personally.”
Larisa opened the folder and turned it toward her.
“Three weeks ago, Atlas Group terminated their agreement with Premium Media. Quietly. No scandal. Last week, their development director called us.”
Veronika studied the documents.
Letters. Printed emails. Tables.
Slowly, she began to understand where Larisa was heading.
“They want to work with you.”
“They do,” Larisa confirmed. “It’s a major contract. Full media support, catalogues, a corporate magazine and digital content. Two years to begin with. But they have one condition. They want to know exactly who will lead the project. They don’t want a faceless company. They want a specific person.”
“And you thought of me.”
“I thought of you a month ago,” Larisa said calmly. “Long before you sent me that midnight message.”
A tram passed outside and rang its bell as it turned the corner.
Veronika stared at the papers and felt something strange.
It was not happiness. Not yet.
It was more like walking against a strong wind for a long time and suddenly realizing that the wind had stopped.
“Lara, why did they leave Boris Arkadyevich?” she asked. “They were his biggest client.”
Larisa was silent for a moment.
Then she stood, walked to the window and pulled it shut, as though she wanted to make sure the conversation remained inside the room.
“That, Nika, is the part that will surprise you.”
It had begun about six months earlier.
Atlas Group discovered that several of their branded designs, which Premium Media had developed as exclusive material, had appeared in the catalogue of another retail chain.
It was a different city and a different region, but the templates were identical.
The fonts. The layout grid. The illustration style.
At first, they assumed it was a coincidence.
These things happened.
Then they found another example.
And another.
“Boris Arkadyevich was selling their designs to other companies?” Veronika asked quietly, almost to herself.
“Either he sold them personally or allowed someone else to do it. That part is still being investigated.” Larisa returned to her chair. “Atlas Group’s lawyers are dealing with the situation. But the company doesn’t want a public scandal. They simply want to walk away and start again with people they can trust.”
Veronika leaned back.
So that was it.
For four years, she had carried coffee into meetings, edited texts, reassured nervous clients and developed creative concepts.
Meanwhile, behind the closed door of the office with the panoramic windows, an entirely different business had been taking place.
She had been nothing more than background scenery in that story.
Convenient. Quiet. Unnoticed.
I fire people like you by the dozen.
Now the words sounded different.
Not like an insult.
Like an admission.
He got rid of people who had seen too much.
Veronika returned home after lunch.
No contract had been signed immediately. Larisa had suggested she take some time, meet the team and look at the project from the inside.
Veronika walked around the office, spoke with several employees and had coffee with the art director, a young man named Fedya.
He drew in a notebook even while talking and laughed at his own jokes before he had finished telling them.
Real people.
Normal people.
Viktor was working from home.
He sat at his desk wearing headphones and nodded to her without removing them.
Veronika went into the kitchen, switched on the kettle and stared out of the window.
Her friend Tanya called.
“So, how is the whole getting-fired experience going?” she asked cheerfully, as though Veronika had tried a new haircut. “Have you finished crying, or have you already moved on to revenge?”
“Tanya, this has nothing to do with revenge.”
“Nika, you were fired on a Friday evening. Without severance pay, I assume?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Then it is absolutely about revenge,” Tanya concluded with satisfaction. “Now tell me everything.”
Veronika laughed despite herself.
Tanya was one of those people who could turn any disaster into an adventure.
Sometimes it was irritating.
More often, it was exactly what saved you.
Veronika told her about Larisa, Atlas Group and the stolen layouts.
Tanya went silent, which was unusual for her.
“Wait,” she said slowly. “Boris Arkadyevich was selling his clients’ work to other companies?”
“It looks that way.”
“And while doing that, he called you nobody?”
“Exactly.”
“Nika,” Tanya said with deep feeling, “I don’t know what the professional term is, but in ordinary language this is called digging your own grave and then climbing into it.”
That evening, while Polina did her homework and Viktor watched something on his laptop, Veronika reopened the folder Larisa had allowed her to take home.
It contained copies of documents and general project information.
She read slowly and made notes in a notebook.
Then she noticed a detail she had missed earlier.
In Atlas Group’s contact list, among the people who had negotiated with Context Media, she saw a familiar name.
A very familiar name.
Irina Pavlovna Svetlova.
Marketing Director.
Veronika slowly closed the folder.
Irina Svetlova.
Three years earlier, Irina had worked at Premium Media.
She had been quiet, precise, always perfectly manicured and blessed with the kind of gaze that remembered everything.
One morning, Boris Arkadyevich had fired her during a planning meeting.
In front of everyone.
Without explanation.
Irina had stood, packed her belongings and left without saying a word.
At the time, Veronika had thought she was a woman of remarkable self-control.
And now Irina Svetlova was marketing director at Atlas Group.
The same company that had terminated its agreement with Boris Arkadyevich and moved its account to his competitor.
That could not be a coincidence.
Veronika picked up her phone and wrote to Larisa.
“Lara, is Svetlova the same Irina who used to work for Boris?”
The reply came a minute later.
“The very same. I thought you had already figured it out. She wants to meet you personally tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that you’re joining us.”
Veronika looked out of the window.
Stepan jumped onto her lap and pressed his forehead insistently against her hand.
“All right,” she said aloud. “Tomorrow, then.”
Irina Svetlova looked exactly as Veronika remembered her, only better.
The three years away from Premium Media had clearly done her good.
She still had the same straight posture and calm expression, but the caution that once lingered in the eyes of everyone who worked under Boris Arkadyevich was gone.
She looked like someone who had finally stopped expecting to be attacked from behind.
They met at a small café near the Context Media office. Larisa had deliberately suggested neutral territory.
They ordered coffee and sat near the window.
“I remember you,” Irina said immediately. “You were the only person who continued greeting me in the lift after Boris started putting pressure on me.”
Veronika had not expected the conversation to begin that way.
“I didn’t understand what was happening,” she replied honestly.
“No one understood. He is very good at making sure people don’t.”
Irina stirred her coffee and looked outside.
“He fired me because I accidentally saw an email conversation. I wasn’t snooping. He simply forgot to close his laptop during a meeting. I saw the name of a client we supposedly didn’t have and the title of a layout we supposedly hadn’t created.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Irina said simply. “At the time, I did nothing. I was frightened. I packed my things and left. He didn’t even explain the reason. He just said, ‘You’re not a good fit for us.’”
She smiled faintly.
“But I remembered. I remember things very well.”
People moved along the street outside. Some carried takeaway coffee, while others stared at their phones.
It was an ordinary day in a large city.
Veronika watched Irina and thought that lives sometimes travelled along invisible tracks.
They separated, ran parallel and then unexpectedly crossed at exactly the right moment.
“When I joined Atlas Group and started reviewing our contractors,” Irina continued, “I recognized the pattern immediately. The same methods. The same schemes. We found one of our layouts in the catalogue of a retail chain in another region. It was identical, right down to the wording. Only the logo had been replaced.”
“And you decided to leave Premium Media.”
“I convinced the management to leave,” Irina corrected her. “It took two months and several extremely unpleasant conversations. But eventually we got here.”
She nodded toward the nearby Context Media office.
“I’ve liked Larisa for a long time. She is honest, which is rare in our industry.”
Veronika nodded slowly.
“Does Boris know why you left?”
Irina looked mildly surprised.
“Boris thinks we simply changed contractors because we found someone cheaper.”
She paused.
“For now, let him keep thinking that.”
Veronika signed the employment contract on Thursday.
Larisa opened a bottle of prosecco that had apparently been waiting in the bottom drawer of her desk for the right occasion. Fedya brought plastic cups from the next room.
They drank in the office.
Quickly and without ceremony.
“Welcome,” Larisa said, shaking her hand.
Veronika smiled.
Something inside her finally settled into place.
There was no dramatic click.
Everything simply felt more balanced.
At home, she told Viktor the whole story.
This time, she gave him every detail she had previously left out.
She told him about Irina, the duplicated designs and Boris Arkadyevich’s schemes.
Viktor listened in silence. Once, he stood to pour himself a glass of water, then returned to his chair.
“So he didn’t get rid of you because you were bad at your job,” he said at last.
“Most likely because I was good at it,” Veronika replied. “I knew too much about the clients. I might have noticed something I wasn’t supposed to notice.”
Viktor turned the glass slowly in his hands.
“Nika, you understand this is serious, don’t you? If Atlas Group’s lawyers are involved, there could be a major scandal.”
“I understand.”
“And you’re stepping right into it.”
“I already stepped into it,” she said calmly. “On Friday evening, when he told me to hand in my security pass.”
Viktor watched her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
“All right. Then I’m with you.”
At that moment, Polina emerged from her bedroom wearing socks patterned with avocados and headphones hanging around her neck.
“What are you talking about?” she asked suspiciously.
“Work,” Veronika replied.
“Boring,” Polina decided, and disappeared back into her room.
Two weeks passed.
Veronika adapted quickly.
The pace at Context Media was even faster than what she was used to, but the atmosphere was entirely different.
There were no morning meetings held merely for the sake of having meetings. No rule that every comma had to be personally approved by Boris Arkadyevich.
Larisa trusted people.
At first, that trust felt unfamiliar and even slightly frightening.
The first meeting with the Atlas Group team took place at their headquarters.
The conference room was large and crowded, with Irina seated at the head of the table.
Veronika presented her concept for the first quarter calmly, clearly and without unnecessary decoration.
When she finished, the room remained silent for several seconds.
Then Irina spoke.
“This is exactly what we wanted.”
She looked at Veronika with something close to satisfaction.
“Exactly this.”
Then something happened that no one had expected.
At the end of the second week, an acquaintance from an advertising agency called Larisa and casually mentioned that Premium Media was in serious trouble.
One of its regional clients, a retail chain from Yekaterinburg, had submitted a formal complaint concerning its designs.
The word plagiarism had not yet been used publicly, but inside the company, everything was apparently burning.
Larisa told Veronika without drama.
She presented it simply as a fact.
“They say Boris Arkadyevich hasn’t appeared in the office for three days,” she added.
Veronika accepted the news calmly.
There was no triumph.
No malicious pleasure.
Something had simply closed.
Like a book she had finished reading and placed back on the shelf.
During her lunch break, she left the office and walked to a small park a block away.
She bought a glass of lemonade from a street vendor and sat on a bench.
Pigeons hurried around her. A boy rode past on a scooter. Somewhere nearby, a woman in a red dress was laughing.
Life.
Ordinary, living, continuing.
Her phone vibrated.
Tanya.
“So, have you heard the news about your former boss?” Tanya demanded without saying hello.
“I’ve heard.”
“And how do you feel?”
Veronika thought for a moment.
“I’m fine, Tanya. Honestly.”
“That’s all? Fine?”
“I’m sitting in a park drinking lemonade. I’m thinking we should take Polina to that robotics exhibition she wanted to see this weekend. Next Tuesday, I have an important presentation for a new client. That’s about it.”
Tanya went quiet.
Once again, that rare pause.
“You know something?” she finally said. “I think getting fired was good for you.”
“I think so too,” Veronika agreed.
She finished her lemonade, threw the cup into a bin and stood.
In the sunlight, her ripe-cherry-colored coat looked almost red.
There was an entire day ahead of her.
A good day.
A working day.
Her own.
She headed back to the office with quick, confident steps and did not look behind her.
The final chapter came quietly, without thunder or lightning, as endings usually do in real life.
At the beginning of November, Atlas Group officially announced its new partnership with Context Media.
There was a brief note in an industry publication and a handful of posts in professional channels.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a fact.
By then, Premium Media was quietly losing one client after another.
The story of the copied designs had finally spread.
Not into the newspapers, but rumors travel faster than articles in their industry.
Boris Arkadyevich made statements, offered explanations and tried to negotiate with people.
But reputation is not a contract.
You cannot repair it with a signature.
Veronika learned about the situation by accident when a former colleague messaged her.
“Nika, everything is falling apart here. You were right to leave.”
She answered briefly.
“Hang in there.”
Then she closed the conversation.
On Friday, exactly three months after her dismissal, Larisa gathered the team in the conference room.
She placed a cake on the table.
Fedya had brought it, and for some reason it was decorated with strawberries despite the fact that it was November.
“Atlas Group has extended the contract for a third year and paid in advance,” Larisa announced without introduction. “That means they trust us.”
She looked at Veronika.
“And a great deal of that is because of your work.”
Veronika was about to object, but Fedya was already handing her a slice of cake with the expression of a man who considered strawberries in November completely normal.
She accepted it.
And smiled.
That evening at home, Polina showed her something on her phone.
It was some kind of video. Polina laughed and tried to explain the context, though Veronika understood only every other word.
Viktor was reading on the sofa.
Stepan slept on his feet with the expression of a creature entirely satisfied with life.
It was an ordinary evening.
Quiet.
Warm.
For no particular reason, Veronika thought of Boris Arkadyevich.
She thought of him without anger.
Then she let the thought go.
Some people enter your life only to point you in the right direction by accident.
Even when they do it cruelly.
Even when they have no idea what they have done.
“I fire people like you by the dozen.”
Well.
Thank you.