“Seven million four hundred thousand,” Orlov, the general director, said. His voice was so steady and emotionless that it sounded less like a number being read aloud and more like a sentence being passed. There was no anger, no sympathy — only emptiness. And it was precisely that which made his words especially terrifying.
He didn’t look at me. His heavy, piercing gaze was fixed beyond me, on the wall decorated with diplomas, certificates, and other symbols of success that now looked like dusty relics of the past.
Next to him sat Marina like a statue — my best friend, my closest person, and at the same time the company’s financial director. Her posture was perfect, her hands neatly folded in front of her, a folder with documents placed exactly in the center. Everything about her pose spoke of preparation, precision, and that this was no spontaneous conversation but a prearranged scene.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I forced out, my voice trembling, weak, almost pitiful. The words got stuck somewhere in my throat, unable to break free.
Orlov sighed heavily, as if he didn’t want to say it himself but had to. He glanced at Marina, as if passing her the baton.
“Marina Viktorovna, please be kind enough to repeat that.”
She nodded as if it were just another workday, as if between us there were no friendship, no trust, no nights spent with a glass of wine and frank conversations. Her movements were precise, almost mechanical — as if everything had been rehearsed down to the smallest detail.
“Anna,” she began, and there was not a trace of emotion in her voice, “the last few transactions made from your account have no financial justification. Simply put, the money was transferred to the accounts of shell companies. Illegal ones, by the way.”
She spoke to me using the informal “you,” as always, but in this “you” there was no friendship left, not even a hint of closeness. Only coldness. Only steel.
I looked at her, trying to catch her gaze, to find something familiar in those eyes. But they were empty, like glass. As if nothing alive remained inside. She sat there not as a friend, but as an accuser. Not as a person, but as a function.
“This must be some mistake,” I whispered, feeling the ground slip beneath my feet. “My passwords… No one could have accessed them…”
“The access was made from your work computer, during your working hours,” she interrupted sharply. “All the logs are intact. Not a single byte is missing.”
Each of her words pierced me like a nail hammered into a coffin lid. I couldn’t breathe. Seven million four hundred thousand. That number was not just a figure. It was the end. The end of my career, reputation, possibly even my freedom.
“But we checked everything together just last week!” I exclaimed, my voice cracking into a shout. “You yourself said everything was clean!”
Marina barely twitched the corner of her mouth — not a smile, not a grimace, but something in between, impossible to decipher.
“I said that at that time there were no discrepancies. They appeared later. Exactly on Friday evening.”
The word “Friday” stabbed me like a knife. Friday. The very day I left early because Marina asked me to pick up her son from daycare. She said she was overwhelmed and would stay late at the office. And I, the fool, suspected nothing.
The memory burned my soul.
“I demand a full investigation! An independent audit!” I jumped up, pressing my hands to Orlov’s desk as if trying to stay afloat.
“Of course,” he nodded calmly, as if everything had already been decided. “But during the investigation you are suspended from work. Leave your pass and laptop on the desk.”
I looked from him to Marina. She didn’t raise her eyes, continuing to examine her impeccably manicured nails.
The humiliation was so strong it felt almost physical. I slowly took off my badge, placed it on the polished desk surface. Next to it, I carefully set down my laptop, as if leaving a piece of myself in that world.
When I left the office, I couldn’t resist looking back.
“Marina…”
She finally looked at me. There was not a drop of sympathy in her gaze. No hint of malice. Just emptiness. Deep, bottomless.
“Anya, it’s just business. Don’t take it personally.”
The door slammed shut, as if cutting me off from my former life. I stood in the empty hallway, the only thought pounding in my temples was: “She didn’t even blink.” Not once.
The first days passed like a fog. I called Marina. At first, she hung up. Then her line was always busy. I sent her dozens of messages. Not one was answered.
A friend with whom I’d been through fire and water, with whom I’d laughed, cried, celebrated, with whom I had even baptized my daughter — simply disappeared. Erased me from her life as easily as erasing an unwanted pencil mark.
Shock slowly gave way to a ringing, cold rage. “Don’t take it personally.” That phrase spun in my head, refusing me sleep or breath. How could one not take personally an accusation of stealing seven million four hundred thousand rubles? How could one betray so easily?
I started to act. I found a lawyer on recommendation — a specialist in economic crimes. A dry, meticulous man named Volsky listened to me without interruption and asked just one question:
“Do you have enemies in the company? Anyone who could have set you up?”
“I had a best friend,” I answered, steel sounding in my voice.
Volsky nodded understandingly and quoted his fee. The amount made me shudder, but I had no choice. I put it on my credit card and paid the first part. There was no turning back.
That evening, I decided to visit Marina. Not to argue or threaten. Just to look her in the eyes. To make sure it was really her. That it wasn’t some cruel joke.
I parked across the street from her house, sitting in the car, watching the entrance. My heart pounded wildly.
And then I saw her. She was coming out of the entrance, laughing as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just destroyed my life.
And in the parking spot, in her usual place, there it was.
A black, shiny, predatory latest-model SUV. Perfect, as if freshly lifted from the pages of a glossy magazine. I knew this car. Marina had shown it to me in one of the trendy magazines a month ago, sighing that it was an unattainable dream.
She easily swung open the door, as if ignoring its weight, and slid inside with the smoothness of an experienced driver. The seat accepted her willingly, as if the car had long known whose silhouette it was to embrace. The engine roar tore through the silence of the evening yard — deep, predatory, almost animal. Even through the tightly closed window of my car, I felt its vibration, as if the earth itself trembled from the power of that sound.
Everything inside me clenched. I understood. At that moment everything fell into place like pieces of a puzzle finally joined into a single, terrifying picture.
Friday. Her request to pick up her son. Her promise to stay late at the office. Her cold gaze, like an icy knife driven into the heart. And here it was — the car, black, shiny, glowing against the gray autumn like it was ripped from an ad. Its price, I knew, was exactly that — several million. Exactly enough to accuse me of embezzlement.
I got out of the car as if I felt no weight in my body. Words, thoughts, memories — none of it mattered anymore. Only one thing mattered: face to face.
Marina saw me and froze. The smile slid off her face like a mask no longer needed. I approached the driver’s door, stopping half a meter away. The air between us was thick, filled with tension.
“Hi,” I said, trying to speak calmly, almost friendly. “Just wanted to congratulate you. On the new car.”
She looked at me, and for the first time in all these days, something flickered in her eyes besides emptiness. It was fear. Pure, animal, unmasked fear.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was hoarse, with a hint of breaking. She didn’t even try to pretend.
“Just taking a walk. Admiring nice cars,” I circled the SUV, running my finger over the glossy fender. “Expensive, I guess? On credit?”
Silence. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“My lawyer, Volsky… you know, he’s a genius. He says in cases like this the key is to find where the money went. Who got it.”
I glanced inside. The smell of new leather hit my nose, as if reminding me she had allowed herself a luxury bought with my reputation.
“He hired a computer expert. He dug through the logs. Found that all transactions really came from my computer. But here’s the interesting part… the last, largest one, was made after I left. Via remote access.”
Her face went white as paper. The blood drained from it, leaving a mask of horror.
“What are you talking about? Get out!”
“And Volsky also checked those shell companies. And guess what luck! The owner of one of them, the one that received the lion’s share of the sum, turned out to be your third cousin from Saratov. The one you hated. Funny coincidence, isn’t it?”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the recorder. My finger hovered over the button.
“Marina, you have one chance. Right now you call Orlov and confess everything. Say you framed me to cover your debts. Otherwise, this recording and all Volsky’s documents will be on the investigator’s desk tomorrow morning.”
She looked at me with hatred, but there was no strength left in her eyes. Only emptiness.
“You… You’ll regret this.”
“I only regret the twenty years of friendship I threw in the trash,” I no longer raised my voice. My anger had burnt out, leaving only cold emptiness behind. “Your choice, Marina. Prison or confession. Time’s ticking.”
She stared at me for a few more seconds, then her shoulders slumped. She buried her head in the steering wheel and sobbed. Dully, brokenly, like people who have lost everything.
The next day Orlov called me. He apologized profusely, offered compensation, a return to work with a promotion. I refused. I couldn’t work anywhere I was so easily betrayed.
I took my employment record book, my documents, and left the office into the sunlit street. I had lost my job and my best friend.
But I defended my name. And, it seemed, for the first time in many years, I truly felt free.
Six months passed. The sense of freedom I felt that day did not fade. It took root, turning into confidence.
I opened a small consulting firm. At first, it was hard — as always when starting from scratch. But word of mouth and old business contacts did their work.
Now I had several regular clients, a small but cozy office in the city center, and a team I gradually filled with people I could trust.
One day the phone rang from an unknown number. I almost hung up, but something made me answer.
“Anna? Remember me? Volsky.”
“Of course, I remember,” I smiled. “What’s up? Hope you don’t need a financial consultant.”
He chuckled over the line.
“No, I’m fine. I’m calling about something else. Your former friend Marina’s case is closed. Thought you might want to know the outcome.”
I froze, sitting on the edge of my desk.
“So what happened in the end?”
“Two years probation,” Volsky reported evenly. “Confession, full admission, compensation paid.”
She sold the car, the apartment, everything she had. Orlov didn’t press charges, withdrew the complaint after the money was returned. But her reputation was destroyed. In our field, all doors are closed to her.
I listened without feeling anything. No gloating, no pity. Just a period. A fat, final period in this story.
“Understood. Thanks for letting me know.”
“I heard you opened your own business?” He changed the subject. “Congratulations. If you need legal support, you know who to call.”
We said goodbye. I put down the phone and looked out the window. The city was noisy, life was buzzing. My life. New, built from scratch on the ruins of the old.
In the evening, picking up my daughter, I bought two huge helium balloons.
“Mom, is it a holiday?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes,” I answered, kissing her on the crown. “It’s a holiday. The day we finally became free.”
Five years passed.
Five years — is that a lot or a little? Enough for scars to stop hurting and fade into pale lines on the skin, reminders of what was.
Enough for a first grader to become a teenager with her own opinions and secret phone chats.
My consulting firm grew from “small” to “respectable.” We no longer occupied a tiny office but half a floor in the same building.
I learned to delegate, to trust, to build a team. I learned to be a leader.
One rainy autumn evening I stopped by the supermarket near home. Wandering between shelves with a cart, making a mental list of tomorrow’s tasks, I heard a painfully familiar voice.
“No bag, thanks.”
I froze. I would recognize that voice anywhere. I slowly turned my head.
Marina was standing at the next checkout.
She had changed. Her former polished confidence was gone, expensive brands replaced by plain, unremarkable clothes.
She looked older than her years; deep wrinkles lined the corners of her eyes, and in her gaze was an endless, all-consuming fatigue.
She was packing a modest set of groceries: a carton of milk, bread, something else. Our eyes met.
For a second, fear flashed in her eyes — the same I had seen back then by her black SUV. But it immediately changed into something else. Resignation.
She nodded at me. Didn’t smile, just acknowledged with a greeting.
I nodded back.
Only a few meters separated us, but they seemed like an insurmountable chasm. She took her bag and walked to the exit without looking back.
I watched her go. And at that moment I realized there was nothing left inside me. No anger, no resentment, no triumph.
Emptiness. The past finally let me go, turning into a faded photo of a stranger.
I paid for my purchases and stepped outside.
The rain had stopped, and the air smelled of ozone and wet asphalt. I took a deep breath of that clean, fresh air.
Ahead was life. And it was beautiful.