“The apartment obviously stays with me. The cars, too,” my husband Kirill’s voice cut like a knife, bouncing off the polished walls of the attorney’s office.
He wasn’t speaking to me but to my representative—a young man in a perfectly tailored suit, who until that moment had only silently nodded along.
“I’ll toss you a little money, fine. For a while,” Kirill shot me a glance filled with contemptuous magnanimity.
“So you don’t starve to death while you look for… well, any kind of job.”
I stared at my hands resting on my knees. Steady, with short nails, still stained with soil that no brush could completely scrub off.
“You can take the dacha,” he went on with his monologue. “Go play with your little flowers there. I don’t need it anyway.”
My lawyer gave a barely noticeable cough. I lifted my eyes to him and gave a slight nod. Time.
“My client does not agree to your terms,” the young man said evenly.
Kirill froze, then burst out laughing. Loud, unpleasant.
“Does not agree? That’s new. And what exactly are you counting on?”
He turned toward me, his eyes full of genuine bewilderment mixed with disdain.
“What can you even do without me?”
I stayed silent, letting him run his mouth. He stood up, pacing the office, radiating the confidence of a self-proclaimed master of life.
“Ten years you sat on my neck. Your dresses, your trips, your silly floral courses—I paid for all of it! You’re a complete zero, Anya. A penniless housewife who can’t survive a single day without my money.”
He stopped in front of me, towering like a judge.
“So take the dacha and be grateful I’m not throwing you out on the street. But the land stays under my name.”
I slowly lifted my head and looked straight into his eyes. No hatred, no resentment. Just a steady gaze.
“No, Kirill. I won’t take the dacha.”
His face lengthened.
“What do you mean, you won’t take it?”
“It means I don’t need a handout—I need everything,” I smiled for the first time during the entire meeting. “I’m buying your share of it. Along with the three adjoining hectares of land.”
For a few seconds, a ringing silence hung in the office. Kirill stared at me as if I were speaking an alien language. His lawyer stopped taking notes.
“Buying?” Kirill repeated, a hysterical note creeping into his voice. “You? With what money, may I ask? With the pennies I gave you for pins?”
He turned to my lawyer for backup.
“Is she out of her mind? Maybe she needs a doctor, not an attorney?”
Without changing expression, my lawyer placed a thin folder on the table.
“This is a preliminary market valuation of the land and buildings,” he said calmly. “And here is a bank statement confirming my client’s full solvency.”
Kirill pushed the folder aside with disgust, without even opening it. His glare snapped back to me.
“I get it. You’ve got someone. Some sugar daddy decided to play noble benefactor?”
He smirked, but the smile was crooked, vicious.
“And you think he’ll pay for your whims forever? Naïve. Women like you are wanted only while you’re young. Then you’ll be tossed out just the same, like—”
“Kirill,” my voice cut through his filthy words, unexpectedly firm. “Your fantasies are irrelevant. We’re discussing the division of property.”
“Division of property? Division of what property? This is all mine! I earned it! You only spent!”
He paced like a caged beast. The polish and swagger were cracking. I no longer saw a successful businessman, but a panicked, angry man who felt his toy slipping away.
“Remember what you were when we met?” he jabbed a finger at me. “A gray little mouse from the biology department! I made you someone! I lifted you out of nothing!”
I stayed silent. I remembered. I remembered giving up my post-graduate studies because he “needed a wife, not a scientist.”
And how, five years ago, I accidentally ran into my former classmate Dima at an exhibition.
He was already an aspiring entrepreneur and, seeing my sketches and herbariums, said:
“Anya, that’s a ready-made business! Your talent shouldn’t be hidden within four walls.”
It was he who helped me register an LLC, with me as the shadow owner and him as general director.
“Your damn flowers,” Kirill hissed. “I always hated that smell of dirt in the house. You always messing around with your pots like some peasant—it was pathetic.”
“That ‘pathetic hobby,’” my lawyer interjected evenly, “is the reason your office and your partners’ homes always had fresh, original arrangements. Which, by the way, my client supplied free of charge—as advertising.”
Kirill faltered mid-step. Clearly, it had never occurred to him. For him, my bouquets were just interior décor, like furniture.
Suddenly he changed tactics. Walked over to the table, sat down, looking almost pleadingly at me.
“Anya, let’s not do this. We’ve been together so many years… Are we strangers now? Can we really just cross all that out?”
His signature manipulation. Turn soft, coax sympathy. It used to work flawlessly.
But not anymore.
“It’s already crossed out, Kirill,” I replied. “And you’re the one who did it.”
I stood up.
“My lawyer will contact yours to finalize the land purchase details. As for the rest of the assets, I propose splitting everything 50/50, as required by law.”
His face twisted.
“Fifty-fifty? My assets? You won’t get a cent from my money! I’ll prove in court you have no claim!”
“Prove it,” I shrugged and headed for the door.
At the doorway, I turned.
“Oh, and Kirill. Tomorrow morning someone will come to collect my things. And one more thing… I’m terminating all corporate floral service contracts processed through your firm.”
“Find yourself another supplier. I’m afraid your office will soon lose its respectable look.”
I walked out without waiting for an answer, leaving him in the office with the realization that his world—the one where he was king—was starting to crumble.
And the reason was a “penniless housewife.”
Kirill stormed out of the attorney’s office, slamming the door so hard the glass rattled. Rage clouded his vision. Buying, she says! Canceling contracts! He gripped the steering wheel tightly.
One thought pounded in his head: She couldn’t have done this on her own. Impossible. It’s that other guy. Some puppet master pulling the strings. And she’s just the doll. And now this doll thinks she can live her own life.
He slammed the wheel. No. He’d show her what her flowers were worth without his protection, without his money, without his name.
The car screeched off. He didn’t drive home. He drove to where her real heart lay—the dacha. Her kingdom he’d always despised.
At the site, he shoved open the gate. The smell of flowers and damp earth hit his nose. The smell he hated most. The smell of her separate, incomprehensible life.
He didn’t bother entering the house. His target was the greenhouses. Three huge, modern structures built a couple of years ago. He’d mocked them back then: “You’ll play around and quit.” But she hadn’t quit.
The first greenhouse door wasn’t locked. Inside, it was hot and humid. Rows of shelves with hundreds of plants.
Rare orchids, strange succulents, exotic ferns. He understood none of it. To him it was just green clutter. Useless and expensive.
He grabbed the first pot he saw and hurled it onto the concrete floor. The ceramic shattered with a deafening crash.
That broke the last dam. He smashed everything. Overturned shelves, trampled rare flowers she’d ordered from abroad, tore up leaves of unique varieties she’d cultivated for years.
He wasn’t destroying plants. He was destroying her world, her work, her secret pride.
When the first greenhouse was in ruins, he moved to the second. There were already prepared arrangements for restaurants and hotels.
He tore them apart, mixing delicate petals with soil and shards.
His phone vibrated. It was her. He declined the call. Then, smirking, he took several photos of the wreckage and sent them to her. Without a word. Just so she’d see. So she’d know.
I was sitting in my new temporary studio apartment when his message came.
I opened the photos, and my breath caught.
It wasn’t just broken furniture or smashed dishes. It was murder. Murder of what I’d built for ten years.
Every plant in those pictures was alive to me. I remembered planting each sprout, fighting off diseases, rejoicing at the first bloom.
I stared at the screen, and years of pain, humiliation, resentment—suddenly all ebbed away. Only one thing remained.
Ice-cold, crystal-clear calm. The understanding that the point of no return had been passed.
Enough. No more.
I no longer felt like a victim. I didn’t cry. I simply knew what I had to do.
I dialed a number.
“Dima, hi. Emergency.”
A calm male voice on the other end.
“What happened, Anya?”
“He trashed the greenhouses. Everything. Wiped out.”
A pause of silence.
“I’m coming over. Same address?”
“No, I’ll send you the new one. And… call Sergey Ivanovich, please. Tell him ‘Flora-Design’ is ready to sign an exclusive contract with his holding. On the terms he offered. But with one small additional condition.”
“What condition?” Dima asked.
“Complete and immediate severance of all relations with Kirill Sokolsky’s company. All of them. Including logistics and supplies.”
I hung up and looked out the window. The city lived its life. And so did I.
My new life began right now. Among the wreckage of the old one.
The next morning Kirill felt a deep sense of satisfaction. He waited. Waited for the tearful, repentant call. Waited for her to crawl back, broken, begging forgiveness.
Instead, at 10 a.m., his phone rang. Sergey Ivanovich, owner of a major construction holding, his key partner.
“Kirill, I’ll be blunt. We’re ending our cooperation.”
Kirill choked on his coffee.
“What? Sergey Ivanovich, we have a three-year contract! A joint project!”
“The contract is terminated unilaterally. My lawyers will find grounds, don’t worry. The project is frozen,” the voice was cold as steel.
“Goodbye.”
Kirill couldn’t respond. The call ended.
He didn’t have time to process what happened before the phone rang again.
This time—the head of the logistics company handling all his shipments. Same story. Contract terminated.
Throughout the week, his phone wouldn’t stop. One by one, those he considered his solid backing turned away.
His business, his empire built over years, crumbled like a house of cards. He tried calling, negotiating, but met polite refusals.
By week’s end, driven to hysteria, he understood. It was her. But how? How could that worthless housewife have done it?
He found her. Not in a rented studio. But in a panoramic restaurant downtown. She sat at a window table with Dima. They laughed, discussing something on a laptop.
Kirill stormed up to their table, yanking the chair loudly.
“You did this?”
I looked up at him. Calmly, without surprise.
“Did what, Kirill? Be specific.”
“Don’t play dumb! My business! You’re destroying it!”
“Your business?” I smirked. “No. You destroyed it yourself. The day you smashed my greenhouses.”
He stared at me, uncomprehending.
“What do your stinking flowers have to do with this?”
“Everything, Kirill. Those ‘stinking flowers’ are the property of LLC Flora-Design. A company with an annual turnover of several million euros. We don’t just sell bouquets.
We do landscape branding. We create unique plant varieties for hotels, develop signature scents for restaurants. What you dismissed as my hobby was an integral part of your partners’ image and marketing strategy.”
His face began to pale.
“You thought I was giving you bouquets for free?” I continued, my voice even and merciless.
“That was marketing. I built a loyal client network right under your nose. You yourself introduced me to the right people, bragging about your ‘talented’ wife.”
Dima closed the laptop.
“When you destroyed the property of our key supplier and effectively sabotaged several major projects, Sergey Ivanovich deemed you an unreliable partner. Too impulsive.
He chose to maintain relations with us instead. The rest followed suit. Business, nothing personal.”
Kirill slumped into a chair. He looked at me but no longer saw the gray mouse he picked up ten years ago.
He saw a stranger. Strong. Dangerous.
“But… where did… the money come from?” he whispered.
“I didn’t spend everything you gave me, Kirill. I invested. In myself. In my business. In what you called a ‘pathetic hobby.’”
I stood. Dima stood too.
“Expect a lawsuit tomorrow for property damage and lost profits. And yes, I’m still buying that land from you.
We need space to build a new, larger greenhouse complex.”
We walked out, leaving him alone at the table. Crushed, ruined.
Not because I was strong, but because he was so sure of my weakness.
Outside, Dima took my hand.
“You okay?”
“More than okay,” I replied, breathing in the fresh evening air. “This is only the beginning.”
Epilogue. One year later.
I stand in the middle of a vast, light-filled space. Rows of perfect flowers all around, their delicate fragrance in the air.
This is the main pavilion of our new agro-complex, built on the land I once bought from Kirill.
Flora-Design has become a market leader. We opened branches in other cities and launched an online school. Sometimes I read about myself in business magazines and feel like they’re talking about someone else.
Dima stands beside me. He places his hand on my shoulder, and I lean against him.
Our business friendship long ago grew into something more.
A calm, mature love, built on trust and a shared mission.
“Do you remember what you thought that day when he smashed everything?” Dima asks quietly.
“I remember. I thought he killed my past,” I reply.
“But it turned out, he just cleared space for the future.”
I’ve only seen Kirill once this past year, by chance, on the street. He’d aged terribly. Lifeless eyes, a cheap suit.
His company went bankrupt six months after our divorce. He tried starting something new, but his reputation preceded him.
He saw me but quickly looked away. There was no hatred in his gaze. Only emptiness and confusion.
He never realized that what destroyed him wasn’t my revenge, but his own blindness.
He measured people by money, power, status—he forgot how to see their essence.
He saw a housewife, but next to him was a serious businesswoman.
He saw a “pathetic hobby,” but it was a carefully built empire.
I felt no gloating looking at him. Only a faint sadness.
Because he’d lost not just money.
He’d lost the ability to marvel. And to believe that the most valuable things are often hidden behind the most unassuming façade.
Dima and I walk out of the pavilion. Ahead—the sunset and new plans.
And I know for sure: my strength isn’t in million-euro turnovers.
It’s in the soil on my hands that can’t be scrubbed off.
In the love for a craft that was once just a dream.
And in the ability to grow a beautiful garden on the ruins left by others.