“Vitya, your wife didn’t give me the money you promised me! Sort things out with her as soon as possible, or I’ll tell Mom and Dad everything and you’ll have to have this conversation with Dad!”
Alina’s voice, thin and sharp like a shard of glass, hit Viktor at the very moment he turned the key in the lock. He hadn’t yet managed to take off his shoes, hadn’t had time to exhale after a long workday. He had simply stepped into his own hallway and immediately found himself pressed against the wall — not physically, but morally. His sister was standing in front of him, feet apart in expensive ankle boots, hands planted on her hips. Her coat was open, and her face, usually pretty and spoiled, was now twisted with open malice. She wasn’t just waiting for him, she had been lying in wait.
Viktor turned pale. The fatigue that had built up over the day evaporated in an instant, replaced by that familiar icy terror. The mention of his father always worked on him without fail, paralyzing his will and making his stomach tighten into a hard, cold knot. He set his laptop bag down on the floor, and the sound seemed deafening to him.
“Your Sveta has really lost her shame,” Alina hissed, taking a step forward and shrinking the already tiny distance between them. She smelled of perfume and street frost. “I came for the money, just like you said. For my miserable twenty thousand for shopping. And she, can you imagine, refused! She said she has a budget, and there’s no money for my ‘little wants’”—Alina said the word with exaggerated contempt—“Who does she think she is here to decide that?!”
Viktor glanced helplessly toward the kitchen door, as if looking for salvation there. He really had promised. Last weekend, when Alina was once again whining about being bored, he had, out of habit, tossed out: “Drop by during the week, we’ll figure something out.” It was his standard tactic — promise something so she’d back off, then deal with it later. But ever since Svetlana had taken control of their finances, “dealing with it” had become almost impossible.
“Alina, try to understand… we’re saving up,” he began to mumble — and even he could hear how pathetic it sounded.
“I don’t care what you’re saving for!” she cut him off, her voice snapping from a hiss into ringing fury. “You have money! You work, she works! And I’m your sister! Your only sister! Dad always said you had to take care of me! And you will! Or I’ll call him right now!”
She demonstratively reached into her coat pocket for her phone. Viktor instinctively stepped toward her, ready to grab her hand, to stop her. He knew what would come after that call. First, a long, humiliating conversation with his mother, and then a heavy, brief summons from his father, after which all he’d want was to sink through the floor.
And at that very moment, the kitchen door lock clicked.
Svetlana was standing in the doorway. She wore a home sweater and an apron, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her face was completely calm. She didn’t look at Alina. Her gaze, clear, steady and cold as the winter sky, was fixed straight on her husband’s eyes. She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t jump into the quarrel. She simply stated a fact.
“I heard everything too, Vitya. Especially the part about Dad.”
She paused briefly, giving the words time to soak into the stale air of the hallway. For a moment, Alina fell silent, thrown off balance by this unexpected calm. She’d been expecting shouting, counter-accusations, a catfight. But Svetlana kept looking only at Viktor.
“So here’s the deal,” she went on in an even, emotionless tone. “Let her tell him. And you decide. Either you finally, once and for all, settle the matter with your sister and her financial claims. Or starting tomorrow, we have separate budgets. All the money that goes onto your card stays with you. Everything that comes onto mine stays with me. And you’ll save up for the apartment on your own. And I”—she gave the tiniest tilt of her head—“for my own place.”
Having said that, she didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t linger to savor the effect. She simply turned around and just as quietly as she’d appeared, went back to the kitchen, closing the door firmly behind her. Viktor was left standing in the hallway, caught between his sister’s furious glare and the solid kitchen door, behind which the foundation of his familiar world had just collapsed. He was trapped. And both exits led straight into catastrophe.
Alina snorted, raking her brother up and down with a look full of poisonous contempt. Her little performance had been ruined, and in the crudest, most unexpected way. Svetlana hadn’t joined her play; she’d simply changed the scenery and left the main actors to sort things out themselves. Unable to come up with a worthy retort, Alina threw over her shoulder:
“Fine, then. Sit under your wimp’s heel. Just don’t think this is over. I’m waiting for your call by tomorrow morning.”
She spun around so sharply that the hem of her expensive coat slapped Viktor’s legs, and left, not slamming the door, but closing it with a slow, deliberate click. That sound, quiet and final, rang in the hallway’s deafening silence louder than a gunshot. Viktor remained standing, staring at the smooth surface of the door. He felt as if all the air had been let out of him. He couldn’t move, could barely even draw breath. The two main women in his life had just played the opening round in a war where the battlefield was his soul and the grand prize — his future.
Mustering the scraps of his will, he slowly took off his jacket, hung it on the hook and went into the kitchen. Svetlana was standing by the counter with her back to him. She didn’t turn around. She was methodically, with a cold, steady rhythm, shredding cabbage for a salad. The sharp knife came down onto the cutting board with a dull thud. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. That sound was the only one in the apartment, and it was marking off the seconds of his humiliation. Something was sizzling in the pan on the stove, filling the kitchen with the smell of fried onions and meat. The smell of a home-cooked dinner, which now seemed completely out of place.
“Sveta,” he began, and his own voice sounded alien and weak to him.
She didn’t stop. The knife kept moving in the same monotonous arc.
“Why did you have to do that? We could’ve sorted it out calmly. She would’ve left.”
“She would’ve left today,” Svetlana replied without turning. Her voice was just as level and cold as the blade in her hand. “And then she would’ve come back in a week. And then again two weeks later. Vitya, this would never have ended.”
“But she’s my sister…” He took a step forward, reaching out as if to touch her shoulder, but pulled his hand back at the last second. “It’s not our last money. Just twenty thousand…”
At that moment, the knife stopped. Svetlana set it down on the board, wiped her hands and slowly turned around. Her face was calm, but there was such cold in her eyes that Viktor felt a chill.
“Twenty thousand this time. Fifteen last month ‘for new shoes.’ Thirty two months ago ‘to urgently close a semester.’ I was looking at our expense spreadsheet before you got home, Vitya. Over the last year and a half, since we started saving, we’ve given Alina four hundred and twenty thousand rubles. Four hundred. And twenty. Thousand.”
She pronounced each figure separately, clearly, hammering them into his mind like nails.
“Do you understand what that means? That’s almost half of our down payment. That’s a year of our life scrimping and saving. A year when I denied myself new clothes, we didn’t go on vacation, and in the supermarket we picked things only on sale. We gave a year of our life to your sister’s ‘little wants.’”
The argument was irrefutable. Viktor knew that. He had simply preferred not to think about it, not to count, not to notice. It was easier for him to hand over money than to argue, easier to agree than to sit through another scene. But Svetlana had been counting. Every ruble.
“But you know my father…” This was his last, most desperate argument. “He… he’ll hold this over me for the rest of my life. He told me to take care of her.”
Svetlana stepped right up to him. She didn’t raise her voice. She spoke almost in a whisper, and that whisper sent a shiver down Viktor’s spine.
“He told you. Not us. He’s your father, Vitya, not mine. And she is your sister. You’re a grown man, about to have your own family and your own apartment. Or not. Because you still fear your father more than you fear losing your wife’s respect. I’ve stated my ultimatum. And I’m not backing down. Now go and decide, Vitya. Are you the man in this house, or just your sister’s big brother, carrying out your father’s orders?”
She walked around him, picked up the plates from the table and started setting the table for dinner as if this conversation were just as ordinary a part of the evening as chopping salad. And Viktor remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, stunned not by shouting, but by this icy, deadly logic. He felt stripped bare. His usual tricks, his attempts to smooth things over, his fear — all of it had been dragged into the light and dissected with surgical precision. He was cornered not only by circumstances, but by his own spinelessness. And ahead of him waited his father’s call. Inevitable as death.
The night passed in frozen silence. They went to bed with their backs to each other, and the space between them on the big bed felt like an unbridgeable chasm. In the morning they moved around the apartment like two ghosts, carefully avoiding even accidental touch. Viktor poured himself coffee while Svetlana was in the bathroom. She made herself breakfast when he was already getting dressed in the bedroom. Not a word. Not a reproach. Not a question. This silence was worse than any quarrel. It was thick, viscous, pressing on his eardrums and making him flinch at every everyday sound: the click of the kettle, the creak of a cupboard door, the clink of a spoon against a cup.
The workday turned into torture for Viktor. He couldn’t concentrate; the numbers in the reports blurred, and his colleagues seemed distant and unreal. He was waiting. Every minute he was waiting for the call. It came right at lunch, when he was sitting in his car in the parking lot, trying to force himself to eat a tasteless sandwich. “Mom” flashed on the screen. His heart plummeted.
“Yes, Mom,” he answered, trying to keep his voice as casual as possible.
“Vitenka, what’s going on over there?” his mother’s anxious, tearful voice sounded in his ear. “Alinochka just called me, all upset. She says your Svetlana threw her out of the house, didn’t give her money, was rude… My God, Vitya, what kind of wife is that, who pits a brother against his own sister?”
He closed his eyes. Everything was going according to the most predictable scenario.
“Mom, it’s not exactly like that. Sveta didn’t throw her out. It’s just… just that every kopeck counts right now. We’re saving for the apartment.”
“Saving for an apartment, are they!” his mother’s voice went shrill. “And your own sister is supposed to go out on the street? Vitya, you’re the older brother! Your father has always said you’re responsible for her! Ever since that Svetlana showed up, I don’t recognize this family anymore. What, is she more important than your own blood now? You need to bring her to her senses! You’re the man here, for heaven’s sake! Calm your wife down and give the girl the money she’s asking for! She’s been through enough as it is…”
Viktor listened to this torrent of accusations, and all he wanted was to hang up. He muttered something about the budget, about their common goal, about how Alina was no longer a child. But his words drowned in his mother’s lamentations, never reaching their target. He was to blame for everything: for choosing “the wrong” wife, for daring to have plans of his own, for not rushing to immediately fulfill his sister’s whim. The conversation ended in nothing. His mother hung up, leaving him with a feeling of filth and helplessness.
That evening, when he came home, Svetlana was sitting in an armchair with a book. She looked up when he walked in, and there was no question in her gaze. She already knew everything without words. From his drawn face, from his hunched shoulders. He walked up to her and stopped a couple of steps away.
“Mom called,” he said.
“I figured,” she replied calmly, closing the book.
“Sveta, I’m begging you,” his voice broke into a desperate whisper. “Let’s just give her this money. One last time. And it will all be over. I’ll talk to her, tell her it’s the last time…”
She just looked at him. Simply looked. And there was so much disappointment in that silence that Viktor felt physical pain. She didn’t repeat the four hundred and twenty thousand. She didn’t remind him of her ultimatum. She just looked at her husband — a man who, after the very first attack, was ready to surrender and sacrifice their shared future for the sake of one minute of his own peace.
And then his phone rang. Again.
“Father” flashed on the screen.
Viktor froze. This call was worse. His mother he could endure. His father — no. He slowly pressed the answer button, bringing the phone to his ear as if it were red-hot iron.
“I’m listening, Dad.”
There were no greetings or questions on the other end. Just a low, rumbling voice that always made Viktor’s hands go cold.
“I take it phone conversations don’t get through to you. So we’ll talk in person. I’ll come over tomorrow evening. Be at home.”
And then the flat beeps.
His father hadn’t threatened him. He hadn’t shouted. He had simply informed him of his decision. As something inevitable. As a force of nature. Viktor lowered his hand with the phone. He looked at Svetlana. She understood everything from his deathly pale face. He didn’t say a word. And what was there to say? The sentence had been passed. Execution scheduled for tomorrow. And he knew that tomorrow he’d have to choose not between his wife and his sister. He’d have to choose between his life and his fear.
The next day dragged on for Viktor like a bad, endless dream. He wasn’t living; he was functioning on autopilot, waiting for the evening with the same fatalism as a condemned man waiting for dawn. Svetlana, on the contrary, was the embodiment of composure. There was no panic in her, no anger. She moved around the apartment with a cold, detached grace, doing her usual chores. But her calm was scarier than any hysterics. It was the calm of a surgeon before a complicated operation, confident in every movement. She wasn’t packing. She wasn’t crying. She was just waiting, and Viktor could feel with his skin that she was not waiting for his father’s arrival, but for the moment when she would have to act.
The doorbell didn’t sound like an invitation, but like the crack of a starter pistol announcing the beginning of the end. Viktor flinched, while Svetlana, sitting in the armchair with her book, didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She simply closed the book, slipped in a bookmark, and stayed seated, looking at the door.
Viktor opened it. His father was standing on the threshold. Tall, heavy-set, with a hard, impassive face that looked as if it had been carved from granite. He didn’t just come in — he carried himself into the apartment like a monument. His gaze slid over Svetlana with complete indifference, as if she were a piece of furniture, then locked onto his son.
“Well, hello, son,” his voice was low and stripped of any emotion. He didn’t take off his shoes, walking into the living room in dirty boots and leaving wet footprints on the light laminate flooring. It was a display of power. He had come into “his” home to restore “his” order.
“Dad, what are you…” Viktor began, but his father cut him off with a commanding gesture.
“Be quiet. I didn’t come here to listen to your excuses. I came to look in the eyes of a man who’s forgotten what family and duty are.”
He stopped in the middle of the room, looming over the seated Svetlana and the frozen Viktor. He spoke only to his son, ostentatiously ignoring his daughter-in-law.
“Your mother called me, in tears. Your sister called me, humiliated in your own home. You’ve allowed a woman to decide how our family should live. You’ve allowed her to dictate terms to your own blood. I didn’t raise you like that. Your sister is your responsibility. As long as I’m alive, that’s how it will be. And no…,” he stumbled, not deigning to say Svetlana’s name, “…no outsider is going to lay down the law here.”
Viktor stood with his head bowed. Every word from his father struck him like a whip. He felt like a little boy again, guilty, being scolded for a bad grade. The fear of his father was deep-rooted, soaked into him since childhood, and it paralyzed any attempt to object.
“So now,” his father raised his voice, moving to the climax of his speech, “you’re going to go and get the money and give it to your sister. She’s waiting downstairs in the car. And that will be the end of this conversation. Is that clear?”
At that moment, Svetlana rose silently from the armchair. She didn’t say a word. Calmly, without looking at either her husband or her father-in-law, she walked past them and disappeared into the bedroom. Father and son watched her go with bewilderment. They were ready for anything: tears, shouting, doors slamming. Instead, she simply left. A minute later she came back. She was holding a laptop.
She walked over to the coffee table, set the laptop down and opened it. The screen lit up her impassive face. She turned it so that both Viktor and his father could see the figures.
“In our joint savings account,” her voice was flat, almost like a newsreader’s, without the slightest tremor, “there is one million two hundred and forty-six thousand rubles.”
A tap on the touchpad. The cursor moved.
“Exactly half of that amount is six hundred and twenty-three thousand rubles.”
Calmly, methodically, she entered the amount into the transfer field, selected her personal account and clicked “Confirm.” A notification popped up on the screen: transaction successful.
The sound of the laptop lid snapping shut rang in the tense silence like a period at the end of a very long sentence. Svetlana raised her eyes and looked straight at Viktor. Her gaze was empty. There was no hatred in it, no resentment, no love. Nothing.
“The remaining half is yours. You can give it to your sister. That should be enough so she’ll stop bothering your father. And therefore, you.”
With that, she turned around and again walked back to the bedroom, this time closing the door tightly, though still quietly, behind her.
The father, who just a few minutes earlier had seemed like an unshakable rock, sagged. His face stretched in bewilderment. He looked from his son to the closed door, unable to comprehend what had just happened. His power, his words, his authority — all of it had just been destroyed by one quiet, businesslike action. Viktor stared at the closed bedroom door, and slowly, painfully, it dawned on him what he had just lost. Not half the money. He had lost everything. He was left alone in a shattered world, with his father’s order — and money that had now become the price of his future…