“You don’t get it, guys! I’m the one feeding this whole city!”
Oleg Grebenyuk’s voice—owner of the “GrenkI” bakery chain—thundered through his spacious, high-end kitchen.
Andrey, his childhood friend, shifted a heavy glass awkwardly in his hands. Egor and Sergey, his billiards buddies, pretended to study the patterns in the oak tabletop.
“Every bun I make is, damn it, art! Every croissant is a masterpiece! And what does she do?”
With a broad, scornful sweep of his hand, Oleg gestured toward his wife.
Svetlana sat a little apart, in the corner, holding nothing but a glass of plain water.
“My chubby wife can’t do a thing!”
His words—sharp and loud—hung in the air, thick with the scent of expensive cognac and pure vanity.
Svetlana raised her eyes. Slowly. Painfully slowly. No trace of embarrassment. No flicker of hurt. Just a calm, almost detached, appraising look.
Oleg had always taken her steady calmness as proof she was stupid. Hollow. Thoughtless.
“Come on!” he barked, fishing for support from his uncomfortable friends. “I grind like a slave. New locations, suppliers, the health inspectors always hungry for a bribe— I’m the one who builds things!”
He jabbed his thumb into his chest.
“And she?” He nodded at his wife again. “‘Off to work.’ Ha!”
He twisted his face into a parody of her quiet morning exits.
“An accountant! A bargain-bin accountant in some dusty little office! ‘LLC Horns and Hooves’!”
He laughed.
“She sits there shuffling papers for pennies. Can’t even take care of herself.”
With open disgust, Oleg swept his eyes over her figure. The loose dress didn’t hide the weight he loved to mock in public.
“I tell her, ‘Sveta, go to the gym, do something with yourself! Look at other men’s wives!’ But no. Her only sport is sprinting to the fridge at night for seconds.”
His friends stayed silent, tense and embarrassed. They’d heard this speech a hundred times. Oleg couldn’t get through an evening without humiliating his wife at least once.
He saw their discomfort—and pushed harder.
“I carry this whole house, this whole business on my back. And she’s dead weight. Sitting on my neck and… getting heavier.”
He laughed again at his own flat joke.
“That’s why I run the show, and you, Sveta, you just… exist. In the shadows.”
He swept his gaze around, expecting applause—if not applause, then at least a few approving nods.
Svetlana didn’t move.
She only took a small, almost invisible sip of water.
There was no offense in her head. Only figures. She mentally totaled the cognac he’d burned through tonight and converted it into the cost of a modest, effective social-media ad campaign.
And in that moment Andrey—sharpest of the three—noticed something strange.
In her calm gray eyes there was no humiliation, no defeat.
There was something else. Something like… faint curiosity. And also—cold calculation.
As if she wasn’t looking at her husband at all, but at an interesting, not-too-bright, painfully predictable biological specimen.
Egor grew genuinely uneasy. Desperate to stop the scene, he tried to change the subject.
“Hey, Oleg… how are things with that new competitor? You were fuming last week. ‘Warm Place’?”
Oleg’s face darkened instantly, like someone had pressed on a raw bruise. The cognac in his glass sloshed.
“Oh!” He slammed his fist on the table hard enough to make the glasses jump. “You mean those—‘Warm Place’!”
He practically spat the name.
“Jackals! That’s what they are! Rats!”
Oleg shot to his feet and started pacing again, like a tiger in a cage. His anger at his wife flipped at once to a new, more serious target.
“Can you imagine—this bastard… I don’t even know who he is… he’s hitting my most profitable locations!”
He held up a finger.
“My ‘GrenkI’ on Vokzalnaya. Best foot traffic in the city! A week later—right across the street—they open their ‘Warm Place.’”
A second finger.
“My place in the residential district, on the corner of Mira and Lesnaya. I spent three years building that one up! They wedge their bakery right into the courtyard and steal my entire morning flow!”
“They even poached my best baker, Igor!” he roared. “Can you believe it? Igor—the one I dragged out of some village!”
Egor whistled.
“Harsh.”
“That’s not harsh!” Oleg snapped. “That’s sabotage! They know my process sheets! They take my ideas and make them…”
He stalled, hunting for the right word.
“Cheaper?” Sergey suggested.
“No!” Oleg shouted. “That’s the point—they don’t make them cheaper! They make them… cozier, or something.”
He actually flinched at the word, as if it hurt his teeth.
“With me—it’s fast sales, throughput. With them—some old pillows on the windowsills and free lemon water. With me—standards. With them—‘sourdough of the day’ and ‘signature cocoa.’”
He was shaking with rage.
“They’re not just stealing customers. They’re stealing my reputation! People start thinking my ‘GrenkI’ is some kind of fast food, and theirs has ‘soul’! What soul, for God’s sake?!”
He stopped and drained his cognac in one gulp.
“I’ve spent two weeks trying to find out who’s behind them. Everything’s clean! No traces. Some tiny sole-proprietor outfit registered God knows where—in another region! In some random guy’s name. But there’s someone behind him. Someone with money and…”
He shot a venomous look at Svetlana, who took another sip of water.
“And brains. Which some people just aren’t born with.”
And then—for the first time all evening—Svetlana spoke.
Her voice was quiet, even, almost colorless. But it carried a note nobody there had ever heard from her before.
Steel.
“What’s their average check, Oleg?”
The room froze. Even Oleg blinked—stunned that the “dead weight” had asked something sensible.
“What?”
“Average check size. Did you compare it? And what’s their seat turnover? If they’ve got ‘pillows,’ people sit longer. That cuts profit per square meter. Have you done the math?”
Oleg stared at her as if she’d started speaking in perfect French.
For a second he processed it. Then he erupted.
“You? You’re going to teach me business?!”
He stepped in close, looming over her with all his bulk.
“An accountant who can’t tell debit from credit! Do you even know what EBITDA is?”
Svetlana looked at him in silence.
“What, nothing to say?” he bellowed. “That’s what I thought!”
He grabbed the notebook lying on the side table—an old, worn faux-leather planner she never went anywhere without.
“What’s in here? Numbers? Grocery spending and new pantyhose?”
He tossed it onto her lap with disgust.
“Stay out of this, Sveta. Your job is to keep quiet and count your pennies. I’ll deal with that ‘Warm Place.’ I’ll crush them.”
He turned back to his friends triumphantly, as if he’d just won a war.
“I found out they’re planning to open a flagship. Right across from my very first, my most important ‘GrenkI’ on Centralnaya Street. That’s a declaration of war. Well—fine. I accept!”
Svetlana slowly, very slowly, opened her notebook.
Her fingers moved across the pages, filled with tight, meticulous handwriting. There were no recipes. No grocery lists. There were rows of figures, addresses, supplier phone numbers, arrows and charts.
She lifted her eyes to her husband, who was already pouring himself more cognac, complaining to his friends about the world’s betrayal and the talentless baker Igor.
She studied his flushed, furious face.
Then she looked down at the last page of the notebook, where one address had been circled in thick marker.
“Centralnaya, 12.”
The exact address of his flagship bakery. Beside it, a note read: “Rent paid 6 months in advance. Start renovations tomorrow.”
She closed the notebook quietly.
The evening stopped being “a relaxing night.” It became work.
Oleg’s friends, crushed by the scene, started edging toward the door. They were embarrassed to be there.
“Alright, Oleg… we should head out…” Andrey mumbled, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
“Sit down!” Oleg barked, feeling his audience slipping away. “You haven’t even seen how I’m going to—”
He didn’t finish.
Svetlana stood up.
Unhurried, calm, she walked to the kitchen table and picked up her phone.
Her movement was so ordinary, so controlled, that Oleg didn’t react right away.
“Where are you going?” he threw at her back. “To the bathroom to cry? Or to raid the fridge for seconds?”
Svetlana unlocked her screen and dialed.
All four men went silent, watching her.
“Nikita Sergeyevich, hello,” she said into the phone.
Her voice changed. It didn’t get louder. It became heavier. The colorless tone Oleg had mistaken for submission vanished—replaced by a clean, hard edge.
“Yes, this is Svetlana Yevgenyevna. Sorry for calling so late.”
Oleg froze with his glass in hand. “Svetlana… Yevgenyevna?” He had never called her that. Not even in his head.
“Nikita Sergeyevich, we’re changing strategy. Centralnaya, twelve.”
Oleg slowly lowered the glass. The address… that was his address.
“Yes,” Svetlana continued, staring at her husband with a cold, unblinking gaze. “Tomorrow morning we activate the ‘Scorched Earth’ protocol.”
Oleg went pale.
“I want our prices on the entire lineup to be thirty percent lower by lunchtime than…” she gave a faint smirk, “…than ‘GrenkOv’s.’ Yes—across the board.”
“Wh—” Oleg whispered.
“Yes, I know his budget. More precisely, his lack of one. He has no financial cushion. His entire profit is tied up in cash flow and supplier debt. We’ll dry him out in a week.”
She paused to listen.
“No. Approval isn’t required. My… partner… has just officially declared war. We respond. Execute.”
She ended the call and set the phone on the table.
A thick silence flooded the kitchen—so dense it felt like you could drown in it.
Andrey, Egor, and Sergey stared at Svetlana as if they were seeing her for the first time. Horror—and something like awe—mixed on their faces.
Oleg breathed hard and loud, like a cornered animal.
“What… was that?” he rasped.
“That, Oleg, was a phone call,” Svetlana replied evenly. “To my operations director.”
“Your… director?”
“My director,” she repeated patiently. “From ‘Warm Place.’”
To say Oleg was shocked didn’t even come close. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish on ice.
“You…”
“Yes, Oleg. Me.”
She stepped closer. And for the first time in ten years, she looked him straight on—level, not from below.
“You thought I worked in some ‘dusty little office.’ You weren’t wrong. That office is mine.”
“But… you lied to me! All this time!”
“I didn’t lie, Oleg. I am an accountant. You just never asked whose accountant I was. I kept accounts. My own.”
She glanced at his stunned friends.
“Thanks for coming, boys. But the evening’s over.”
Then she looked back at her husband. His face was gray.
“You wanted a war with ‘Warm Place.’ Congratulations—you’ve got it. Only you showed up drunk and empty-handed. I showed up with an annual report and a clear head.”
She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
“And one more thing, Oleg…”
She paused in the doorway.
“You’re right. I really can’t do anything. I can’t cook the way you wanted. I can’t lose weight the way you demanded.”
She smiled—cold, professional.
“I can do only one thing. I can count. And I counted it up. You’re no longer profitable for me. In any way.”
Svetlana left.
She didn’t slam the door. She simply pulled it shut. The expensive lock clicked softly.
Oleg remained standing in the middle of his kitchen—his “fortress.”
Andrey, Egor, and Sergey looked at him now without fear. With a kind of disgusted pity—and a hint of relief.
He wasn’t a “creator” anymore. He was just a man built up—and then crushed—by his wife.
“Oleg… we, uh…” Andrey started, backing toward the entryway.
“Get out,” Oleg forced out without looking at them.
He didn’t need comfort. He needed enemies. And the biggest one had just walked into the living room.
His friends vanished, quietly closing the front door behind them.
Oleg sank heavily into a chair—the same chair where, an hour ago, he’d been preaching his greatness.
He stared at his glass. At the half-finished cognac.
His whole “GrenkI empire” had been balanced on the nights when a “cheap accountant” quietly made the numbers work.
He wasn’t the builder. He was the sign.
A loud, brazen, empty sign. And the engine—the power—the foundation—had been her.
The realization hit him with nauseating clarity.
Meanwhile Svetlana sat in the living room.
She slipped off her heels and stretched her legs with real pleasure, planting her feet on the soft, thick rug.
She didn’t turn on the lights. She liked the half-darkness and the city’s night glow beyond the window.
There was no triumph on her face. Only fatigue.
Carrying two children for ten years—his business and her own—was exhausting.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Nikita Sergeyevich:
“Svetlana Yevgenyevna, prices on the site have been updated. The flour and butter suppliers (the same ones who work with ‘GrenkI’) are already calling, asking for a meeting. They’re ready to cut prices by 40% for an exclusive contract with us. Igor the baker sends his regards and asks if we need another pastry chef.”
She read the message.
Then read it again.
And for the first time that long night—or the first time in ten years—she smiled.
Not a cold business smile.
A warm, living, human smile.
She had no intention of “drying him out” in a week. That was just negotiating posture.
What she planned to do was what she did best.
She planned to count.
Oleg had been a terrible husband. But he’d built a brand—gaudy, clumsy, but recognizable.
And she had built a system.
And tomorrow, when he came to his senses, she would offer him a deal.
She wouldn’t destroy him.
She would simply buy him. For pennies.
Because a good accountant never throws away an asset.
They optimize it.
She leaned back on the couch—in the same dress he despised—and closed her eyes.
She didn’t care what he thought of her weight.
What mattered was that, starting tomorrow, her weight in this city would be the heaviest of all.
Epilogue. Six months later.
The kitchen looked the same.
Only now it smelled not of expensive cognac, but of freshly steeped herbs and, faintly, vanilla.
Oleg sat at the table in the same spot. But he was no longer the master of the house.
He was a fixture—an accessory.
Svetlana came in with a folder of documents and set it on the table.
In six months she hadn’t lost a gram. If anything, she’d allowed herself a few new dresses—expensive, incredibly comfortable, loose-cut Italian cashmere.
“Here,” she said. “Final transfer acceptance papers.”
Oleg stared blankly at the folder.
His “war” had lasted exactly forty-eight hours.
The morning after Svetlana’s call, three of his five key suppliers phoned politely to announce they were ending deliveries due to “changed market conditions.”
By lunchtime his accounts were frozen over a lawsuit for unpaid rent on three locations. The plaintiff was that same out-of-region company he’d never heard of.
By evening he sat in this same kitchen, gray as dust, when Svetlana walked in.
She didn’t kick him while he was down. She simply put the calculations in front of him: his debts—and her offer.
She would buy “GrenkI.” All of it. Along with all the debt she had just exposed.
She was buying the brand, the equipment, and taking over the leases.
“You’ll get…” she named a sum.
Oleg howled. It was less than his car was worth.
“That,” Svetlana said calmly, “is what a bankrupt business sells for. If I’m buying a bankrupt business, the price is this.”
She slid another sheet toward him.
“Zero. You sign everything over to me, and I cover your debts. You walk away clean. And you keep the car.”
He signed.
Now, six months later, “GrenkI” officially belonged to the “Warm Place” holding company.
Oleg’s former flagship on Centralnaya 12 had been closed. In its place glowed a huge, sleek sign:
“Warm Place. Flagship.”
It became the most fashionable spot in town.
“What’s this?” Oleg croaked, pointing at the new folder.
“Your employment contract,” Svetlana said, pulling out an expensive pen.
He stared at her.
“You… but you…”
“I told you, Oleg. I’m an accountant. I optimize assets.”
She opened the contract.
“We’re not shutting down the ‘GrenkI’ brand. It’ll work in the budget segment: express points. Train station, markets, residential districts. No ‘pillows.’ Just flow. Exactly what you started with.”
She pushed the papers toward him.
“You’ll manage that network: ‘GrenkI Express.’”
He lifted his eyes in disbelief. Manager? That… sounded almost respectable.
“Three-month probation,” she added. “And Nikita Sergeyevich will be your direct supervisor.”
Oleg’s flicker of hope died. He understood.
He wouldn’t be a “creator.” He’d be a cog. Reporting to the very man she’d called that night.
“And if I refuse?” he squeezed out.
“Up to you,” Svetlana shrugged. “The car is yours. The apartment…”
She paused.
“The apartment was bought with money from my first ‘Warm Place’ project. So you move out.”
Oleg stared at the contract.
It was a trap—complete, absolute, mathematically airtight.
“You… you…” He searched for words full of poison, but found only ash. “You used to be…”
“I still am, Oleg,” she cut him off. “I’m the same person. You were just staring at the wrapping.”
She picked up her handbag.
“You have two hours to sign and come to the office. Nikita Sergeyevich is waiting. If you’re late, the offer is off the table.”
She left.
Oleg stayed alone in the kitchen. He looked at the hand that had pounded the table while he shouted about “feeding the city.”
Then he took the pen.
An hour later, Andrey and Egor walked past the former “GrenkI” on Vokzalnaya and stopped in surprise.
The sign was the same. But underneath it stood Oleg.
Not a “creator.” Not a “genius.”
He wore a simple apron, tight across his belly, a clipboard in his hands, barking at movers hauling sacks of flour.
“Careful! This—this is all counted out! Every sack!”
From behind him, Nikita Sergeyevich stepped out in a perfect suit and murmured something.
Oleg shrank, nodded, and ran off to check invoices.
Andrey glanced at Egor.
“Let’s get out of here. I just… lost my appetite.”
Meanwhile, in her new bright corner office overlooking Central Square, Svetlana Yevgenyevna studied two columns of figures on her laptop:
“Warm Place” and “GrenkI Express.”
Both showed steady quarterly growth.
She really couldn’t do anything.
Except the one thing that mattered most.
Winning.