Part 1. A Feast of Vultures
The living room looked like a showroom in an expensive furniture store: too sterile, too pompous, and completely devoid of life. Rostislav sat at the head of the table, studying everyone gathered there as if they were defective specimens in his private insect collection. He twirled the stem of his wine glass between his fingers, watching the thick red wine leave slow, heavy trails on the crystal.
“The salad is dry,” he said without looking at his wife. “Yana, did you skimp on the dressing again? Or is this some subtle revenge because I bought the curtains in the wrong shade?”
Yana sat at the opposite end of the table, upright and rigid, as if she had swallowed a steel rod. She did not answer. She simply pushed the sauce boat toward him in silence. The sound of porcelain touching the glass tabletop rang out far too loudly.
To Rostislav’s right sat his mother, Larisa Andreevna, a woman with a permanently guilty expression and a nervous habit of crumbling bread into little gray balls. Across from her, his father, German Igorevich, was devouring duck with the hunger of a man afraid someone might take the plate away at any moment. Beside him, Rostislav’s sister, Sveta, sat buried in her phone.
“Rostik, the meat is wonderful,” Larisa Andreevna mumbled, trying to please her son. “You always knew how to choose good products. Not like us pensioners, always hunting for discounts…”
“Mother, don’t start,” Rostislav grimaced. “That smell of poverty ruins my appetite. If you need money, just say so. No need to circle around the subject with those beaten-dog faces.”
German Igorevich choked and coughed, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Why would you say that, son? We only came to visit, to spend time together. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”
“In a while?” Rostislav smirked, and that smile promised nothing good. “You were here ten days ago. And back then your idea of ‘spending time together’ was talking about repairs at your country house. The estimate had gone up, if I remember correctly?”
Sveta finally looked up from her phone, her false eyelashes flashing.
“You could help your parents. It wouldn’t make you poor. Your car costs more than their entire country house and the land combined. Greed is a sin, brother.”
“And shamelessness is a diagnosis,” Rostislav shot back. “Sveta, when was the last time you worked? Oh, right. You’re still ‘finding yourself.’ Third year running, isn’t it?”
Yana felt the air in the room growing stale. She wanted to throw open the balcony door, but she knew that even the smallest movement would trigger a new wave of criticism. She looked at her husband and no longer saw the man she had married five years ago. She saw a tyrant swollen with his own importance. The money that had fallen into his lap after a successful real estate deal had not merely spoiled him. It had burned every trace of humanity out of him.
“Damn it!” Rostislav suddenly roared, flinging his fork aside. The utensil clattered toward the fireplace. “Yana! The meat is cold! Couldn’t you at least make sure it was served at the right temperature? Why did I buy an oven with a warming function? For decoration?”
“I thought we were waiting for the guests,” she said quietly. Her voice was steady, but under the table she clenched the fabric of her dress so tightly that her nails dug into her palms.
“She thought…” her husband mocked. “A turkey also thinks before it gets roasted.”
Larisa Andreevna fussed anxiously, trying to smooth things over.
“Rostik, don’t shout. Yanochka tried her best. Let me warm it up…”
“Sit down!” her son barked.
His mother dropped back into her chair, blinking in fear.
Part 2. An Auction of Unbelievable Greed
The dinner continued in oppressive silence, broken only by the clatter of knives and the ringing of glasses. Rostislav kept filling himself with wine, and with every sip his gaze grew cloudier and meaner. He felt like the master of life, a lord among servants.
“Speaking of birds,” he began, lazily picking at his teeth with a toothpick. “German, you asked me to transfer three hundred thousand for the roof.”
His father immediately perked up, hope flickering in his eyes.
“Yes, son. It’s leaking terribly. Autumn is coming soon. Everything will be flooded…”
“You’ll get nothing,” Rostislav said clearly, with lazy cruelty. “Not a roof, not a penny.”
His father froze with his mouth open. Sveta snorted.
“What a miser.”
“I am not a miser. I am an investor,” Rostislav said, leaning back in his chair and spreading his arms. “Putting money into that ruin of yours is like feeding banknotes into a stove. So I decided to do things differently. I’m selling your country house.”
“What?” Larisa Andreevna dropped her fork. “What do you mean, selling it? It’s ours… our family place… Your grandfather planted those apple trees!”
“Grandfather is dead, and the apple trees have rotted. The land is expensive. I’ve already found a buyer. The documents are in my name, remember? When you transferred the property to me to avoid paying taxes, you begged me to take on that burden.”
“What the hell?” Sveta shrieked. “And where are we supposed to go for barbecues?”
“To the woods,” Rostislav cut her off. “Or to a city park. Sit on a bench.”
Yana watched the scene unfold, nausea rising inside her. She knew her husband was cruel, but to rob his parents of their only joy for the sake of another whim…
“Rostislav, that is vile,” she finally said.
Her husband slowly turned his head toward her.
“Vile?” he repeated softly. “Vile is sitting on my neck and preaching morality. You, darling, are just as much of a parasite in this house as they are. Your contribution to our budget is exactly zero point nothing. So shut your mouth and chew your duck while I’m still in a good mood.”
“Rostik, my son, please don’t sell it,” his mother whimpered, stretching her hands toward him across the table. “We spend every summer there…”
“I’VE HAD ENOUGH!” Rostislav slammed his fist onto the table. The glass jumped and toppled over, and a red stain began spreading across the snow-white tablecloth like a wound. “All of you have worn me out! Give me this, give me that! What am I, a printing press? I work like a damned animal so you can eat delicacies and teach me how to live?”
German Igorevich rose to his feet, his face blotched red.
“We raised you… We gave you an education…”
“You gave me complexes and debts!” Rostislav shouted. “I achieved everything myself! In spite of you!”
“Go to hell, brother,” Sveta said, standing up. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you’re not leaving,” Rostislav hissed ominously as he got to his feet. He swayed, but caught himself on the edge of the table. “You’re not just leaving. You’re being thrown out. Forever.”
Part 3. The Fall of Idols
The scene was grotesque. Rostislav towered over the table like a caricature of a dictator.
“Now get up and leave!” he ordered his mother and father. “And you, get out too!” he snapped at his sister. “I don’t want a trace of any of you here in one minute!”
“Son, it’s night outside…” his mother stammered.
“GET OUT!” he bellowed so loudly that the chandelier seemed to tremble. “Call a taxi from the street. Or take a walk. Fresh air is good for your health.”
His parents hunched their shoulders and shuffled toward the exit, avoiding his eyes. German Igorevich tried to preserve the last remnants of his dignity, but his shoulders were shaking. As Sveta passed her brother, she spat on the floor.
“May you choke on your money, you monster.”
“Out!” Rostislav roared, grabbing a napkin holder from the table and hurling it toward the hallway. It struck the wall with a crack, scattering white napkins like a paper explosion.
The front door slammed. A ringing silence settled over the apartment. Rostislav breathed heavily, his face crimson, his tie crooked. He felt triumphant. He had cleansed his space. He had shown everyone who the alpha was.
Then he turned to Yana. She was still sitting at the table, completely motionless.
“Well?” he asked rudely. “Why are you sitting there? Waiting for applause? There won’t be any. Clear the table. Now.”
Yana slowly lifted her eyes to him. There was no fear in them. There was something dark, dense, and terrifying, something Rostislav had never noticed before.
“No,” she said.
“What did you say?” He could not believe his ears. He stepped closer, looming over her. “Have you gone deaf? I said clean up this mess. Then you’ll go to the bedroom and apologize for ruining my evening with that sour face of yours.”
“I said no,” Yana repeated, standing up. “I will not pick up the napkin you used to wipe your filthy hands on your own parents.”
“Have you lost your fear?” Rostislav grabbed her by the forearm. “Have you forgotten who feeds you? You are nothing without me. Nothing. An empty place.”
Part 4. A Fury Without Brakes
At that moment, something inside Yana burned out. The fuse that had held back the current for years melted and vanished. She did not cry. She did not try to pull away. She screamed.
It was not the helpless squeak he was used to. It was a primal, furious scream that made Rostislav’s ears ring.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” she shrieked, and that shriek was more terrifying than any roar.
She grabbed the heavy platter with the remains of the duck and, without even aiming, hurled it at the wall where the enormous television hung. The crash, the shattering screen, and the slap of greasy meat against expensive wallpaper merged into one brutal chord of destruction.
Rostislav stumbled back, releasing her arm. He was stunned. He had expected pleading, obedience. He had not been prepared for war.
“What the hell are you doing, you idiot?” he rasped. “That plasma cost two hundred thousand!”
“I DON’T CARE!” Yana grabbed the wine bottle by the neck. Wine splashed onto the carpet, but she no longer cared. “You think you’re a king here? You think you bought me with this television? With these walls?”
She threw the bottle onto the floor. Glass burst into shards, and a burgundy puddle spread instantly.
“For God’s sake!” Rostislav backed away. “Calm down! You’re hysterical! You need treatment!”
“SHUT UP!” She advanced on him, now holding a heavy ceramic vase. “For years! For years I listened to your whining! Your humiliations! ‘Yana, that dress is wrong.’ ‘Yana, you’ve gained weight.’ ‘Yana, you’re stupid.’ To hell with you and your criticism!”
She threw the vase not at him, but at the glass cabinet that held his collection of expensive alcohol. The crash rang out as if a crystal palace had collapsed.
“You are sick!” she screamed, red patches spreading across her face, her hair coming loose. “You are a pathetic, insecure little man who builds himself up by crushing old people and a woman! You’re a coward, Rostislav!”
“Stop destroying my house!” he roared, trying to shout over her, but panic was already creeping into his voice. He had never seen her like this. This was not Yana. This was a natural disaster.
“Your house?” she laughed hysterically, grabbed the sauce boat from the table, and flung it at the newly bought painting on the wall. A greasy stain spread across the abstract artwork. “Yours? Damn you and your house! I hate every single thing here! I hate this sofa!”
She kicked the leather armchair, then grabbed a chair and knocked it over with a crash.
“Enough!” Rostislav tried to grab her, but she spun around and shoved him in the chest so hard that he lost his footing, slipped in the wine, and fell to the floor, right into the puddle and broken glass.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she screamed, standing over him. “I will not stay silent anymore! I am not a thing! I am a person! Do you hear me, you bastard? I am a living person!”
Rostislav looked up at her from the floor, sitting in the filthy mess. His expensive suit was ruined, his hands stained with wine. Fear locked him in place. Not because she might hit him, but because he suddenly understood: he had lost control. The levers of pressure had snapped. She was no longer afraid of losing her comfortable life. She was ready to burn everything to the ground.
“You… you’ll regret this,” he muttered, but it sounded pitiful.
“Regret it?” Yana suddenly fell silent. Her chest rose and fell heavily. She looked around the destroyed living room, then down at her husband struggling on the floor. “Oh yes. I regret only one thing. That I didn’t do this sooner.”
Part 5. The Cold Shower of Reality
Yana took a deep breath, fixed her hair with trembling hands, and brushed an invisible speck of dust from her dress. The hysteria had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, replaced by icy clarity.
She walked to the dresser in the hallway, opened a drawer, and took out a folder of documents.
Rostislav groaned as he pulled himself up from the floor.
“You will clean all of this,” he hissed, trying to reclaim his authority. “And I’ll deduct the damage from your… pocket money. Not that you’ll be getting any from me anymore.”
Yana returned to the living room and threw the folder onto the table. It slid across the surface and stopped at the edge.
“You’re the one who has to leave, Rostik. Right now. After your parents.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” He laughed nervously and sharply. “This is my apartment. I bought it…”
“Did you forget whose money paid the down payment?” Yana’s voice was quiet and hard. “And whose name the mortgage was in before it was paid off early last year?”
“We’re married! It’s marital property…”
Yana opened the folder.
“Prenuptial agreement, clause 4.2. Property purchased with funds received by one spouse as a gift or inheritance, as well as profit derived from those funds, is not subject to division. My godmother gave the money for this apartment. Every transaction is documented. The apartment is registered in my name. You are only registered here as a resident. Temporarily.”
Rostislav turned pale. He remembered that agreement. He had signed it five years ago without reading it properly because back then he had been head over heels in love and certain he would make billions on his own. And the money from her godmother… he had considered it his the moment it landed in the account.
“But I… I paid for the renovations! I bought the furniture! The television!” He jabbed a finger toward the shattered screen.
“You may take the television. Collect the pieces in a little bag. And as for the renovation receipts…” Yana wrinkled her nose with disgust. “Consider it rent. You lived here for five years. The market rent for a place like this more than covers all your ‘investments’ in Italian tile.”
“You won’t do this,” he whispered. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“To your parents’ country house,” Yana smirked. “Oh, right. You wanted to sell it. Then go to the woods. Or sit on a bench.”
Rostislav lunged toward her, his face twisted with rage.
“You bitch! I’ll sue you! I’ll destroy you!”
“GET OUT!” she roared so fiercely that he stumbled back again.
She took out her phone.
“You have five minutes. Then I’m calling the residential complex security. I already revoked your access pass through the app a minute ago. If you don’t leave on your own, they will escort you out. And believe me, the neighbors will be delighted to watch the show.”
Rostislav stood in the middle of the wrecked living room, his shirt ruined, drops of wine running down his trousers. He looked around. The entire world he had built so carefully to feed his ego had crumbled into dust. There was no power left. No admiration. No fear in his wife’s eyes. Only contempt.
He understood that he had lost. Not because he was legally weak, but because he had gone too far. He had broken a toy that turned out to be a trap.
“Choke on it, then,” he spat, grabbing his jacket from a chair. “I’ll leave. But you’ll come crawling back…”
“Your time has started,” Yana said, deliberately glancing at the clock on the wall.
Rostislav rushed into the hallway, shoved his feet into his shoes without even tying the laces, and grabbed his car keys.
“Leave the apartment keys,” Yana said coldly behind him.
He froze, clenched his fist, then hurled the keyring onto the floor with all his strength.
“Go to hell!”
The door slammed loudly.
Yana was alone. The apartment smelled of sour wine and expensive perfume, which now filled her with disgust. She looked at the broken vase and the stains on the walls. This was not chaos. This was the beginning of renovation.
She walked to the window. Down below, near the entrance, Rostislav’s figure appeared. He got into his car, but it would not start. The headlights flashed and went dark. Yana remembered that the spare key to his precious “baby” was in her handbag, while the main one had probably ended up drowning in a glass of wine earlier in the evening when he had been throwing utensils around. Or maybe the battery had died from sitting too long. It did not matter. What mattered was that he was sitting there in the dark, alone. Without the family he had thrown out. Without the wife he had humiliated. Without the home he had treated like a trophy.
Yana took out her phone, found her mother-in-law’s number, and pressed call.
“Hello? Larisa Andreevna? Have you gone far? Come back. No, Rostislav is not here anymore. Yes, I threw him out. Call a taxi in my name, I’ll pay for it. You’ll go home comfortably. No one is selling the country house, I promise.”
She ended the call and, for the first time that evening, smiled sincerely. The anger was gone, leaving behind a ringing, clean emptiness that she would now have to fill with something real.