“Watch where you’re going, chicken,” my ex-husband shoved me in the office hallway.
His shoulder was as bony and unpleasant as it had been five years ago. The smell of cheap cologne mixed with sweat and stale tobacco hit my nose.
I staggered, and the heavy folder with documents for Viktor slipped from my hands and thudded onto the carpet.
Oleg didn’t recognize me. To him I was just another faceless employee, an obstacle on his way to the water cooler.
He gave me a disgusted once-over from head to toe, lingered on my shoes, and curled his lip.
“They hire just anyone,” he muttered and walked on without apologizing.
I stood there, looking at his back. The new haircut, the expensive thin-framed glasses, and the impeccable pantsuit Viktor had chosen for me—all of it turned out to be perfect camouflage.
I had changed. He hadn’t. The same slouch, the same swaggering gait, the same aura of perpetual dissatisfaction and envy of the whole world.
Inside, something went cold and snapped. Not from hurt. From a sudden, almost nauseating sense of déjà vu.
His voice—that commanding, humiliating tone—flung me back for a second to our tiny, perpetually smoke-stained kitchen where I’d curl up and listen to his next round of reproaches.
My fingers, which had automatically lifted the folder, clenched on the smooth leather until it creaked. I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fine leather and a faint trace of perfume, not the musty smell of the past. That smell brought me back to myself.
I straightened. Lifted my head and walked after him, slowly. Not to answer. To watch.
Oleg walked up to Lena’s desk, the secretary of my husband, Viktor Kirillovich. He leaned on the counter in a showy way, peering into her monitor.
“Lenochka, sunshine, is the boss in? I need to get a report signed urgently, otherwise the whole crew will miss out on their bonus. Because of bureaucracy.”
He smiled at her with that ingratiating smile I knew so well. The smile that appeared on his face when he needed something from people he considered even slightly above him.
Lena—sweet, efficient Lena—looked up at him.
“Viktor Kirillovich is busy. He has a meeting.”
“Come on, a meeting at lunchtime?” Oleg kept at it. “Just tell him it’s Lavrov. He knows I’m a serious guy—I wouldn’t bother him for nothing.”
I stopped a few steps behind, by the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that looked out over the city. My city. My new world.
Oleg didn’t see me. He was too busy with his petty game. He had no idea who was standing behind him.
Not just the ex-wife he once threw out of the house with a single suitcase. But the new wife of his CEO.
A woman who, with one word, could decide whether he got his bonus or not.
I looked at his cheap suit, his worn-down shoes, at the way he obsequiously tried to catch Lena’s eye.
And I felt no pity. Only a cold, ringing interest—like a researcher examining an unpleasant insect under a microscope.
He turned to leave, and our eyes met. This time I didn’t look away. I looked straight at him, calm, the corners of my mouth slightly lifted.
For a split second recognition flickered in his eyes. Then puzzlement. He frowned, trying to remember. But he didn’t.
He simply brushed me off like a pesky fly and walked down the corridor, back to his department, back to his little world where he still considered himself master of the situation.
I took out my phone.
“Darling,” I said when Viktor answered, “I have a small request. About one of your employees. No, no need to fire him. That’s too easy.”
The next day a quiet, personal hell began for Oleg Lavrov in the logistics department.
As the “most promising,” he was transferred to a new pilot project reconciling five years of archival documentation. Tedious work requiring utmost concentration—everything Oleg hated and couldn’t do.
His direct supervisor, the elderly and meticulous Pyotr Semyonovich, who had received a vague but strict instruction from the CEO to “test Lavrov for strength,” set to work with enthusiasm.
I was sitting in the executive-floor cafeteria when I overheard two girls from accounting whispering animatedly.
“Semёnych chewed out Lavrov in front of everyone again today. He put a comma in the wrong place on a bill of lading, and Semёnych gave him a half-hour lecture on the importance of punctuation in international shipping.”
“He’s totally lost it. He’s yelling at everyone, saying they’re trying to edge him out.”
A week later I “accidentally” ran into him by the elevator again. He looked terrible. Crumpled, angry, eyes red from lack of sleep.
The elevator arrived. The doors opened. I stepped in. Oleg followed.
“These elevators always crawl,” he hissed into the air. “Like everything in this company. It’s run by idiots.”
I pressed the button for my floor.
“Sometimes the problem isn’t the elevator,” I said quietly, “but the passenger who doesn’t know which floor he needs.”
He snapped his head toward me. This time he peered into my face.
“What did you say?”
“I’m saying some floors require a special pass,” I smiled straight into his eyes. “And it seems you don’t have one.”
The elevator doors opened. I stepped out, leaving him standing in the car. I could feel his gaze on my back.
A gaze that no longer held contempt. It held bewilderment. And fear. He was starting to figure it out.
For a week he dug. Frenzied, like a man possessed. He tried to pry something out of Lena, but she only gave a cool shrug.
He tried to pressure the sysadmins, but they politely brushed him off, citing confidentiality policy.
Then he camped out on the intranet. For hours he scrolled through photos from corporate parties, reports, news.
And he found it. A photo from the New Year’s party. CEO Viktor Kirillovich with his arm around his wife. My face. Different—happy, confident. But mine.
He stared at the screen as his world collapsed. The puzzle came together. The shove in the corridor. The transfer to the hated project. Semёnych’s tirades. The mysterious woman in the elevator. All links in one chain.
That evening he lay in wait for me in the underground parking garage. He stepped out from behind a column, and I stopped.
“Anya?” he breathed. “It is you, isn’t it?”
“You recognized me,” I said.
“What are you doing? Decided to ruin my life?”
“Me?” I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. “I’m not doing anything, Oleg. I’m just living. You, it seems, aren’t doing your job very well.”
“You set all this up!” he squealed. “You complained to your… hubby?”
“Husband,” I corrected him. “His name is Viktor Kirillovich. And yes, I’m his wife.”
He recoiled.
“Why?” he whispered. “You want money? I’ll pay. Just tell him to leave me alone.”
I laughed.
“Money? Oleg, you still don’t get it. It’s not about money. It never was.”
I stepped right up to him.
“Remember you called me a chicken?” I asked very quietly. “Well, chickens lay eggs. And sometimes dragons hatch from those eggs.”
I turned and walked to the car without looking back. He understood. He understood it was over. That the games were finished. And that in this story he was no longer the hunter. He was the prey.
The next morning Oleg burst into Viktor’s office. I knew he would. I was sitting in the adjoining lounge and heard everything.
“Viktor Kirillovich, I have to warn you!” Oleg began. “Your wife… Anna… she’s a vindictive, malicious woman! She’s using you to settle old scores with me!”
He talked for a long time, painting himself as the victim. Viktor listened in silence.
“Are you finished, Oleg Igorevich?” Viktor’s voice was icy.
“Yes! I just wanted to open your eyes!”
At that moment I walked into the office. I had a slim folder in my hands.
“What’s that?” Viktor asked.
“This, dear, is just an old document,” I said, without looking at Oleg. “A copy of a medical report. Recorded injuries. Remember, Oleg, how you said I had ‘unluckily fallen down the stairs’?”
Viktor opened the folder. His face turned to stone. He slowly lifted his gaze to Oleg.
“Lena,” Viktor said over the intercom. “Call security. Escort Mr. Lavrov out. He no longer works here. And prepare a termination for cause—for slander and conduct damaging the company’s reputation.”
Oleg rasped, but the guards had already taken him by the arms.
When the door closed, Viktor stood and hugged me tightly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was my battle,” I answered. “And I had to finish it myself.”
He said nothing, only held me tighter. I stood, looking over his shoulder out the huge window.
The city was living its own life. And at last, so was I. Free. Strong. And no kind of chicken anymore.
Two years passed.
I sat in my own office. Not in Viktor’s, but in a bright, spacious room on the other side of the city, with windows looking onto a quiet square.
On the glass plaque by the door it said: “Anna Vorontsova, Director of the Wings Charitable Foundation.” We helped women who had suffered domestic violence—gave them temporary shelter, legal and psychological support.
We helped them get back on their feet.
At first Viktor treated my idea with caution, afraid I would dive too deeply into other people’s pain.
But I was persistent. I knew it was needed not only by them, but by me as well—to finally close old accounts.
The phone on my desk pinged softly. It was a message from Lena, Viktor’s former secretary, who now worked for me as an administrator.
She sent me a link to a story in a local online publication with a short note: “Look who I found.”
I opened the link. The article was about a petty scam: a man had tried to sell “miracle” water filters to pensioners at a sky-high price. He’d been caught red-handed.
In the blurry photo taken at the police station, I easily recognized Oleg.
He had aged, grown gaunt and puffy. A cheap jacket, a hunted look, a pathetic attempt to cover his face with his hand.
The short text mentioned that this wasn’t his first offense since being fired from a “cushy job” at a large company.
With that black mark for slander on his record, no respectable employer would hire him anymore.
I looked at his face on the screen and felt nothing. No gloating, no satisfaction, not even pity.
Emptiness. He had become just a line in a news feed to me, a stranger with a pitiful fate. The ghost from the past had finally dissipated.
I closed the tab and looked out the window. In the square, a young mother was playing with her child. They were laughing.
There was no longer any place in my life for wars and revenge. The dragon that had once hatched from fear and pain no longer burned bridges. It built them. For others.
I took a sip of cooled mint tea from my favorite cup and stroked my belly, where a new life was taking shape.
Ahead lay another long but important day. And I was ready for it.