Usually, the intercom buzzing at four in the afternoon meant Sergey had forgotten his keys. Without a second thought, Marina pressed the button to unlock the building entrance, not even asking who it was. She was just finishing watering the ficus in the living room—the very one they had bought together when they first moved into this apartment.
The footsteps in the stairwell were too heavy—more than one set. The door swung open sharply, as if someone hadn’t simply inserted a key but had rammed it with a shoulder. Sergey stood on the threshold. His face looked чужим—like it had been carved from stone—and his gaze stubbornly slid past her, over the walls, the ceiling, anywhere but her.
And behind him, like a shadow, loomed Lydia Petrovna, his mother, smiling.
“Sergey? What happened?” Marina blurted out, and the hand holding the watering can trembled involuntarily, spilling water onto the parquet floor.
He walked in without a word, bumping his shoulder roughly against the doorframe. He smelled of someone else’s cologne and cold street wind.
“Nothing happened. Everything is only just beginning,” he tossed over his shoulder and threw a stack of printed pages onto the coffee table, which was cluttered with her knitting magazines.
Marina approached slowly. The top page had been cut unevenly along the edges. Bold black letters formed a phrase that made her stomach seize:
“Petition for dissolution of marriage.”
She felt the floor slipping out from under her.
“W-What… what is this?” she whispered, staring at him, trying to catch his eyes, to find in his features the Sergey who, three years ago in this very spot—surrounded by renovation dust—had gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry him.
“What it says is what it is. Stop playing dumb,” he snapped, impatiently jabbing a finger at the paper. “Here—where the checkbox is. Sign it and clear the apartment for us.”
The word “us” sounded so natural, as if he were talking not about himself and his mother but about a rightful family. Marina looked at her mother-in-law. Lydia Petrovna wasn’t looking at Marina at all. Businesslike, she was walking around the living room, her tenacious fingers gripping a tape measure. She pressed it to the wall between the windows and clicked the mechanism.
“Lydia Petrovna, what are you doing?” Marina asked quietly.
Her mother-in-law turned, and a sweet, poisonous smile spread across her face.
“Oh, Marinochka, don’t interfere, dear. I’m just estimating. You see, this drywall partition here can be torn down. We’ll get a huge, huge living room. The room is bright. And the view into the kitchen from here is excellent.”
Those words made Marina flush with heat. This was her apartment. Her grandmother’s old Khrushchyovka that had been sold for the down payment, her maternity capital poured into the renovation and the mortgage. Their shared home with Sergey—one he was now calling “us.”
“Do you hear what your mother is saying?” she turned to her husband, and her voice finally strengthened, pushing through the lump in her throat.
“So what?” he snapped, crushing a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. “Mom’s just planning. We’ll redo everything here soon anyway.”
“Redo what? This is my apartment!”
Sergey snorted and finally looked at her. But there wasn’t a drop of warmth in his eyes—only cold contempt.
“What, you didn’t know? We’re dissolving the marriage, dividing property fifty-fifty. So half is mine. And Mom’s going to live with me. So sign it and don’t drag this out.”
Meanwhile, Lydia Petrovna walked up to Marina’s beloved ficus and touched a leaf.
“This plant can go in the entryway. It takes up too much space here.”
Marina looked at them both: her husband stabbing his finger at the divorce petition, and her mother-in-law already rearranging her furniture in her own apartment—mentally moving walls, claiming rooms. The air turned thick and sticky; she couldn’t breathe. Silence rang in her ears, and in that silence betrayal sounded painfully clear.
She slowly shook her head and took a step back.
“No,” she breathed. “I’m not signing anything.”
Sergey froze, and his stone face finally twisted with anger. He stepped toward her.
“Marin, stop making trouble! Sign and clear the apartment for us!”
“Sonny, don’t shout at her,” her mother-in-law chimed in sweetly, still smiling. “Marina, you don’t mind if I make my bedroom here, do you? It’s such a bright room.”
In that moment Marina understood this wasn’t a nightmare she would wake up from. This was a new, ugly reality. And the battle for her home—the one she herself had let into her life—had just begun.
The door slammed with such a crash that a thin crack ran along the wall. Marina didn’t immediately realize it wasn’t her heart tearing—it was just the walls trembling. She stood in the middle of the living room, the very one Lydia Petrovna had already rebuilt in her mind, and she couldn’t move. Her legs felt like cotton, and in her ears was that muffled ringing you get after an explosion.
Her gaze fell on the divorce petition. The white sheet with crooked edges lay on the polished table like a corpse on a clean floor. The black letters danced before her eyes. Slowly—like she was afraid of burning herself—she reached out and touched the paper. It was real. Rough. Cold.
This wasn’t a dream.
The word “us” echoed in her mind again: “Clear the apartment for us.” “We’ll redo it.” Who was “we”? The man who had sworn he loved her at the altar, and the woman who had stood there with a restrained smile, holding an expensive bouquet.
Marina recoiled from the table and, barely remembering how, ended up in the bedroom. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand. Her fingers were shaking; three times she missed as she tried to unlock the screen. In her contacts she found the name “Alina Lawyer” and pressed it, squeezing her eyes shut.
They answered almost immediately.
“Mara, hi!” came the bright, familiar voice. “How are you?”
That ordinary question was the last straw. Her throat seized, and unable to say a word, she burst into tears. The sobs came in dull, painful spasms.
“Marina? Marina, what happened? Where are you? Are you okay?” Alina’s voice instantly became focused, hard—the way it always was at work.
“He… he…” Marina tried to swallow air, wipe her face, but tears poured down her cheeks. “Divorce… petition… They… they’re dividing the apartment…”
“Who is ‘they’? Your husband? Who else? Speak slower—breathe.”
“Sergey. And his mother. They were just here. He demanded I sign the divorce papers. And she… Lydia Petrovna… walked around with a tape measure, saying she’d tear down the partition and make herself a bedroom! In my apartment!” Marina blurted out, and at last the words came in a bitter, tumbling stream.
There was a short pause on the other end.
“Calm down. Sit. Drink some water,” Alina said clearly. “Listen to me carefully. Are you alone at home right now?”
“No… they left… They left this… this petition…”
“Good. So you’re safe right now. Now breathe. And tell me from the beginning. Your husband filed for divorce. Your mother-in-law was present. What exactly did they say about the apartment?”
Sniffling, Marina took a few gulps of water from the glass on the nightstand and, stumbling, repeated the whole dialogue word for word: “half is mine,” “Mom will live with me,” “a bedroom in the living room.”
“Alina, but it’s my apartment!” Marina’s voice trembled with despair again. “You know that! We used my grandmother’s Khrushchyovka for the down payment! And my maternity capital went into it!”
“Mara, stop. Let’s do this legally. Who’s the owner on the documents? Just you?”
The question hung in the air. And with it, from some deep underground place in Marina’s memory, surfaced something she had spent years trying not to think about—something that had seemed like a long-buried “small detail.”
“No…” she whispered, feeling physically sick. “Not just me.”
“Who else?”
“Sergey… they put him on it too…” She closed her eyes, trying to push back the wave of panic.
“When? At the purchase?”
“Yes…” Marina was swept back into the past—not today’s nightmare, but the one from three years earlier that had seemed like family idyll at the time.
They had been sitting at the same table celebrating housewarming. It smelled of paint and pizza. Sergey had wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Darling, let me be on the title with you,” he had said, kissing her temple.
“Why?” she had been surprised. “The mortgage is joint anyway.”
“Why ‘why’?” he’d said. “So there won’t be hard feelings later, like I’m some freeloader here. We’re a family. Everything should be half and half. Fair.”
And then Lydia Petrovna slipped into the conversation softly, like a cat.
“My son is right, daughter-in-law. Don’t be greedy. In our family everything is shared. What’s yours is his, and what’s his is yours. It’s safer that way.”
They pressured her for a week. Sergey sulked, walked around gloomy, said she didn’t trust him. Her mother-in-law sighed about how important it was to do things “as a family.” And in the end, exhausted by the pressure, wanting to prove her love and that she wasn’t “greedy,” Marina gave in.
She gave in—and signed the papers, making Sergey a full co-owner.
“They talked me into it,” Marina said dully into the phone. “They said it was just a formality, that we were forever… And I… I believed them.”
Alina’s voice turned very serious, almost ruthless.
“Marina, listen and remember. If he’s listed as an owner, and the apartment was bought during the marriage, then by law he has a full right to half. Regardless of whose money was used for the down payment. Maternity capital is a separate story—you can carve it out, but it doesn’t cancel out your husband’s share.”
At those words—delivered in that firm legal tone—Marina’s world finally collapsed. What had felt like a horrific scene now took on the hard, reinforced-concrete outlines of the law.
“So… so it’s all true?” she whispered. “They really can take my apartment? My half?”
“Mara, they can try to buy out your share, or get rights through the court. And with your mother-in-law… if she’s registered there or moves in, getting her out will be extremely difficult. Eviction through the courts can take months—sometimes years.”
Marina lowered her head. The tears had dried. In their place came a freezing, absolute horror. Alone in the silence of her apartment—which suddenly stopped feeling like her fortress—she realized it had become a battlefield. And the enemy had already seized the best positions while she—foolishly—believed in “family” and “honesty.”
The silence after her talk with Alina felt hollow and crushing. Her friend’s words hung in the air like a sentence: “has a full right to half.” Marina slowly sank to the bedroom floor, leaning her back against the bed and hugging her knees. Cold seeped from the parquet through her thin pajama fabric, but she barely felt it. Inside was emptiness—colder than ice.
She ran her hand over the rough surface of the printed petition she’d brought from the living room, as if tactile contact could help her accept the unreality of it. But no—the paper was real. The threat was absolutely tangible.
“Half is mine,” Sergey’s voice replayed in her mind. His alien, thorny look. And Lydia Petrovna’s smile—sweet and triumphant as she measured Marina’s walls.
The tears didn’t come anymore. They seemed to have frozen somewhere inside, turning into a heavy, motionless lump. Her body wouldn’t obey; her thoughts tangled. What should she do? Where could she go? Agree and sign? Hand over everything she’d poured her soul and money into? The thought of Lydia Petrovna “setting up her bedroom” in the living room made nausea rise in her throat.
She lifted her head and looked around. Their bedroom—hers and Sergey’s. Their shared photos still hung there; his unfinished book lay on the nightstand. Every detail that yesterday had been part of her happy life now felt like a mockery—props in a monstrous performance where she played the naive fool.
Suddenly her eyes landed on the wardrobe door—the one that had gone slightly crooked when Sergey tried to assemble it, and he had cursed so comically back then. That warm, vivid memory was the last straw. She started shaking again with soundless sobs. She hadn’t just been betrayed—she had been used. Her kindness, her desire to build a family, had been turned into a tool for taking her home.
She didn’t know how long she sat there on the floor. The clock on the nightstand said eight p.m. when the phone vibrated again. It was Alina.
“Mara, how are you?” her friend asked—softer now, but with steel still in her tone.
“Bad,” Marina admitted. “I don’t know what to do. Alina, they’ll throw me out on the street! This is a nightmare!”
“Hold on. We won’t let that happen. Listen—I dug into the law. It’s complicated, but not hopeless. The law is on their side only at first glance. We need loopholes. A weak spot.”
“What weak spot?” Marina’s voice held a faint spark of hope. “He’s listed everywhere!”
“Yes, but the down payment was your money. The maternity capital was yours. That can be used to challenge the division in court—so you’re awarded a larger share, or he’s ordered to pay compensation. But we need ironclad proof. Not just words.”
Marina swallowed.
“What proof?”
“Bank statements. The sale contract for your grandmother’s apartment. Receipts. Any document confirming that the main money was yours. Think—maybe something was left? Old papers? Folders?”
Marina slowly got up. Her legs were stiff and numb. She went to the old dresser where she’d kept “important” papers for years, papers she never had the energy to sort. A folder labeled “Apartment.” She pulled it out. Inside was a thick bundle: the mortgage contract, certificates, receipts.
She began sifting through them by the desk lamp. The maternity capital certificate. The extract from the registry showing both her and Sergey listed in black and white. The sale contract for her old Khrushchyovka. Her hands trembled. Every paper was proof of her naïveté.
And then, almost at the very bottom, her fingers touched something hard—not paper, but cardboard. She pulled out an old savings book, its corners worn. Her first account, opened for her back in school. Her grandmother had secretly put money into it, saying: “For your adult life—for your own corner.”
Marina opened it. The last entry showed the entire amount withdrawn—an amount that almost exactly matched the down payment for this apartment.
Beside the book lay another sheet, folded into quarters. She unfolded it—and froze.
It was a written receipt. In Sergey’s handwriting—back when it had been broader, more confident.
“I, Sergey Igorevich Volkov, confirm that the funds from the sale of the apartment belonging to my wife Marina were used in full to purchase a new apartment at the address: [the exact address was written here]. I have no claims. Date. Signature.”
For a moment Marina didn’t fully grasp what she was reading. Memory supplied the image: her mother—always politely cool toward Sergey—insisting on this “stupid formality” right before the deal. Marina had been angry then, shouting that her mother was ruining their happiest moment, humiliating Sergey with distrust. And he, lips pressed tight, still wrote it under her future mother-in-law’s pressure. Later they’d laughed together at that “little piece of paper” and at her “overcautious mom”—and forgotten about it.
“Alina,” Marina’s voice went quiet, but it no longer shook. “I… I found something.”
“What exactly? Tell me!” Alina’s voice sharpened with excitement.
“The savings book. My old one. It shows the entire amount withdrawn—the down payment.”
“Good! We can request bank statements; they’ll be strong evidence. Anything else?”
Marina clenched the yellowed sheet in her hand.
“And… a receipt.”
“What receipt?” Alina almost shouted.
“From Sergey. Confirming that all the money from the sale of my apartment went into buying this one. And that he has no claims.”
On the other end came a stunned silence. Then a muffled, choked exclamation:
“You’ve got to be kidding! Marina, do you even understand what that is?! That’s your lifeline! That’s not a loophole—that’s a breach in their armor! That receipt, especially with bank statements, changes everything. The court will be on your side!”
The icy lump inside Marina began to melt—not into joy, no, but into a new feeling: a cautious, hardening certainty. She looked at the receipt, at those familiar letters that now felt чужими, and for the first time that evening her face showed something other than despair.
She smiled. Heavy. Joyless.
“Mom,” she whispered into the silence of the room. “Forgive me for being angry at you back then. You saved me.”
The next few days Marina lived as if in a fog. But it wasn’t the fog of despair—it was thick, focused, like a fermenting vat where determination slowly ripened. She scanned the receipt and savings book, sent them to Alina, and Alina confirmed: yes, this was serious. The lawyer began preparing documents for court.
Waiting was agonizing. Marina barely ate, listening to every rustle outside the door, expecting another intrusion. It came soon enough.
On Saturday morning the door swung open again without warning. This time Sergey didn’t come alone. Lydia Petrovna was with him, holding not a tape measure but a heavy furniture catalog.
“Well?” Sergey snapped from the doorway, tossing his jacket onto the rack as if nothing had happened. “Come to your senses? Where’s the petition? Did you sign?”
He sounded confident again. That confidence—that arrogance—was the match that lit everything inside Marina. She stood in the living room doorway, fists clenched behind her back to hide the tremor, but her voice didn’t waver.
“No. I didn’t sign. And I won’t.”
Sergey stopped short, eyebrows rising. Lydia Petrovna looked up from the catalog with curiosity.
“Marin, I don’t get the joke,” Sergey’s voice dropped, becoming quieter and more dangerous. “We had an agreement.”
“We didn’t agree on anything. You came in and demanded. And I’m refusing.”
“Are you out of your mind?” He stepped toward her, but she didn’t back away. “Do you understand that by law I’m entitled to half? Or do you think your tears change something?”
Lydia Petrovna sighed sweetly and moved closer.
“Marinochka, don’t be stubborn. Why fight? Sign the papers, get your share, and move out. We’re civilized people. We’re even ready to add a bit extra—for the renovation and such…” She waved the catalog. “I’ve already picked a sofa for the living room. Leather. Very respectable.”
Marina looked at her, then at Sergey. And for the first time in years she saw them not as family, not as loved ones, but as two predators dividing prey. That look gave her her last reserve of strength.
“What half are you talking about?” she asked calmly. “Half of what?”
“The apartment—are you slow?” Sergey snapped, openly furious.
“But we bought this apartment with my money. All of it. The money from selling my grandmother’s place, and my maternity capital. You confirmed it yourself.”
Silence dropped in the living room. Sergey stared at her in genuine confusion. Lydia Petrovna stopped turning pages.
“What are you talking about? What confirmation?” he scoffed, but his voice wobbled with the first hint of uncertainty.
“This confirmation,” Marina said, and slowly brought her hand out from behind her back. In it were the receipt and the savings book. She didn’t hand them over—she simply showed them.
Sergey leaned in. Recognized his handwriting. His face went pale, then flushed a deep, ugly red.
“What is this nonsense? I wrote that under pressure! Your mother practically blackmailed me! It means nothing!”
“Nothing?” Marina allowed herself a bitter smile. “I think it will mean something in court—especially along with bank statements. The court will recognize the apartment as my sole property, acquired with designated personal funds. And at best you’ll be entitled to compensation for your share of mortgage payments we made together. And even that isn’t guaranteed.”
She spoke clearly, almost repeating Alina’s phrasing word for word. She watched as Sergey lost ground with every sentence, his confidence cracking.
“You… you’re crazy,” he breathed. “You want to go to court?!”
“And what did you expect?” Marina stepped forward—and now they backed up. “That I’d just hand over everything I have? That your mother would calmly set up her bedroom here?” She looked him straight in the eyes. “No. It won’t happen.”
Lydia Petrovna recovered first. Her sweet mask slid off instantly, revealing a snarl.
“Well, well, well… so that’s it!” she hissed. “Clawing on like a miser! You want to leave my son with nothing?!”
“He came here to leave me with nothing!” Marina fired back, raising her voice for the first time. “And you with him! You wanted to take my home! My home!”
“It’s our shared home!” Sergey roared, trying to lunge back into attack.
“Shared?” Marina laughed, and it sounded wild and bitter. “Did you put a ruble of your own money into this place? No. You only put your name. And only because I was an idiot who believed in your ‘fairness.’”
She held his gaze.
“Take your petition. And get out. With your mother. Before I call the police for unlawful entry.”
Sergey stood there, breathing hard, eyes bloodshot. He looked at the receipt in her hand, and his face twitched with helpless rage. He understood—his trump card, “half by law,” had suddenly burned to ash.
“I… I’ll deal with you,” he rasped. “That piece of paper is worthless! Worthless!”
“Try to challenge it,” Marina shot back as he yanked a stunned Lydia Petrovna by the hand and stomped into the hallway, tearing his jacket off the hook.
The door slammed again. But this time Marina didn’t cry. She stood and listened to her heart pounding a new, furious rhythm in her chest. The battle was only beginning. But the first attack had been repelled. And now the enemy knew she wasn’t a defenseless victim.
She went to the window and saw them below by the entrance, arguing fiercely. Sergey waved his arms; Lydia Petrovna clutched her shawl and shouted back, her face contorted.
Marina unclenched her palm. Red marks from her own nails were imprinted there. Slowly she ran her other hand over the receipt. It wasn’t just paper. It was a shield. And she was ready to use it.
The silence after Sergey and Lydia Petrovna left was different now. It didn’t crush her—it rang. It rang with the recoil of words she’d finally spoken, with adrenaline still pulsing in her blood. Marina stood with her palms on the windowsill and watched the two figures get into a car and drive away. She didn’t feel triumph—only icy, focused calm.
She went to the bedroom, grabbed her phone, and called Alina.
“They were just here,” she began without preamble, her voice tired but firm.
“And?” Alina immediately snapped into attention. “What happened?”
Marina briefly recounted the scene—the receipt, Sergey’s rage, her mother-in-law’s hysteria, her talk of court and the police.
“Good,” Alina said decisively. “You handled it perfectly. Now they know this won’t be easy. That’s the main thing. But Mara—get ready. They won’t back off. The dirtiest part starts now.”
“I understand. What do I do now?”
“First: put the originals somewhere safe. Not in the apartment. Best is a bank safe deposit box, or give them to me. Make multiple copies. Second: change the locks. Today. If Sergey still has keys, your home is a revolving door.”
“Okay,” Marina nodded, as if Alina could see her. “I’ll do it.”
“Third: expect pressure from other angles. He may call, beg, threaten. Your mother-in-law may cry, play for sympathy. Don’t give in—not for a second.”
“Don’t worry,” Marina squeezed the phone. “After that scene… something in me switched.”
“Perfect. Then we move to formal preparation. I’m filing a claim today to recognize the apartment as your sole property and to remove Sergey from registration. Grounds: the receipt and designated funds. We’ll act first.”
The thought of it moving into an official legal process was both terrifying and hopeful. No longer just a domestic fight—now it had rules, evidence, procedure.
“I agree,” Marina said. “Do what you need to do.”
After hanging up, Marina didn’t hesitate. She found an emergency locksmith service online and booked the nearest appointment. While she waited, she carefully placed the originals—the receipt, the savings book, the sale contract—into a separate thick folder and sealed it in a waterproof bag. Tomorrow she would bring it to Alina.
As she organized the papers, her eyes fell again on their wedding photo in a silver frame: she and Sergey laughing in the warm light of sunset. She picked it up, traced a finger along the glass over the face of a man who now felt like a stranger. There was no pain—only a faint sadness, like mourning someone long dead. She opened the backing, took out the photo, tore it in half, then into smaller pieces, and dropped the scraps into the trash. The empty frame went into a back closet.
That evening, after the new shiny locks were installed, her phone rang again. “Sergey.” Marina drew a slow breath and answered.
“Yes?”
“Marina, we need to talk,” he said, unnaturally calm, forcing his voice level. “No hysterics. Like adults.”
“I’m listening.”
“This has gotten out of control. Let’s do it without court. Let’s settle it peacefully. You understand court is money, time, nerves.”
“Did you think about that when you brought me a divorce petition and demanded I sign?” Marina asked evenly.
He ignored the question.
“I’m ready to give up my share. Withdraw the petition. We’ll just split up like civilized people.”
“On what terms?” Marina asked, already knowing what would come.
“You pay me compensation. For my share. Half a million, say—and we’re even. I’ll deregister, and you’ll never hear from me or Mom again.”
Marina almost laughed into the phone. Half a million—for a share of an apartment he hadn’t paid for.
“No, Sergey,” she said firmly. “No money. You wrote a receipt stating you have no claims. I’m going to court to have the apartment recognized as mine. You’ll get exactly what the law gives you in that situation. And most likely, it’ll be zero.”
His fake calm shattered.
“You’ve lost it! I gave you my youth! I lived here, did renovations!”
“We renovated together, with shared money. And you gave your youth not to me, but to the chance to get free housing,” Marina replied. “This conversation is over. All further contact—through my representative. In court.”
“You’ll regret this!” he screamed. “I’ll break you!”
She didn’t answer and ended the call. Her hand trembled slightly, but inside she felt strangely light. She had survived the first wave. Repelled the first manipulation.
She walked to the new sturdy door and checked the lock. Everything was securely shut. Her fortress was hers again.
Closing her eyes, she pictured the courtroom: Sergey, Lydia Petrovna, the judge—and herself with a folder of documents in her hands.
War had been declared. And she was ready to win it.
The week after that call passed in anxious but productive calm. Marina gathered and organized every document, just as Alina advised. The originals were hidden safely. The new locks brought a sense of security, however fragile. She almost believed the battle would move into the clean space of a courtroom, where paragraphs and proof would rule.
But she underestimated her opponents.
The first warning came as a phone call from her downstairs neighbor, Aunt Lyuda, an older woman with whom they had always kept warm, friendly relations.
“Marinochka, dear, it’s Lyudmila Semyonovna,” her worried voice came through the receiver. “Don’t think anything of it—I’m just asking like a mother… Is everything okay with you?”
“Yes, thank you, everything’s fine,” Marina said, confused.
“It’s just… your mother-in-law came by. Lydia, I think? Such an… energetic woman. She complained, cried. Said you were throwing her and your husband out onto the street, unlawfully taking the apartment, and that Sergey has a bad heart, he’s under stress, he’s practically about to have a heart attack. Said you won’t let them live at all…”
Marina felt as if someone had doused her in boiling water—and then ice.
“What?” she managed. “She’s telling that… to the neighbors?”
“Well, I don’t know who else… she came to me to cry. Said she’s so worried about you, that after all this stress you’re not yourself, that you’re seeing a psychologist, and they’re just afraid for your condition… Of course I didn’t think anything bad! I just decided to call and check on you…”
Marina thanked Aunt Lyuda with a creaking heart and hung up. Her hands were shaking now—not with fear, but with helpless rage. They weren’t just pressuring her—they were trying to destroy her reputation, paint her as unstable, unhinged, a tyrant. In her own home, among neighbors who had known her for years.
That evening, as she was taking out the trash, Sergey was waiting for her on the landing. He was leaning against the wall, pale, his face theatrically drawn and thinner. He didn’t lunge, didn’t shout. He looked at her with tired, suffering eyes.
“Marina,” he began in a quiet, strained voice. “Let’s stop this circus. Look at me. I can’t take it. Mom’s losing her mind. And these rumors… I know you’re not like that. Let’s talk. Like before.”
He reached for her hand. Marina jerked it away.
“What rumors, Sergey? That I’m crazy and throwing you out? That’s you and your mother spreading them!”
He put on a shocked expression, as if she’d splashed acid in his face.
“Me?! Are you serious? Marina, come to your senses! It’s some third party gossiping! We’re family! We want to settle it peacefully! I love you!”
Those words—spoken with such fake tenderness—were the last straw.
“Enough!” Marina said sharply, and the echo carried through the stairwell. “Enough lying! You’re here not because you love me. You’re here because your dirty game of rumors didn’t work the way you wanted. You thought I’d break and pay you off just to make you go away. You want to settle it ‘peacefully’? Withdraw your claim to the apartment, and we’ll divorce. That’s all I need from you.”
His suffering mask fell instantly. A familiar malice flashed in his eyes.
“So that’s it?” he hissed. “You won’t listen to anything?”
“I’ve already heard everything. And seen everything. Now move, please.”
He didn’t move, blocking her path. Marina pulled out her phone.
“I’m calling the police right now and reporting that you’re preventing me from entering my own apartment, harassing me, and exerting psychological pressure. I’m sure with new locks and that receipt, they’ll find you very interesting.”
Sergey glared at her, at the phone, then slowly, reluctantly stepped aside. Marina walked past him without looking, feeling his stare in her back. She heard him curse hoarsely and stomp down the stairs.
Back inside, after locking every bolt, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes. She wasn’t scared. She felt… dirty. From the lies, the theatrics, the realization of how much ugliness can live inside a person you once loved.
She called Alina and told her everything.
“Classic,” Alina said without surprise. “Discrediting and pressure for sympathy. You did right not to fall for it. Now wait for the next move.”
“What next move?”
“They might try filing a police report against you, or even contact child services—claim you’re living immorally, threatening them, or that you’re mentally unstable and can’t be responsible for your actions. Don’t panic if someone comes. They won’t prove anything. But the fact alone is meant to crush you psychologically.”
Marina nodded to herself. She almost feared nothing now. The mud they threw at her only hardened her. She looked out at the darkening city. Somewhere out there were the two of them—thinking they could break her. They were wrong. With every low blow, she only grew stronger. And her resolve to fight to the end tightened into cold, merciless steel.
Part 7: “Judgment Day”
The court date was set for a gloomy autumn morning. Marina stood before the mirror in a strict dark suit she had bought specifically for that day. She studied her reflection: a taut, pale face, shadows under her eyes—but in her eyes themselves, an unfamiliar firmness. No fear. No panic. Only cold concentration. She repeated Alina’s instruction: “Speak clearly. Stick to the facts. Don’t react to provocation. A judge isn’t a therapist—she needs evidence.”
The courtroom was small, cramped, painfully official. It smelled of old wood, dust, and something impersonal and bureaucratic. Marina’s heart dropped when she saw them: Sergey and Lydia Petrovna at the neighboring table. Sergey wore the same jacket he’d worn at their wedding, and that detail lodged a bitter lump in Marina’s throat. Lydia Petrovna, in a dark headscarf, clutched a battered paper tissue, periodically pressing it to eyes that were dry.
The judge—a middle-aged woman with a tired, unyielding face—opened the hearing and, in a monotonous voice, read the claim.
Alina spoke first. Her argument was a model of legal precision and calm persuasiveness: the sale of Marina’s separate property, the use of those proceeds as the down payment, supporting bank statements, the designated nature of maternity capital. And then, like a culmination, she presented Sergey’s receipt to the court.
“Your Honor, I ask you to note this document,” Alina’s voice rang like steel. “A handwritten receipt by the defendant, where he unequivocally confirms two key facts: the source of funds used to purchase the disputed apartment and the absence of any financial claims at the time of the transaction. This receipt, together with the other evidence submitted, clearly shows the apartment was purchased with the plaintiff’s personal funds and cannot be considered marital joint property.”
The judge took the receipt, put on her glasses, and studied it silently for several seconds.
Then Sergey was given the floor. He stood and adjusted his jacket. His voice faltered at first.
“Your Honor… that receipt… it has no legal force! It was forced out of me under pressure! My mother-in-law—she… she made a scene right before the deal, said she wouldn’t give the money without it, insulted me! I was in an emotional state! I wrote it just to make it stop!”
“What exactly were the insults? And were there witnesses to this pressure?” the judge asked in a flat tone.
“Well… she said I was… a con man… that I was waiting for her to die… There were no witnesses, we were in the kitchen!” Sergey heated up, his face turning red.
“So you claim you wrote the receipt under psychological pressure, but you cannot corroborate that,” the judge concluded, making a note.
“But I put my soul into that apartment! I did the renovations! I invested my labor!” Sergey’s voice rose with hysterical notes.
“Please provide documentary proof of your significant financial contributions to the renovations,” Alina countered. “Receipts, invoices, statements from your personal accounts showing payments for materials.”
Sergey froze, helplessly staring at her. Of course, there were no receipts. Purchases had been made from Marina’s card or from the shared household budget.
Then Lydia Petrovna took the stand. She rose, portraying humility and grief, and began speaking in a trembling, tearful voice.
“Your Honor, dear, please understand… We’re family! We always wanted only good for Marinochka! She was like a daughter to me! And now… she wants to leave my boy out on the street! He has nothing! And she’s sitting there with her apartment… We just wanted peace and harmony…”
She spoke for a long time, rambling, pressing for sympathy, painting pictures of their supposedly close, loving life. Marina listened, staring at the table, feeling her insides twist with outrage—but she remembered Alina’s instruction: don’t show emotion.
When Lydia Petrovna finished, the judge turned to Marina.
“Plaintiff, what can you say to the substance of the defendants’ statements?”
Marina rose slowly. She placed her palms on the cool wooden tabletop so they wouldn’t tremble, and took a deep breath.
“Your Honor,” she began, and her voice came out quiet but clear, carrying in the stillness. “No pressure was exerted on my husband… on the defendant. My mother did ask him to write that receipt. Not out of distrust, but for order—for documentation. He wrote it voluntarily, without any scene. And then we lived together for years, and no one needed that paper. It became necessary only now, when the defendant decided he had a right to half of something that never belonged to him. I don’t want anyone’s pity. I want fairness. And I want back what is rightfully mine.”
She sat down. Silence returned to the room, broken only by Lydia Petrovna’s heavy breathing.
The judge left for deliberation. The minutes stretched into eternity. Marina didn’t look toward her former family. She stared out the window at the gray sky, overwhelmed by exhaustion.
At last the judge returned. Everyone stood.
“By the decision of the court,” her level, impersonal voice read, “the plaintiff Volкова M.R.’s claims are satisfied in full. The apartment at the address… is recognized as the sole property of the plaintiff. The defendant Volkov S.I. is to be removed from registration at the stated address…”
The rest was drowned out by Lydia Petrovna’s shriek.
“This is lawlessness! How can you! You’ve ruined my son!” she screamed, collapsing into hysterical crying and grabbing Sergey’s sleeve.
Sergey stood ghost-white, unmoving, staring at a single point. His plan had collapsed. His bluff had been exposed. In his eyes there wasn’t grief so much as shock and burning humiliation.
Marina didn’t look at them. She turned to Alina, who gave her a faint, barely-there smile and a small nod. Victory. Bitter, heavy, hard-won—but victory.
Marina gathered her papers and, without looking back at her sobbing mother-in-law and shattered husband, walked out of the courtroom. The door closed behind her, separating her from the past. Ahead of her lay only silence.
And freedom