“Tomorrow at ten o’clock at the notary’s. Don’t forget your passport—and please make sure it isn’t still in the pocket of the jacket you dropped off at the dry cleaner’s.”
Irina said it without looking up from her laptop. The screen washed her glasses in a faint bluish glow. The small kitchen table was buried under printed layouts, draft agreements, and glossy brochures for the new housing complex. A mug of coffee sat nearby, already half-cold. The air in their cramped rented studio felt heavy and stale—tinged with the neighbors’ fried-onion smell and the nervous strain that had been living in the apartment for two straight weeks.
Oleg sat opposite her. He turned a teaspoon between his fingers, slowly bending and straightening the thin metal with methodical, almost manic persistence. His eyes kept darting around the room: from a magnet on the fridge to a crack in the ceiling, then to the clock, and back to his own hands. He looked like a kid who knows there’s a failing grade in his schoolbook and Dad is already reaching for the belt—even though Irina hadn’t accused him of anything. Not yet.
“Ir…” he coughed, clearing his throat. The sound came out miserable, tight. “Listen, about tomorrow…”
Irina finally tore her gaze away from the screen. She removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Fatigue crashed over her in an instant. Collecting documents, checking the deal for hidden traps, endless calls with the realtor—all of it had landed on her shoulders. Oleg mostly nodded along and signed where he was told.
“What do you mean, ‘about tomorrow’?” she asked evenly, though irritation was already starting to ring in her voice. “Oleg, don’t start. We agreed. The seller is waiting, the deposit goes in tomorrow. If you’re about to whine again about the neighborhood being wrong or the floor being too high, I’ll hit you with this folder.”
“No, no, the floor is fine,” Oleg said, setting the bent spoon aside and locking his fingers together. His knuckles whitened. “It’s just… maybe we rushed things. With the mortgage. Everything’s unstable, rates keep jumping… Maybe we wait a bit? Six months?”
Irina went still. Slowly, she closed the laptop. The click in the quiet kitchen sounded like a starter pistol.
“Six months?” she repeated, staring straight into his eyes. “Oleg, we saved for two years. We live in a shoebox where you can hear the guy upstairs scratching his heel. Prices rise every month. What six months? What happened?”
Oleg exhaled loudly, like a man about to plunge into icy water. He dug into the pocket of his lounge pants, pulled out his phone, switched the screen on, looked at it, switched it off, and put it face-down on the table.
“Marina called. About an hour ago—while you were in the shower.”
Irina leaned back in the hard chair. Of course. Marina. The sacred cow: the ex-wife and mother of his precious heirs. Any sentence that began with “Marina called” usually meant money lost, time wasted, nerves shredded. Most often all at once.
“So what blew up this time?” Irina folded her arms. “Another burst pipe? Or did the older one tear his sneakers and now it has to be a designer pair for twenty thousand?”
“Don’t be snide,” Oleg snapped—then immediately lowered his tone when he caught her heavy stare. “This is serious. The boys’ immune systems are shot. The doctor said they need sea air. Urgently. Otherwise it’ll turn chronic—bronchitis, asthma… You know what the city air is like.”
“Tickets to Anapa are cheap,” Irina shrugged. “Train, third class, rent a room from locals. Enough for fruit. What’s the issue? You pay support on time—more than the court ordered. Let her take them.”
Oleg winced as if he’d gotten a toothache.
“Ir, come on—Anapa?” he said. “You might as well suggest a dacha near Podolsk. Marina says they need a humid climate. Tropics. She found an option… Bali. Some retreat hotel meant for ‘recovery’—yoga, special meals…”
Irina felt a cold, controlled rage beginning to boil. She knew Oleg’s tone: apologetic, pleading, yet stubborn—the voice of a man whose brain had already been washed and filled with someone else’s script.
“Bali,” she repeated slowly. “A retreat. ‘Recovery.’ For two big boys aged ten and twelve. And how much does this celebration of life cost?”
Oleg hesitated and grabbed the spoon again.
“Well… it’s season, flights are expensive… plus accommodation, insurance… anyway, she did the math. Around seven hundred thousand. For the three of them. Two weeks.”
“Seven hundred thousand,” Irina smirked. “Lovely. I’m happy for Marina if she can afford it. But what does that have to do with us? The deal is tomorrow. The down payment is three million. Two of mine, one of yours. Every ruble already assigned.”
Oleg looked up. Fear flickered in his eyes—mixed with a kind of fanatic determination.
“Ir, she doesn’t have that kind of money. You know she works in a library.”
“And?”
“She said…” Oleg swallowed. “She said if I don’t pay, she’ll know I don’t care about the kids’ health. That I abandoned them for a new woman and a comfortable life.”
“And?” Irina leaned forward. “Keep going. I know there was an ‘or else.’”
“Or she’ll take them away,” Oleg blurted. “To her mother—out in the middle of nowhere, some village near Omsk. And she’ll block me everywhere. She said she’ll change their SIM cards, wipe their social media, and I’ll never see them again. Ever. I can’t let that happen, Ir! They’re my sons!”
He sprang up and started pacing the tiny kitchen—three steps to the fridge, three steps back.
“She’s not joking, Ira! She goes feral when it’s about the kids. She’ll really hide them. And I don’t have anyone else who’s blood. I can’t risk it.”
Irina watched him dart around. She no longer saw a man she could build a home with and have children with. She saw a trapped animal being yanked by strings. And she felt no pity—only disgust at his weakness.
“So you’re proposing… what?” she asked softly.
Oleg stopped. He braced both hands on the table and leaned over her.
“Let’s take it from our savings,” he rushed out. “Please—seven hundred thousand. We’ll postpone the deal. We’ll save again in six months. I’ll take extra jobs, I’ll drive a cab at night, I swear. We’ll replace it. But right now… we have to give it to her. So she calms down. So the boys can get to the sea. The apartment will still be there—these new builds sit forever!”
He spoke fast, stumbling over words, spraying spit with urgency. He truly believed he was rescuing his children. But Irina saw what he was really doing: taking their future—two years of brutal saving, no vacations, no decent clothes—and throwing it into the furnace of his ex-wife’s greedy appetites.
Irina rose slowly. The chair scraped back with an ugly squeal. She was shorter than Oleg, but at that moment it felt like she was looking down on him from above.
“What do I care what your ex-wife wants?!” she snapped. “Do you understand we saved that money for a mortgage—not for her to take your kids to a resort? Let her earn it or save it out of the support. Stop letting her extort you—every time it’s more, and more!”
Oleg recoiled as if slapped.
“How… how can you say that?” he whispered, his face blotching red. “It’s their health! You hate them! Money matters to you more than people!”
“My effort matters more,” Irina cut in, feeling something inside her turn to stone. “I worked two projects at once so Marina could post cocktail photos from Bali? Listen to yourself—‘she’ll take them, she’ll hide them.’ That’s blackmail, Oleg. Pure psychological terror. And you’re negotiating with terrorists!”
“She’s the mother of my kids!” Oleg roared for the first time that night. “And she has a right to demand the best for them! And you—you’re just selfish. Sitting on a pile of money and hoarding it. We have the cash. It’s sitting there. Why should I beg for what’s already mine?”
“Mine?” Irina narrowed her eyes, predatory. “A third of that money is yours—and that’s being generous, considering how many times we’ve fixed your car and covered your old debts from that marriage.”
“We’re family!” Oleg slammed his fist on the table. The papers jumped; the mug clinked. “In a family the budget is shared! Problems are shared! That means the kids are yours too—whether you like it or not!”
Irina stared at the coffee stain slowly spreading across the plan of their future apartment—future that now looked like a mirage. She understood, with brutal clarity, that tomorrow there would be no deal. The notary would wait for no one.
“No, Oleg,” she said in a voice so cold it would have raised goosebumps on a normal person’s skin. “The kids are yours. The ex-wife is yours. And the mess in your head is yours too. The money is just numbers—until you turn it into a tool of your own slavery.”
She turned and left the kitchen, leaving him alone among glossy brochures of a beautiful life they were never going to have.
Irina hadn’t even reached the bedroom when Oleg caught up to her in the hallway and grabbed her elbow. His fingers were sweaty, trembling—like an addict reaching for a fix. Only his drug wasn’t chemicals. It was his ex-wife’s approval and the illusion that he was a “good father.” He spun Irina toward him, nearly tearing the sleeve of her T-shirt, and shoved his phone screen under her nose. The brightness was maxed out; the light stabbed her eyes.
“Look!” his voice cracked into a shriek. “Just look at it! You say ‘blackmail,’ you say ‘terror’—but you look them in the eyes!”
The photo showed two boys sitting on Marina’s couch, framed by peeling wallpaper—wallpaper Oleg had promised to replace three years ago and never did. Both wore exaggeratedly tragic faces: mouths turned down, shoulders slumped. The older one, Dima, glared from under his brows. The younger, Sasha, clutched a plush rabbit to his chest. Under the picture was a message: “Dad doesn’t love us. Dad chose his new auntie and her money. Say goodbye to the sea, kids—we’re not going anywhere because Dad is too stingy to spare paper bills for you.”
Irina pulled her arm away in disgust.
“Are you serious, Oleg?” she asked, the cold, angry exhaustion rising in her. “That’s staged. Cheap theater. She told them, ‘Make sad faces or you won’t get ice cream.’ You really don’t see it?”
“You’re a monster,” Oleg breathed, stepping back as if he’d just discovered she had horns. “You see unhappy kids and you call it staged? Marina says Sasha’s been crying for two days! His temperature went up from stress! Thirty-seven point five!”
“He has a temperature because it’s autumn and viruses are everywhere—not because he isn’t flying to Bali,” Irina shot back. “Oleg, use your brain! You’re forty years old! You’re falling for kindergarten-level manipulation. ‘Dad doesn’t love us’—that line isn’t for children. It’s written for you, so you’ll feel like trash and sprint to the bank. And it worked.”
“What manipulation?!” Oleg flared again, his face mottling red. “It’s not about words—it’s the fact! They need rest. Marina carries them alone, she’s exhausted. She needs a breather too so she can raise them. And I… I can help. Those millions are just sitting there! We can buy an apartment next year. But their childhood is happening now!”
Irina leaned her back against the wall, arms crossed. She felt like she was arguing with a cult member. Logic didn’t stick. Arguments bounced off guilt like bullets off armor.
“Fine,” she said, unexpectedly calm. “Let’s pretend we give her the money. Seven hundred thousand. They go, they ‘recover,’ Marina posts palm trees in her stories. What happens next, Oleg?”
“What do you mean, what happens next?” he blinked.
“In six months she’ll want a car,” Irina continued. “She’ll say taking kids to school on the metro is humiliating and dangerous—too many coughs and sneezes. And she’ll give you an ultimatum: either a two-million-ruble crossover or you never see your sons again because ‘Dad doesn’t care about their safety.’ What do you do then? Come to me again? Say ‘let’s postpone our life’ again?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Oleg waved it off, but his eyes darted. “She doesn’t need a car—she’s scared to drive.”
“She’ll find something,” Irina said, stepping closer until he pressed into the doorframe. “Renovation. Private school. Designer clothes. Appetite grows as you feed it. You’ve already shown her you’re a cash cow. You can be pulled by the string of fear. If you pay now, you sign up for lifelong servitude. Do you realize we’ll never buy a place? Never. Because there will always be an ‘urgent, life-or-death’ reason to hand money to Marina.”
“You’re just greedy!” Oleg spat. “You’d choke someone for the digits in an account. You don’t care about people. You hate my past, you hate my kids because they’re not yours!”
“I don’t hate your kids,” Irina said, voice low. “I hate what you turn into after talking to her. You become a rag. You’re ready to betray me—our plans, our agreements—because some woman who dumped you five years ago snaps her fingers. Do you even remember why you divorced? She cheated on you. And now you’re paying for her vacation romance with our money.”
Oleg went pale. The mention of the cheating always hit him like a punch to the gut. He stood there for several seconds, breathing hard, crushing the phone in his hand until the knuckles blanched.
“It doesn’t matter,” he rasped at last. “That’s the past. But she’s a mother. And she’s asking for help now. And you… turns out you’re like this. A calculating bitch. I thought you were different. I thought you’d understand. We might have kids too someday… Would you want your child’s father to refuse treatment?”
“This isn’t treatment!” Irina barked, losing patience. “It’s Bali! It’s a luxury holiday! Stop swapping definitions! If it were surgery—God forbid—I’d be the first to sell everything. But this is a whim. A show. A need to impress people.”
“For me it’s the same!” Oleg screamed, spit flying. “If I don’t pay, I lose my sons! For me that’s death! Do you get it? Death! And you’re talking mortgages! To hell with your concrete box!”
He spun around and punched the wall. Plaster flaked down like grit.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” he said, still facing the wall, voice turning dull and threatening. “I’m the head of this family. I’m the man. I earned that money too. I have the right to decide what I spend my share on—more than my share if I have to. Because family means helping, not hoarding. I’m taking the money. Tomorrow. I’m transferring it to her. And we’ll deal with the apartment later. We’re not living on the street.”
Irina watched his hunched back, his tense neck. Something inside her clicked—and broke for good. The illusion of partnership, the illusion of a reliable shoulder to lean on—turned to dust like the plaster on the floor. The man in front of her was a stranger, ready to blow their future away so he could feel safe.
“You’re sure, Oleg?” she asked quietly. “That’s your final word?”
“Yes,” he muttered. “And don’t turn it into a tragedy. We’ll earn more.”
He was convinced he’d won. That his “man’s word” and his tantrum had crushed her resistance. He didn’t see her eyes. There was no anger left in them. No hurt. Only a cold decision.
Oleg clearly believed the victory was already in his pocket. His shoulders loosened; that hunted slump that had irritated Irina all night disappeared. He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it in one noisy gulp like a man who’d just finished a marathon. For him, that’s what the conversation had been—a run through a minefield of her patience, and he thought he’d made it out alive.
“Well, that’s better,” he sighed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I knew you’d understand. Ir, seriously—why did we even get worked up? Money comes and goes. But the boys will get stronger, Marina will calm down and stop chewing my nerves. And we… we’ll wait until spring. Prices might even drop. The market’s overheated—every analyst says so.”
He talked fast and confidently, trying to babble his way across the chasm that had opened between them. In his head, the family was already on Bali, his ex-wife was grateful (or at least no longer cursing him), and he was a “good man” again. He walked to the table where the apartment papers still lay and casually shoved them aside, clearing space for his elbows.
“So will you transfer it now?” he asked in a businesslike tone, though a pleading note slipped through. “Better to send it right away so the banks process it. Or send it to me and I’ll send it to her. So she sees it came from Dad, you know? That matters psychologically.”
Irina didn’t answer. She sat perfectly still, looking at her husband the way you might stare at a strange insect that suddenly learned to speak. In her mind a complex but irreversible chemical reaction was finishing: love, trust, dreams of growing old together—everything was burning off, leaving sterile indifference behind. She understood one terrifying thing: Oleg wasn’t simply asking for money. He genuinely believed Irina’s resources were his safety rope—something he could yank every time his past cracked open.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You’re right. We shouldn’t drag it out.”
Oleg broke into a smile—pure relief, like a child whose mother has just allowed him to skip school.
“I love you, Ir. You’re the wisest,” he said quickly. “I swear I’ll pay it back. From my bonus, from side jobs… every kopeck.”
While he painted his fantasy about repaying a debt he would never truly repay, Irina picked up her phone. Her fingers didn’t tremble. FaceID unlocked the screen; she opened her banking app. Blue logo, a short load. There it was—the number she’d protected for two years by refusing herself proper rest, decent vacations, even basic pleasures. Three million two hundred thousand rubles in a savings account labeled “Dream.” The name now felt like a cruel joke.
Two million were hers personally—money from selling her grandmother’s dacha and work bonuses. The rest was what they’d supposedly saved “together,” though most of it had come from Irina simply because she earned three times more. Oleg, meanwhile, believed that marriage meant one pot, and one pot meant everything in it was his.
“All right, what’s taking so long?” Oleg hovered impatiently behind her shoulder, but Irina angled the screen so the glare from the ceiling light hid the amounts. “Is the internet lagging? I can reboot the Wi-Fi.”
“No,” she said curtly. “It’s fine.”
She tapped “Transfer between accounts.” Selected the savings account. For the recipient, she chose her old checking account at another bank—one Oleg couldn’t access, had no linked card to, and probably didn’t even remember existed.
Her finger paused over “Amount.” Oleg stood close, breathing down onto her hair. He smelled of sweat and that sour, anxious odor that clings to weak men under pressure. He was waiting for the money—waiting for Irina to solve his problem, to buy him peace, to buy him the right to call himself a father.
Irina typed in numbers. Not seven hundred thousand. She entered the entire sum to the last ruble: three million two hundred fourteen thousand five hundred.
“How much are you sending?” Oleg’s voice sharpened when he noticed the extra digits. “Ir, seven hundred is enough. Why more? Or are you sending a million so she has a buffer?”
“I’m solving it properly,” Irina replied without looking up.
The screen displayed: “Confirm transfer.” Irina’s heart hit once—hard, painful, like a farewell to the last illusion of family. She pressed the button. A green checkmark appeared: “Completed.” The savings account emptied. The beautiful round figure vanished, replaced by a lonely zero.
She closed the app and set her phone on the table face-down.
“Perfect!” Oleg rubbed his hands. “I’ll call Marina and make her happy. And the receipt—send me the receipt in messenger, I’ll forward the confirmation.”
He grabbed his phone, expecting a notification. One second. Two. Ten. Silence. No bank message. No incoming confirmation from Irina.
“Ir… where did you send it?” His voice cracked with sudden worry. “Nothing came to me. Did you send it to my Sber card? Or by phone number?”
Irina stared at him in silence. Her gaze held such emptiness that Oleg visibly shrank.
“Ira?” he demanded. “Do you hear me? Where did the money go? Show me your phone.”
He reached for her smartphone, but Irina covered it with her palm.
“The money went where it’ll stay safe, Oleg.”
“What do you mean?” He frowned, still not grasping it. “You sent it to Marina directly? Fine, whatever—though I wanted to do it myself… The main thing is, the issue is closed.”
“The issue is closed,” Irina said, standing so they were face to face. “Just not the way you think. Marina will get nothing. And neither will you.”
Oleg froze. His face stretched, his mouth fell open. He looked like a fish dropped onto a riverbank.
“What?” he whispered. “You’re joking. You said ‘fine.’ You pressed the button—I saw it!”
“I transferred every last ruble,” Irina said, pronouncing each word like a stamp. “All of it. To my personal account—the one you can’t access. Our savings account is empty, Oleg. Zero.”
“You…” His skin blanched, then surged red; veins bulged on his neck. “What have you done?! You stole our money! Put it back! Now!”
“It isn’t your money,” Irina answered calmly, though adrenaline trembled inside her. “It was money for an apartment. An apartment we won’t buy because you decided to fund tropical vacations for your former family. I protected my savings from your stupidity.”
“You have no right!” Oleg screamed, clutching his head. He looked unhinged. “It’s a shared budget! That’s theft! Do you understand what you’ve done? Marina will kill me! She’ll take the kids! You ruined my life!”
He lunged as if to snatch the phone, but Irina stepped back sharply and lifted her hand like a warning blade.
“Don’t touch me,” she said quietly, with such steel in her tone that Oleg stopped dead. “Touch me once—and I call the police. Then you won’t just lose contact with your kids, you’ll lose your freedom. Now listen carefully.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Oleg hissed, and the soft pleading voice from an hour earlier was gone. Now he was an enemy—angry, cornered, ready to bite. “Those are our joint funds! Family Code—ever heard of it? Half of it is mine! You just committed embezzlement on a huge scale—against your own husband!”
Irina looked at him with a terrifying calm. She felt like she was watching a stranger’s tantrum in a supermarket line—loud, ugly, but not truly about her anymore. Everything inside her had burned out, leaving only cold ash and crystal-clear thought.
“Your half?” she repeated. “Let’s do the math, Oleg. I like numbers. They don’t lie—unlike you. You make sixty thousand a month. I make one-eighty. We’ve lived together two years. Rent, groceries, gas, your endless repairs on that old Ford, birthday gifts for your boys, a new phone for you because the old one ‘glitched’… You already spent your half, Oleg. You ate it, drove it, wore it out, and drank it away on Fridays with your buddies. What was on that account—those were my bonuses, my overtime, my grandmother’s dacha I sold. And I’m not letting you flush my work down the toilet for someone else’s greed.”
Oleg choked on outrage. He sucked air, face turning purple with blotches. Reason ran out; only raw, primitive rage remained—the fury of a male whose prey was taken away.
“You money-hungry bitch,” he spat, saliva spraying. “So I’m a freeloader to you? Me—who hung shelves, who met you after work? You’re going to itemize every bowl of soup now? I came to you with my whole heart, I wanted a family, and you… You used me so you wouldn’t be alone! And now, when my kids are in trouble, you show your real face!”
“Trouble?” Irina laughed, dry as snapping wood. “Trouble is illness. A fire. A war. Bali is a whim. And yes, Oleg—I wanted a family. With a man who puts me first. Not with an extension of his ex-wife. You don’t live with me—you live with Marina. You jump at her calls, run at her whistle, and you’re ready to rob us for her smile. So go to her.”
Oleg stood motionless. The cruelty of her words reached him slowly, like pain blooming after a deep cut.
“What do you mean, ‘go to her’?” he asked dully.
“I mean exactly that. I’m filing for divorce,” Irina said as casually as if she were noting the bread had run out. “Tomorrow. I’m not living under the same roof with you anymore. This is a rental; the lease is in my name. You have one hour to pack your things and leave.”
“You’re throwing me out? At night?” Oleg’s eyes widened. Fear began to push out the rage. He had nowhere to go except Marina—and Marina didn’t want him without money. “Ira, are you out of your mind? Where am I supposed to go?”
“I don’t care,” Irina cut him off. “To your mother, to a friend, to the train station. Or to your beloved ex-wife. Tell her there’s no money, but there’s you—a devoted father. Let her take you in. Since she’s so ‘holy,’ as you like to paint her. Go test her gratitude.”
Oleg clenched his fists. He wanted to hit something, smash something, force Irina to stop and reverse time. But her eyes—heavy, impenetrable—made it clear: the decision was final. No manipulation would work now. Not pity, not threats, not appeals to conscience.
“You’ll regret this,” he rasped, panic tightening his throat. “You’ll die alone in your apartment with your money! No one will put up with you like this! And me—I’ll find a normal woman. A human one. Someone who understands children!”
“Good luck,” Irina nodded. “Next time, pick a woman who comes with an apartment and a Bali voucher, so you don’t waste time with foreplay.”
At that moment Oleg’s phone lit up on the table. The apartment filled with a cheery ringtone—one he’d set specifically for Marina. On the screen was her photo: a smiling blonde, labeled “My Love (kids’ mom).”
Oleg jolted as if electrocuted. He stared at the phone, then at Irina. Animal terror swam in his eyes. He knew why Marina was calling. She was waiting for the receipt. Waiting for the hotel confirmation.
“Answer,” Irina said, stopping in the doorway with a cruel little smile. “Tell her the happy news. Say your awful wife didn’t give the money, but hey—you’re free now. You can devote yourself to the children twenty-four-seven. For free.”
“Shut up!” Oleg screamed, snatching the phone with shaking hands. He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t say “no” to Marina. It was beyond him. He just rejected the call.
The phone went quiet for a second—then chimed with a message. Oleg opened it as if hypnotized.
“So? I’m waiting. The kids aren’t asleep, they keep asking when to pack the suitcases. If the money isn’t there in ten minutes, consider that you don’t have sons anymore. I’m not kidding, Oleg.”
He lifted his eyes to Irina—eyes full of hatred and despair.
“This is your fault!” he shrieked, stabbing a finger at her. “You’re the one taking my kids away! You set this up! Bitch!”
“I’m only taking away your illusions, Oleg,” Irina replied evenly. “And your children are being taken by your own spinelessness. Pack your things. The clock’s ticking.”
She turned and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. The lock clicked.
Oleg remained alone in the kitchen, surrounded by brochures for an apartment that no longer existed in their future. His phone started ringing again. The ringtone felt unbearable—drilling into his skull, demanding, demanding, demanding.
He grabbed a glossy brochure with palm trees and ocean, crumpled it, and hurled it at the wall. Then he swept the half-cold coffee mug off the table—the same mug Irina hadn’t finished—and smashed it on the floor. Shards flew across the kitchen. A dark puddle spread over the linoleum, creeping toward his feet in worn-out house socks.
“Curse you all!” he screamed into the emptiness, hot, helpless tears streaking down his cheeks.
Behind the bedroom door it was quiet. Irina sat on the edge of the bed, staring into the dark window. Her hands didn’t shake. Her heart beat evenly. She heard the crash of broken dishes and her husband’s shouting, but it no longer touched her. It was noise from a past life—a life she had almost paid for with an unforgivable price.
She opened her banking app and renamed the account. Instead of “For an apartment,” she typed: “New Life.”
In the hallway came the thud of a suitcase—Oleg yanking it out of the closet in rage. The fight was over. Reality began: hard and cold, where everyone received exactly what they had earned—Irina got her money and her freedom, and Oleg got shattered dreams and a ringing phone he still didn’t have the courage to answer…