The air in this place was always thick and heavy, saturated with chemicals, dry wood shavings, and the unmistakable scent of tanning and preservation. Irina loved that smell. To her, it meant calm, control, and above all, the bliss of having no unnecessary people around. She was a taxidermist—a profession that usually made ordinary people either recoil in disgust or laugh foolishly out of ignorance, yet one that brought in excellent money and demanded iron nerves. Her hands, roughened by years of working with tools, were now gently waxing the plumage of a rare pheasant.
The door flew open without so much as a knock, letting the sounds of the city and the sharp cloud of expensive, overly aggressive perfume invade the sterile world of her workshop.
“Ira, are you seriously in this embalming den again?” Daniil’s voice carried its usual note of disdain. He grimaced and covered his nose with his hand.
Daniil, her fiancé, worked as a consultant in antique acquisitions. It sounded impressive, but in reality he was just a middleman—someone who resold other people’s stories for a percentage. He was handsome in that polished, glossy way that required constant investment and endless admiration.
A larger figure appeared behind him. It was his aunt Tamara, a woman whose eyes sized people up the way a butcher judges cuts of meat.
“Hello, dear,” she drawled, not fully stepping over the threshold, as though she feared her designer shoes might pick up something from the concrete floor. “Danya says you’re still digging your heels in.”
Irina slowly took off her protective goggles and laid her scalpel on a metal tray. The sound it made was sharp and cold.
“And good afternoon to you too, Tamara Igorevna. Digging my heels in about what, exactly?”
“About moving up in life,” Daniil said, walking farther into the room and ignoring Irina’s warning glance. He shoved a jar of lacquer aside and casually perched himself on the edge of her worktable. “Mom found an amazing option. A townhouse. But we need a down payment. A big one. Your apartment is our ticket to a normal life.”
“My apartment,” Irina said softly but distinctly, staring him straight in the eyes, “is my apartment. I am not planning to sell it.”
“There you go again!” Tamara threw up her hands, finally stepping inside and immediately tugging at the hem of her coat. “Sweetheart, you’re joining a family now. And in a family, everything goes into one pot. Daniil is a man—he needs an office, status, something respectable. And you’re clinging to your square meters like a dog in a manger.”
“Danya already has status,” Irina said, nodding toward the expensive watch on his wrist—one she had, incidentally, helped pay for. “And we do have a place to live.”
“That shoebox?” Daniil barked, and for a second his face lost all of its photogenic polish, twisting with anger. “I can’t live in a museum where every corner reminds me of your grandfather! We need modern housing. Something in both our names. I want to feel like I’m the man of the house.”
Irina gave a small, bitter smile. That was the real point, wasn’t it? In both our names.
“I’m not signing anything to sell it, Danya. This subject is closed.”
Daniil jumped off the table and came right up to her, towering over her. In moments like this, Irina used to shrink back and try to smooth things over. But today, staring at the button on his shirt that looked ready to pop from the strain, she felt no fear at all—only a dark, dull irritation.
“Think carefully, Irina,” Tamara said, her voice turning syrupy while her eyes stayed openly threatening. “The wedding is just around the corner. The costs are enormous. We’ve already told everyone the young couple is moving. Don’t shame Daniil in front of the family.”
“I said no.”
Daniil abruptly snatched up a prepared bird mount from the table and squeezed until the frame crackled.
“You’re selfish, Ira. Cold, selfish, obsessed with your dead little creatures. We’re leaving. But tonight, at my mother’s, we’re going to have a serious conversation. And don’t you dare skip that dinner.”
He hurled the ruined work to the floor and stormed out. Tamara snorted and swept out after him. Irina bent down and picked up the bird. The frame was broken. Two weeks of work had been destroyed.
A week later, after changing tactics, Daniil persuaded Irina to go to his uncle Vitaly’s dacha. “A peace offering, barbecue, just family, no talk about property,” he had promised. Irina agreed only because she wanted to settle things once and for all. She wasn’t planning to give in, but she wanted to know whether there was anything left to save in the relationship.
Uncle Vitaly, Daniil’s father’s brother, was a simple, honest man, a mechanic with calloused hands. He greeted Irina warmly, though there was something like pity in the way he looked at her.
While the men were lighting the grill and the women were chopping salads in the gazebo, Irina stepped away to the car to get her phone. On her way back, she heard voices behind the thick currant bushes. Daniil and his brother Stas were smoking there, not noticing her.
“…we’ll wear her down, don’t worry,” Stas was saying in a lazy, confident tone. “First the registry office, get the marriage stamp, then we’ll work on her. If she won’t sell, we’ll make her life hell. She’ll run on her own, and then we’ll split the apartment. Or just force her out.”
“Mom says we should get her to sign a general power of attorney,” Daniil replied. His voice was businesslike, not a trace of hesitation in it. “We’ll say it’s for the paperwork on the country house we’re supposedly buying.”
“Exactly. The main thing is to stay sweet for now. Once she signs, you can do whatever you want with her. Throw her in a psych ward if you have to. With all those stuffed animals, people will believe she’s crazy anyway.”
Irina froze.
Something inside her snapped. The last thread tying her to this man broke with a deafening crack. There had never been any love. Only the cold strategy of a pack of jackals circling prey.
Uncle Vitaly approached, having noticed the look on her face.
“You heard them?” he asked quietly, spitting into the grass.
Irina nodded.
“Run from them, girl. They’ll devour you. My brother—their father—was a decent man. But these ones… they took after their mother’s side. Rotten. Your Daniil is empty. Nothing but shiny wrapping paper. All he wants is money.”
“I’m not running, Uncle Vitaly,” Irina said, and her voice had changed. There was a growl in it now. “I’m not prey.”
She didn’t make a scene at the dacha. She simply turned around, got into her car, and drove away, leaving Daniil stranded without transportation. When he called, she declined the call and blocked his number. But she knew he would come. All of them would.
She unblocked him the next day and sent a brief message:
We need to meet. Tile store on Leninsky. We’ll discuss your renovation.
Daniil came flying in, gleaming like a polished coin. He had decided the plan had worked—that the fool had finally surrendered. With him, like a cheering squad, came his mother Valentina and Aunt Tamara. Apparently they were afraid he might miss his chance at profit again.
Irina was standing near a display of elite Italian porcelain tile. She was calm. Disturbingly calm.
“Baby!” Daniil tried to hug her, but Irina stepped aside. “I knew you’d come to your senses. Mom, look—this is the tile I want in our bathroom.”
“A little expensive, but good quality,” Valentina Petrovna approved, touching the sample. “Irina, did you bring your card? We need to make the deposit now to lock in the price.”
“And for the plumbing too,” Daniil added. “There’s an incredible jacuzzi. Only four hundred thousand.”
Irina looked at them and saw not people, but parasites. Fat, glossy bloodsuckers.
“Danya,” she said loudly enough to draw the attention of the sales staff and nearby customers, “why exactly should I pay for a jacuzzi in an apartment where I’m not even registered? In the one you keep dreaming about?”
“Well, we’re family!” Daniil’s smile tightened. “Almost family. My money is your money…”
“You don’t have any money, Danya,” Irina cut him off. “You’re nothing. You live off your mother’s money and show off using mine. I heard your conversation at the dacha. About driving me out. About the psych ward.”
Valentina Petrovna’s face turned blotchy red.
“What kind of filth are you saying, you insolent girl?!”
“I’m telling the truth. I’m not buying anything. Not the tile, not the jacuzzi, and not your so-called love.”
Daniil grabbed her by the elbow—hard, rough, enough to leave bruises.
“You’re going to pull out your money and pay the bill right now,” he hissed into her ear. “Otherwise I’ll show you… You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
That was the exact moment Irina’s anger broke over the edge. She didn’t cry. She didn’t flinch. With a swift, practiced movement—the kind she had mastered from years of handling stiff hides—she twisted his wrist. Daniil howled and doubled over.
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with. A parasite and his pack.”
She shoved him, and he crashed into a rack of tile samples. The whole display rattled and clattered.
“You’ll regret this!” Tamara shrieked. “We’ll drag you through the courts! We’ll destroy you!”
“Try it,” Irina said, and walked out of the store to the soundtrack of Valentina Petrovna screaming at the staff.
The final act came two days later.
In her apartment. In her fortress.
Irina was waiting for them. She knew they would not walk away so easily. Greed is fuel that doesn’t burn out quickly.
The doorbell rang long and insistently. Irina opened the door. The entire “delegation” stood outside: Daniil with his hand bandaged, his massive brother Stas, his mother Valentina, and Aunt Tamara.
“Well, enough talking,” Stas said, roughly shoving Irina aside with his shoulder as he stepped into the hallway. The others poured in after him. “Pack your things, sweetheart.”
“What exactly is going on?” Irina asked, standing in the middle of the corridor.
“What’s going on,” Valentina Petrovna declared as she plopped herself onto the bench and looked around as if she owned the place, “is justice. You deceived my son’s expectations. You used him. You wasted his time. We consulted a lawyer. You owe compensation for moral damages. This apartment will cover it.”
“Are you all insane?” Irina laughed. “This is my property. Get out.”
“Or what?” Stas came right up to her. He reeked of alcohol. “You’ll call the police? We’ll say you attacked us. That you’re unstable. Daniil will confirm it. We have witnesses. Sign the apartment over to Daniil, and we won’t touch you.”
Daniil stood near the mirror, fixing his hair with his good hand.
“Ir, don’t make this harder than it has to be. You humiliated me in the store. That comes at a price. Stas has a bad temper. He might not hold back.”
They had cornered her. Literally. Stas loomed over her with one hand braced against the wall beside her head.
“Sign it, bitch,” he growled, “or I’ll rearrange your face so badly not even your own mother will recognize you.”
Irina felt something explode inside her like a supernova. The fear vanished. All that remained was the raw, animal fury of a creature defending its den.
“So that’s your plan? Force?” she asked quietly.
“Force,” Stas said with a grin.
Irina roared.
Not a scream—a roar.
She grabbed Stas by the lapels of his leather jacket and, with the kind of strength that only adrenaline and years of working with heavy tools can give, yanked him forward and smashed her forehead into his nose. The crack was so loud it was heard all the way in the kitchen.
Stas reeled backward, clutching his face as blood sprayed across the wallpaper.
“You filthy bitch!” Daniil lunged at her.
Irina spun around. Her hand—strong, used to gripping pliers and steel tools—latched onto his designer shirt. The fabric ripped from top to bottom, exposing his pale chest. She wasn’t just tearing clothes—she was shredding the image he had built for himself. Then she shoved him in the chest so hard he flew into the coat rack, sending jackets and overcoats crashing down over him.
“I got this apartment through a deed of gift!” she shouted so loudly the glass in the cabinet rattled. “Which means all of you get OUT! OUT!”
She seized the heavy metal umbrella stand and raised it.
She looked insane in that moment—hair wild, eyes blazing, fists white with tension. Like a witch pulled straight from a nightmare.
Valentina Petrovna shrieked and flattened herself into a corner. Aunt Tamara, forgetting all about dignity and status, was already fumbling with the front door handle, trying to escape.
Stas, whimpering in pain and trying to stop the blood, stumbled backward toward the exit.
“She’s crazy! She’s sick! Let’s go!”
Daniil, tangled in the ripped remains of his shirt, crawled pathetically toward the doorway, staring at his former fiancée with animal terror. He had expected tears, pleading, maybe legal threats. He had never expected to be physically beaten. He had never imagined that this quiet little “mouse” would turn into a steamroller.
Irina sprang toward him, grabbed him by the collar, and practically hurled him onto the landing. One of Stas’s shoes flew out after him, lost in the chaos.
“If I ever see any of you here again,” she roared into the open doorway, “I’ll tear you apart and stuff every last one of you!”
The neighbors were already peeking from their doors. Daniil’s proud little pack fled down the staircase in total panic—Stas smearing blood all over his face, Tamara missing a shoe, Valentina wheezing from the effort, and Daniil half-naked and disheveled. They ran like rats abandoning a sinking ship, bumping into one another in their desperation.
Daniil looked back only once. His eyes were full of confusion. He never understood the exact moment his perfect little plan had shattered against the fist of a taxidermist. He was used to manipulating pity and conscience, but he was powerless against pure, clear, unfiltered rage.
Irina slammed the door shut with a bang.
Breathing heavily, she looked down at her hands. They weren’t shaking.
She adjusted her hair, stepped over the torn sleeve of her ex-fiancé’s shirt lying on the floor, and went into the kitchen.
There was ice cream waiting in the freezer.
And tomorrow, she would change the locks.