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Victoria Sergeyevna always told her clients, “Divorce is not about emotions. It is arithmetic. Whoever is better prepared wins.” In fifteen years as a family law attorney, she had taken two hundred and sixteen divorce cases through court. She had learned to recognize a lie within the first minute of a consultation, trace hidden assets … Read more

“Are you really going to be stingy with two hundred thousand when it’s for family?” her mother-in-law asked in surprise, carefully cutting herself a generous slice of expensive blue cheese. “You’re the manager of a pharmacy, Marina. You get bonuses, allowances, all that. The pharmaceutical business is thriving. And poor Oksana needs to close that … Read more

“Turkey?” Lera stepped back as if she had been struck, unable to believe what she had just heard. “You and your mother are going together?” Lyosha stood in the middle of the room with the expression of a man who genuinely could not understand why anyone was making a fuss. Calmly, he continued folding T-shirts … Read more

Andrey sat at the kitchen table with his phone and tablet spread out in front of him. Lines of code flickered on the laptop screen, but his mother’s voice was still ringing in his ears. Ten minutes earlier, she had called to tell him that her cat Murka needed special food that cost three thousand … Read more

Four years is enough time to learn a language, build a house, plant a garden. Or to understand who is really beside you. Lena still did not fully understand. But she could feel it — something was beginning to tilt. The apartment had come to her from her grandfather. Four rooms in an old building … Read more

Lyudmila’s house stood on a gentle slope at the end of a quiet lane lined with old cherry trees. Anya had first seen it two years earlier — a squat brick house with a wide porch and wooden railings someone had once painted blue and then forgotten about. Now the paint was peeling, the steps … Read more

They got married in June, two weeks after graduation. Back then, Lyudmila still joked that they were the only couple from their class who had actually made it to the finish line. Andrei would laugh, kiss her on the temple, and say that the finish line was only the beginning. And, in a way, it … Read more

The bathwater was the perfect temperature — just warm enough to relax her body and slow down her thoughts. Marina closed her eyes and allowed herself simply to breathe. There was a little over a month left before the wedding, and she had decided that this evening would belong only to her. Foam brushed against … Read more

Gennady Petrovich called Alisa on Wednesday, late in the afternoon. His voice was steady, but it carried that particular caution she had heard from him before whenever he was about to say something important. Alisa set the kettle on the stove and sat down on a kitchen stool, because conversations with her father-in-law were never … Read more

“The cameras recorded everything. Now we’ll watch together and see who was so interested in someone else’s money,” Darya said calmly, placing her phone on the table. The room seemed to shrink. Ilya froze beside the document cabinet. Valentina Andreevna stopped nervously twisting the handle of her handbag, and Svetlana looked at her mother a … Read more