“You came into my home, you’re insulting my man, and you’re threatening me?! You’re an idiot, Oleg!”
“But you promised her you would never come back. Are you sure you want to do this?” His old friend poured wine into two glasses, and the amber liquid shimmered beneath the fashionable loft-style light fixture.
“Vitalik, don’t start. I promised, I didn’t promise… That’s just sentimental nonsense. Life sets its own conditions,” Oleg said, leaning casually against the back of the leather sofa and playing with the stem of his glass. “Tanya was always a quiet harbor for me. Well, the ship sailed around for a while, its sails got battered, and now it’s time for repairs.”
“She isn’t a harbor, Oleg. She’s a human being—one you ground into the pavement,” Vitaly said, staring at him heavily, without the slightest hint of a smile. “Do you remember how you left? You didn’t simply pack a suitcase. You destroyed her self-esteem.”
“Oh, come on!” Oleg grimaced as though he had a toothache. “Women love drama. She cried for a while, and that was enough. Three years have passed. I’ve heard she’s doing very well now. HR director of a major holding company, a big businesswoman and all that. And I… Well, I’m going through some temporary difficulties. Inga turned out to be a predator. She emptied my accounts and disappeared. I need somewhere to regroup. And my wife… Well, my ex-wife—she’s softhearted. She’s the kind who believes in ‘understanding and forgiving.’ I know which buttons to push. I’ll press a couple of them, and I’ll be king of the hill again.”
“You’re an overconfident idiot,” Vitaly stated calmly. “I saw her recently. She’s a different woman now. And there’s someone beside her…”
“Who? That wimp she took on as a subordinate?” Oleg laughed. “Give me a break. Tanya is a high-flying bird. She needs bright, dominant males like me, not office plankton. That guy of hers… What’s his name… Kirill? He’s furniture. A comfortable little ottoman for her to cry on. I’ll toss that ottoman into the trash in no time.”
“Be careful, Oleg. GREED and ARROGANCE already got you into trouble with Inga. Now you’re pushing your way into a place where no one is waiting for you. It’s a minefield.”
“Risk is my middle name. I’m a high-altitude steelworker, brother. I assemble structures where everyone else gets dizzy. I think I can handle one woman.”
Oleg drained his wine in a single gulp, placed the glass on the table—too loudly, with a sharp ring, though the glass survived—and stood up. His movements radiated the confidence of a predator returning to its old den, unaware that a bear now lived there.
He stepped out into the cool autumn evening and adjusted the collar of his jacket. In his pocket was the key he had kept as a trophy instead of returning it three years earlier. He was certain the lock had not been changed. Tatyana was far too sentimental to change the locks. She was probably still waiting for him, dreaming that he would realize his mistake.
Well, now he had realized it.
Almost.
The building greeted him with the familiar hum of the elevator. The floor was the same, but the door…
The door was new. Solid, expensive, and the color of dark-stained oak. His key clinked uselessly against the metal. Oleg swore. He had no choice but to press the doorbell.
“Yes?” A man’s voice came through the speaker. It was calm and deep, without even the intonation of a question.
Oleg was taken aback for a moment.
“Get Tanya.”
“Who’s asking?”
“Her husband. Her former husband—and her future one. Open the door. We need to talk.”
The silence lasted about ten seconds. Then the lock clicked. Oleg smirked. Fear? Respect? It didn’t matter. The important thing was that he had gained access.
“Why did you let him in? I asked security not to react to that name at all,” Tatyana said. Her voice did not sound frightened. It sounded tired, like the voice of someone who had discovered mold on her favorite cheese.
Oleg stepped into the entrance hall and froze. This was not the apartment he remembered. The walls seemed to have moved apart, and the cramped partitions were gone. The space breathed money and style. The old laminate flooring had been replaced with expensive parquet. And the smell…
It no longer smelled of borscht and domestic comfort. It smelled of something cool and expensive—sandalwood and sea salt.
A man stood in the center of the hall. It was Kirill.
Oleg vaguely remembered him from corporate photographs. He was some kind of workplace ergonomics specialist or antique restorer whom the company had hired to furnish its offices.
Now a sturdy man stood before him, dressed in worn jeans and a loose linen shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing arms covered in wood dust. He held a chisel as though it were not a tool but an extension of his hand.
“Well, hello, darling,” Oleg said, ignoring Kirill as he stepped toward Tatyana with his arms open for an embrace. “I’m back.”
Tatyana did not recoil. She simply looked at him. Oleg mistook her expression for joyful shock, but it was actually CONTEMPT mixed with disgust. She was wearing a strict silk lounge suit.
“Get out,” she said quietly.
“Come on, Tanyusha. I understand that you’re hurt. I was a fool. NO, I was a complete idiot. But we’re still a family. We never officially canceled the stamp in our passports, remember? I checked. Legally, I have the right to be here.”
Oleg brazenly walked into the living room and dropped into an armchair that looked like a museum exhibit.
“That chair is from the eighteenth century,” Kirill remarked calmly as he wiped his chisel with a cloth. “The metal studs on your jeans will scratch the upholstery. Stand up.”
“Listen, Sawdust,” Oleg sneered. “Who are you supposed to be? The servant? A handyman on call? Tanya, pay him and tell him to leave. We need to speak privately. About our future.”
Tatyana approached the table, where several architectural drawings were spread out. Her face was a mask—the cold, composed mask of a top executive who could dismiss hundreds of employees with a single stroke of her pen.
“Kirill is my husband,” she said distinctly. “Not officially, but in every way that matters. And you are nothing here.”
“In every way that matters…” Oleg burst into an unpleasant, barking laugh. “Tanya, don’t make me laugh. You always liked alpha males. Winners. And who is this? A restorer of old junk? I build skyscrapers, baby. I install spires on towers so high that birds can’t reach them. And what does he do? Sniff glue?”
“I build the future by preserving the past,” Kirill said, finally looking directly into Oleg’s eyes. His gaze was as heavy as a cast-iron slab. “And you, Oleg, are simply a parasite searching for a new donor.”
The WORDS struck Oleg. He jumped to his feet, but Kirill did not move. He merely tightened his grip on the handle of the tool.
“All right,” Oleg said, deciding to change tactics. Aggression had failed, so it was time to play the victim. “Tanya, I honestly have nowhere to go. Inga… She abandoned me. My business collapsed. I’m broke. Give me a week. Just let me stay in the guest room. I’ll find a job, rent an apartment, and move out. I swear. You wouldn’t throw a person into the street, would you?”
Tatyana looked at Kirill. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“One night,” she said in an icy tone. “You will be gone by noon tomorrow. And don’t you dare go anywhere near my bedroom. You’ll sleep on the sofa in the study.”
It was a victory. A small one, but still a victory.
Oleg knew that the important thing was to gain a foothold. Once he was inside, he could expand his position. Women loved feeling sorry for pathetic men, and then they fell in love with them again once those men spread their wings.
He would show her who the real master of the house was.
“Not bad. You’ve made yourselves pretty comfortable here. This cognac looks like it costs as much as one of my kidneys,” Oleg said, helping himself to a drink from a decanter in the cabinet.
It was the following morning. His “one night” had come to an end, but Oleg had no intention of leaving. He was playing the “sick and miserable” card. That morning, he had skillfully pretended to suffer from a migraine and an episode of tachycardia. Grinding her teeth, Tatyana had allowed him to stay until the evening.
Kirill was in his workshop—one of the rooms that had been converted for woodworking. The faint smell of varnish and the quiet sound of a sanding machine drifted from inside.
Tatyana was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop, trying to work. Oleg circled around her like an irritating fly.
“Tanya, remember when we flew to Bali? You were afraid of the waves back then, and I taught you how to surf. We were happy.”
“I remember you gambling away all our vacation money in a poker game on the very first night. We lived on instant noodles for two weeks,” she replied without looking away from the screen.
“Well, that was excitement! Passion! And what kind of passion do you have with that… carpenter? Sawdust in the bed?” Oleg walked up behind her and tried to place his hands on her shoulders.
Tatyana knocked his hands away with a sharp movement, as though they were poisonous spiders.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Stop playing hard to get. I can see that you miss having a real man. That Kirill of yours… He’s boring. He’s like… like a stool. Reliable, but made of solid wood. And I’m fireworks!”
At that moment, Kirill entered the kitchen. He was wiping his hands with a rag.
“Fireworks burn out in seconds and leave behind nothing but garbage and the smell of smoke,” he said calmly. “Oleg, it’s twelve o’clock. Have you packed your things?”
“Listen, Pinocchio, don’t tell me what to do,” Oleg snapped. “I’m talking to my wife.”
“Former wife,” Tatyana corrected him.
“That’s just a formality!” Oleg raised his voice. “Tanya, tell him! I know you won’t be able to throw me out. BETRAYAL? Yes, it happened. But who among us is without sin? I came back to fix everything. I have a project. A brilliant start-up. I just need a small investment. Some starting capital. You’re rich now. They say your company is raking in money. Give me a chance, and I’ll make both of us wealthy.”
“Money.” Tatyana finally closed her laptop. “Everything always comes down to money. You haven’t changed. Three years ago, you stole my savings when you left me for Inga. Now you’ve come back for another helping?”
“I took what belonged to me! I invested my time and my youth in our marriage!” Oleg declared brazenly. “And now I have the right to compensation. Or support. We’re human beings, after all.”
Kirill silently walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. His calmness infuriated Oleg. The restorer behaved as though Oleg were merely dust on an antique dresser that needed to be carefully brushed away.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Oleg hissed at Kirill. “I made that woman. I molded her character. Without me, she would still be a gray little mouse in the personnel department.”
“You didn’t mold her. You broke her,” Kirill replied, his voice growing harder. “And I put her back together. Piece by piece. Believe me, when something is restored properly, the repaired place can become stronger than the original.”
Oleg felt FEAR.
Not physical fear. No.
It was the fear that his charms were no longer working. The fear that his arrogance was shattering against their indifference. He needed to raise the stakes. He needed to appeal to pity or guilt.
Or frighten them.
“All right. If you don’t want to do this the easy way… Tanya, I know about your tender manipulations,” he lied, going all in. “Remember, Inga worked in auditing? She told me a few things before she disappeared. If I open my mouth, your position as HR director will start to shake. I have nothing to lose.”
It was a bluff. A complete and utter bluff.
But he hoped to see fear in her eyes.
“So now you’re blackmailing me?” Tatyana slowly rose from her chair. There was a metallic note in her voice that Oleg had never heard before.
They were standing in the living room. The evening cast long shadows over the antique furniture. Oleg felt that he was in control. The bluff appeared to have worked—she had become tense.
“Call it whatever you like, darling. This is business. Compensation for emotional suffering. You’re living in luxury with a young lover, while I’m struggling. It isn’t fair. I want three million. Then I’ll disappear. Forever.”
“Three million…” Tatyana smirked.
The smirk was terrifying. The corners of her mouth rose, but her eyes remained dead.
Kirill entered the room. He was holding a folder of documents.
“Blackmailing someone with something that never happened is stupid, Oleg. But blackmailing someone who knows you inside and out is suicide,” Kirill said, placing the folder on the table.
“What is that?” Oleg glanced suspiciously at the papers.
“This is your portfolio,” Kirill replied. “Not the polished one you show to clients. The real one. A list of the construction sites where you violated safety regulations. Reports about missed deadlines. And, most interestingly, a memorandum from your last employer concerning the theft of building materials.”
“How did you… Who the hell are you?” Oleg felt a chill run down his back.
“I told you. I work in restoration. I don’t restore only furniture. I restored the company’s reputation after contractors like you nearly destroyed it. I’m not merely a craftsman. I’m a shareholder in the holding company where Tatyana works. The ‘invisible’ partner responsible for security and quality control.”
HUMILIATION washed over Oleg in a wave.
He had been trying to intimidate a “carpenter,” only to discover that the man practically owned factories and ships?
No. That was impossible. He was bluffing.
“Stop lying,” Oleg croaked. “You spend your time swallowing dust in a workshop. A shareholder, my ass.”
“It’s a hobby,” Kirill said with a shrug. “It calms my nerves after dealing with people like you.”
“I don’t care who you are!” Oleg shouted. “Tanya is my wife! Legally, this is jointly acquired marital property! This apartment and all this junk! I’ll file for the division of property! I’ll drag both of you through the courts! I’ll take half! Half of your millions and half of these antiques!”
He grabbed a Chinese vase from the table. It was fragile, with a delicate image of a dragon painted across it.
“See this? It belongs to me now!” He raised the vase above his head. “Either you give me the money, or I start destroying ‘our’ property!”
It was an act of desperation.
The act of a cornered rat.
Tatyana looked at the vase. Then she shifted her gaze to Oleg.
“Smash it,” she said quietly.
Oleg froze.
“What?”
“I said SMASH IT!” Tatyana’s voice rose, but instead of breaking into a shriek, it became the roar of a siren. “Smash that damned vase! Smash everything in here! Go on!”
She took a step toward him. Her face was twisted not by tears but by a wild, primal RAGE.
“You think I care about possessions? You think I’m afraid for some pieces of fabric and a few cups?!” She grabbed a heavy paperweight from the table and slammed it against the tabletop. “You pathetic, worthless insect! You came into my home, you’re insulting my man, and you’re threatening me?!”
Oleg stepped back, still holding the vase. He had never seen her like this. She had always cried quietly into her pillow.
Now she was advancing on him like a fury.
“You mentioned jointly acquired property?” Tatyana burst out laughing. It was not hysterical laughter, but the angry, barking laughter of a victor looking down at a defeated enemy. “You’re an idiot, Oleg! A clinical idiot! Remember what you signed three years ago when you left with Inga! Remember that paper I gave you under the pretense that it was my ‘agreement to a settlement payment’!”
Oleg blinked.
He had signed something. In a hurry, at the airport. Inga had been rushing him…
“A prenuptial agreement,” Tatyana hissed, walking right up to him. Her eyes were burning with infernal fire. “A complete waiver of all claims and the transfer of every asset to me as repayment of the debts you owed my father—the debts you ran up back in 2010! You signed everything, you moron! You’re as poor as a church mouse! You own nothing! Not this apartment, not the right to divide any property—not even the underwear you’re wearing. I’m sure that was purchased with my money too, which means that legally, I could strip it off you right here!”
She screamed directly into his face, spraying saliva and no longer restraining her language. She was trembling with rage.
“You thought I was a victim? You thought I would cry and beg?” She grabbed the collar of his shirt and jerked it so hard that the buttons flew off and clattered across the parquet floor. “I’m an HR director! I eat people like you for breakfast every day! I can see straight through your rotten little soul! Your greed and your cowardice!”
“Tanya, what are you doing… Calm down…” Oleg dropped the vase. It landed on the thick carpet without breaking, producing only a dull thud.
“BE QUIET!” she roared so fiercely that he ducked his head between his shoulders. “Kirill, open the door!”
Kirill had been standing against the wall the entire time, his arms crossed and a faint smile of admiration on his lips. He swung the front door open.
“Out!” Tatyana shoved her former husband in the chest. “Get out of here, you animal! And if you ever appear anywhere near me again… If you send even a single text message… I will destroy you. I will cut off your air supply at every construction company within my reach. You’ll work as a cemetery laborer, digging graves, because that’s the only place where I won’t be able to get to you! No, actually, I’ll get to you there too!” Oleg backed away. He was CORNERED. He no longer saw his former wife in front of him. He saw a monster he had awakened himself.
“GET OUT!” she screamed, throwing his own jacket at him.
Oleg rushed onto the landing, stumbling over the threshold. The door closed behind him with a heavy, final sound.
He stood in the stairwell, breathing heavily. His hands were shaking. All his posturing and alpha-male arrogance had evaporated.
Downstairs, near the entrance to the building, he saw a familiar car. Vitaly was there. His friend got out, leaned against the hood, and lit a cigarette.
“Well, hero?” Vitaly asked, looking at the disheveled, pale Oleg with the buttons torn from his shirt. “Did you conquer the summit?”
“She… She’s insane,” Oleg muttered as he sat down on the curb. “She’s a witch.”
“No. She’s simply a woman who stopped being afraid,” Vitaly said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “I warned you. Returning has a price.”
“I have nowhere to go, Vitaly. Let me stay with you for a while,” Oleg pleaded.
Vitaly shook his head.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? We’re friends!”
“Because I work for that same holding company. I’m the chief architect. And Kirill is my main client. If I help you, I’ll lose my contracts. Nothing personal, Oleg. It’s just business. And a little bit of disgust.”
Vitaly got into his car and drove away.
Oleg remained sitting on the curb. People walked past him as yellow leaves fell from the trees. His phone vibrated in his pocket.
A message.
It was from an unknown number.
The text was brief:
“As of today, you have been blacklisted by every self-regulatory organization for installation contractors. Good luck at the cemetery.”
Oleg stared at the screen, unable to believe it.
This was his personal hell.
Not prison. Not a trial.
Complete and total emptiness and oblivion.
His life had collapsed not beneath the blows of a hammer, but because of a single woman’s scream that had blown away his house of cards. He had been punished by his own worthlessness, reflected in the eyes of the woman he had once considered weak.
