“My apartment, my rules! Go wherever you want — under a bridge, for all I care. I’ve run out of patience.”
Roman stood in the middle of the living room like a Roman aristocrat, except instead of a toga he was wearing a velour tracksuit. He pointed at the door with theatrical flair, as if he had practiced that gesture in front of a mirror.
I simply nodded.
Working as a logistics dispatcher, I was used to crises. A truck loaded with fish gets stuck at customs? A driver goes on a drinking binge in Voronezh? A husband decides to act like an alpha male? The formula is always the same: assess the damage, build a new route, remove the unreliable link.
His relatives were seated on the sofa like honored guests in a private box. My mother-in-law, Zinaida Sergeyevna, pursed her lips as though she had personally signed my eviction order from the old dormitory she once lived in. Next to her, my sister-in-law Zhanna fidgeted, already imagining herself trying on my shoes.
“Roma is right,” Zinaida Sergeyevna said heavily, adjusting the brooch pinned to her enormous chest. “You brought nothing into this house. A man who manages a car service center should have a dependable woman behind him, not someone forever buried in spreadsheets. He needs a wife with status.”
I kept packing my suitcase with calm precision. Rolling clothes into tight bundles is the best way to save space. Practical and fast.
“Exactly!” Zhanna chimed in, fluttering her fake eyelashes. “Romka is a man of means now. I’m opening my own boutique soon, and he’s giving me the startup money. We’re business people. And what are you? A hired little office mouse.”
I quietly zipped up my toiletry bag, straightened, and looked at her.
“A boutique, Zhanna, requires legal registration as either a sole proprietorship or an LLC. And under our laws, if a person has active enforcement proceedings from bailiffs for more than five hundred thousand rubles in overdue microloans, their accounts get frozen automatically. Your business will die before you even make it to the cash register.”
Zhanna jerked so sharply that her phone slipped from her hand and landed on the parquet floor with a crack.
She seemed to deflate and turn pale, like a cheap inflatable mattress punctured on a pebble beach.
Roman’s face darkened as he realized his moment of triumph was beginning to unravel.
“That’s enough! Leave the keys on the table. Did you really think I was going to put up with that cold face of yours forever? I want emotion! Passion!”
“Passion isn’t for me, Roma,” I said, placing the keys on the side table. “That’s for the fire inspector. Goodbye.”
When I stepped out into the cool March evening, I didn’t collapse against a wall or cry in some alleyway. I called a taxi to a hotel. Sitting in the back seat, I took out my phone and made exactly one call.
“Katya, hi,” I said, watching the city lights flicker past outside the window. “You mentioned your TV channel needed something juicy for that ‘Consumer Shield’ segment. Write this down. Empire Motors auto service. Yes, the one that works on expensive foreign cars.”
Katya, my old school friend and now the executive editor of a scandal-hungry local TV show, immediately came to life.
“Olya! Are you really ready to expose your beloved husband?”
“He’s not my beloved anything anymore. Take notes,” I said, my voice flat and steady as a federal highway. “The scheme is simple: on paper they bill customers for original German parts. In reality, the mechanics install cheap Chinese replacements or cleaned-up used parts. Roman pockets the difference off the books. That’s consumer fraud, plus tax evasion. I’ll email you the numbers of three cars that got fake brake pads yesterday. Their owners still have no idea they’re driving around on ticking bombs.”
“Olya, I adore you! Tomorrow morning we’re coming in with a secret shopper and hidden cameras.”
The next morning I sat in a cozy rented one-bedroom apartment, drinking cappuccino and scrolling through the news. My phone pinged. It was the building group chat, administered by Larisa — my former mother-in-law’s closest friend. A loud, nosy woman with an endless appetite for other people’s private business.
“Dear neighbors!” Larisa announced in large bold text. “Our respected Roman Nikolaevich has finally thrown out his leech of a wife! Let’s support a good man! She lived off him, gave him no borscht, no comfort, nothing!”
I took a sip of coffee, opened the keyboard, and typed back:
“Larisa Gennadyevna, supporting a man who hides part of his salary in envelopes so he can avoid paying child support to two children from his first marriage is certainly a noble cause. And while we’re discussing the law, how is your illegal renovation going — the one where you extended a load-bearing wall onto the balcony? The housing inspectorate doesn’t just fine people for that, they also order everything restored to its original condition at your own expense within a month. I was actually planning to clarify the matter with an inspector.”
A silence fell over the chat so sharp you could cut it with a knife. A minute later, a system notification appeared:
“User Larisa Gennadyevna deleted the group.”
She vanished from the digital world as quickly as a cockroach caught in the glare of a suddenly switched-on light.
By lunchtime, the real show had begun.
Katya sent me a link to the channel’s livestream on social media. Roman was on camera. His face, usually smug and polished, now looked like an overripe beet. He was running around the reporter, waving his arms wildly, while the secret shopper held up an oil filter that was literally crumbling apart on camera — sold as an original part for an outrageous price.
“This is a provocation! You have no right to film here! This is my territory!” my ex-husband screeched.
“Roman Nikolaevich,” Katya chirped sweetly into the microphone, “the property belongs to the service owner, Mr. Markov. Who, by the way, is on his way here now, along with representatives from consumer protection and the tax authorities. You’re only the hired manager here, aren’t you? How would you like to comment on the double bookkeeping?”
Roman froze, opening and closing his mouth without producing a word.
All his swagger crumbled like plaster in an old Soviet apartment block during an earthquake.
Within three hours, my phone had practically overheated from incoming calls. Zinaida Sergeyevna called. Roman called. I kept calmly pressing Block.
That evening, a message arrived from an unknown number.
“Olya, this is Zhanna. Roma got fired in disgrace. The owner is making him cover all the losses and shortages. Mom’s in bed with high blood pressure. Roma keeps shouting that you’re the one who sent the TV crew after him. Tell me it isn’t true! How are we supposed to live now?! He was planning to take out a loan in my name to fix the problems at the auto service!”
I smiled. Then I opened the window and let the fresh autumn air into the room.
The algorithm was complete. Toxic cargo had been dumped, and the logistics chain of my life had been rebuilt from scratch — with no defects and no damaged goods.
“Go wherever you want, Zhanna. Under a bridge, if that suits you,” I typed back. “Your rules, your problems.”
I hit Send, blocked the final number, and went to make myself dinner.
Ahead of me was a life that would be calm, comfortable, and most importantly, entirely my own.
