Marina burst into the apartment, kicked her shoes into a corner, and flopped onto the sofa without bothering to take off her jacket.
“Oh God, I nearly died laughing in that meeting!” she gasped. “Can you imagine? They accused you of embezzlement right in front of the whole department! You — a seasoned accountant, audited and cleared by Grand Consult!”
Her words echoed into the emptiness — directed at the kitchen cabinet, the cat Vasya, and the half-empty bottle of sparkling wine balanced against her elbow. People get tired. Cabinets keep secrets.
It all began, like so many disasters, on a Monday.
“Marina, come to my office,” came Alla Viktorovna’s flat voice over the phone. It had the tone of either a robot or a mother-in-law declaring war.
Her office always felt like a walk-in freezer: you went in with a career and walked out stripped of self-esteem.
Marina entered briskly, nodded, businesslike. Beyond the glass sprawled Moscow City. At the desk sat her mother-in-law. And somewhere between them, the shattered pieces of Marina’s confidence.
“We have a situation,” Alla Viktorovna began, lips pressed tight. “There’s a serious shortage in the last quarter’s reports. Almost six million. And all of it signed with your name.”
Marina perched on the edge of the chair, as if it were the edge of an abyss. Words wouldn’t come; only a crooked, nervous smile — the kind you hate seeing even in the mirror.
“Are you serious, Alla Viktorovna? I’m not some trainee fresh out of retraining. I stand by every number I sign. Check the revision logs.”
“We did,” she cut her off. “Everything checks out. Signatures, calculations. You’re either careless. Or deliberate.”
“Is this a joke? A provocation?” Her voice cracked. “I triple-check every document! Who would even—”
“That’s enough, Marina. You’re fired. For cause.”
She swallowed. “Does Dima know?”
“Of course. He agrees.”
The floor might as well have opened beneath her. She hadn’t expected her husband to be a hero, but to side with his mother? After eight years of marriage and two mortgages?
She rose without a word, but at the door she tossed back quietly:
“You don’t need a daughter-in-law, Alla Viktorovna. What you need is a mirror — to admire yourself and whisper, How smart, how strong, how successful… and as lonely as a tree in an empty field.”
No reply.
Marina walked out.
What followed played like a nightmare reel: a termination notice in the mail, messenger blocked, her husband vanished. No calls, no texts. Just a transfer of five thousand rubles labeled “for food.”
Thanks, darling. Just what I needed — humiliation for dinner, fried in a pan of disappointment.
On the third day after being fired, her phone rang. Unknown number. A familiar voice:
“Marina, it’s Nikolai Petrovich.”
Her ex-father-in-law. The one who’d left Alla Viktorovna years ago and gone south to build houses. Literally build them.
“I heard what happened,” his voice was calm but edged with steel. “I’d like to meet. Talk. Maybe offer you a job.”
Marina said nothing.
“Do you trust me?” she finally asked.
“This isn’t about trust,” he replied. “It’s about justice. And maybe your chance to make a move.”
They met on Tverskaya, in a cozy café. He wore a gray coat, eyes like forged steel.
“I left that family, but I didn’t lose my mind,” Nikolai Petrovich said. “Alla’s stirring up dirt again, same as before. I have a plan. I need a reliable accountant. You’re it.”
Marina gave a bitter, almost hysterical laugh.
“I was just publicly shamed, fired, and my husband’s response was to nod along.”
“All the better,” he smiled. “Perfect moment for a knight’s move.”
That night she didn’t sleep. She reread her reports, replayed every edit in her head. She knew she’d been set up — and she knew by whom.
By morning she’d combed through all her correspondence. And there it was: an internal draft that never should’ve made it into the final report — complete with her signature, which she had never put there.
A hack. And only one woman in the world had the cold precision to pull it off.
She called Nikolai Petrovich. “I’m in. And I have something interesting.”
“Good,” he said without asking what. “But understand — if we do this, there’s no going back.”
“I’m not going back,” Marina replied quietly. “Only forward.”
The next morning, dressed once more in a crisp business jacket, she stepped into a new office building. Nikolai Petrovich’s company smelled of ambition, coffee, and cinnamon.
For the first time in days, she felt no anger, no despair — only adrenaline. Like a runner on the starting line, already hearing the count:
Ready. Set. Revenge.
“So you’re saying she just forged your signature?” Nikolai Petrovich twirled a flash drive between his fingers like it was a grenade pin.
“No,” Marina replied, each word deliberate. “She copied it. Scan, edit, paste into a PDF — take your pick. You really don’t know what a woman can do when she’s determined to erase a daughter-in-law?”
“I lived with her for twenty years,” he chuckled, squinting with a mix of irony and weariness. “It didn’t come cheap — cost me my hair and my nerves. And you, well… you lasted longer than I expected. Four years in her kingdom — that’s practically a prison sentence.”
“Five and a half,” Marina corrected silently, her fingers tightening over her knees. Each memory resurfaced — family dinners heavy with unspoken reproach, dagger-like glances across the table. And with every recollection, her desire grew — not just for revenge, but for a revenge executed beautifully. Spectacularly.
Work felt different now. Nikolai Petrovich owned a new construction empire — big projects, influential connections, the kind of life most only dream about. He made Marina his deputy in finance, despite that ominous “terminated for cause” mark on her résumé.
“You know,” he said once, leaning toward her in an empty conference room, “I always hoped Dima would marry a smart woman. I just never thought her intelligence would be… inconvenient.”
“Should I start playing dumb then?” Marina arched a brow, smirking. “Like Tanya from the old office — her job was to pour coffee and giggle on cue.”
“You’re too independent,” Nikolai shook his head. “Alla Viktorovna doesn’t like women like that. She prefers the obedient ones — nod, agree, look adoring.”
“Oh, I can look adoring,” Marina straightened her back, voice sharp with irony. “Especially at someone holding a check for a Mercedes with my name on it.”
He laughed — loudly, genuinely. But the laughter didn’t last.
A week later, Nikolai Petrovich handed her a stack of files — copies of emails, transfers, documents Marina hadn’t even known existed in her former company. And there it was: Alla Viktorovna’s “talent” on full display. Forged signatures. Stolen funds. Not millions — dozens of millions.
“See this?” He placed a printout full of numbers before her.
“Offshore accounts?” Marina frowned.
“Exactly. And that would’ve been your one-way ticket to hell if you’d stayed,” he smiled coldly. “Now you’re a witness. A victim. And, if you’re willing, an accomplice in my little plan.”
“I’m already in,” Marina replied grimly. “This isn’t theater. This is real.”
The plan was simple: expose everything. And do it loudly. Publicly. Marina wouldn’t return to Alla Viktorovna’s office as a humiliated ex-employee — she’d come back with documents, lawyers, and cameras if possible.
But first, they needed ironclad proof.
“I have an idea,” she said one evening as they sat in his top-floor office. “I need to get into the old office. The archive. There should be originals, or at least drafts. Alla’s like some twisted collector — keeps everything like sacred relics.”
“You’re serious?” He raised an eyebrow. “That’s risky.”
“Safe? With you, Nikolai Petrovich? Since when?” Her smile was razor-thin.
That day, Marina entered the building as if she were a stranger. Hair pulled back in a plain ponytail, oversized coat, discreet glasses — she looked like someone visiting a lawyer about an inheritance. Even the security guard she once lunched with didn’t recognize her immediately.
“Marina Sergeyevna? Who are you here to see?”
“Legal department. Personal matter.”
Not a lie. This matter was as personal as it got.
While they called the lawyer, she slipped deeper into the building. The same old office smells — coffee, paper, muted quarrels with Excel. She passed the door marked “Financial Department,” tried the handle — locked. But Marina had an old key. One she had conveniently “forgotten” to return.
Five minutes. She needed no more. A drawer opened. A gray folder emerged. Inside — falsified documents, signed with her electronic signature long after she was gone.
“Still using me, sweetheart?” Marina thought grimly.
“What now?” Nikolai asked when she showed him the folder.
“We hand it all to law enforcement. Lawyers. This is criminal.”
“And you’re ready for the scandal?”
Marina removed her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose, her voice steady:
“I want to hear how Alla Viktorovna explains signing a transfer to Switzerland while she was lying in a clinic with a 39-degree fever and an IV drip. I have a medical certificate. And witnesses.”
That night Dima called. His voice trembled with panic.
“What are you doing?!” he hissed. “Mom’s hysterical! Says you declared war on her!”
“War?” Marina snorted. “She started it when you both decided I was expendable.”
“You’ll ruin everything!” his voice rose. “The family! The company! The money!”
“Family exists where there is no betrayal,” she said quietly. “Your family is wherever Mom is. Mine is where I’m valued.”
“Mom says you’re in cahoots with Dad! That this is some staged act of revenge!”
Marina’s voice remained calm, almost icy:
“Dima, if I wanted revenge, I’d come with a frying pan. This? This is just justice.”
He hesitated for a moment before spitting out:
“You’re nothing without us. Just an ex-wife.”
Marina’s lips curled into a calm, almost amused smile.
“And you? You’re still just your mother’s son.”
That’s all you ever were, Dimочка.
A week later, a subpoena landed in Marina’s mailbox.
Witness. Victim. Major fraud case.
Three months after that, Alla Viktorovna was led out of her office in handcuffs — under the disapproving gaze of her own framed portrait.
That same evening, Nikolai Petrovich appeared at Marina’s door. With a bottle of wine. And an offer.
“Marina,” he said, pouring the wine into glasses, “I want you to stay. Not as a deputy. As a partner. A real share of the company — fair and square.”
She stared at him, stunned. It felt as if she’d fallen off a shabby train and woken up in a luxury carriage — champagne in hand, silk seats under her.
“Promise me one thing,” Marina raised her glass. “I never want to see fake reports again. And if I do — I’ll throw them at your head.”
“Deal,” he grinned. “You’re a dangerous woman, Marina.”
“No, Nikolai Petrovich. I just stopped being convenient.”
“That’s it. I’m done,” Marina slammed the laptop shut as if it owed her not only a salary, but twenty years of moral compensation.
“Sure you’re done?” Nikolai teased, setting a cup of fragrant coffee in front of her. “Or should we call an exorcist? Maybe he’ll banish Excel straight to hell.”
“Better bring me two validol pills and shave my head — I’ll go live as a nun. Male monastery only. And no women allowed, especially those with surnames ending in -ova.”
“Got it. Subtle hint. By the way,” he added with mock innocence, “Alla Viktorovna sends her regards from pre-trial detention. Through her lawyer.”
“Hope it’s a dry cracker. Without a note saying ‘sorry, couldn’t resist.’”
Two months passed. Business boomed. Nikolai Petrovich’s company was soaring like a stock index on a wave of good news. Marina was now a full-fledged partner — with a stake, an office, and all the headaches that come with real power.
Alla Viktorovna remained under investigation. The trial was pending, but public opinion had already sentenced her: in a small business town, falling face-first into the mud is like falling into concrete. You don’t wash it off.
And then came silence. The kind that rings in your ears.
Not screams, not tears — emptiness.
Marina often caught herself thinking: Now I have everything — freedom, money, respect… and an aching void inside.
Even anger had evaporated. No boiling, no pain. Just quiet. Like an empty house after everyone’s left for vacation.
“You know what’s worst?” she said one evening, swirling wine in her glass. “When your enemy is defeated — and you feel nothing. Not even relief.”
“So you’re not happy?”
“Happiness,” Marina said slowly, “is when you’re under a blanket with a fever, eating potato pies. This? It’s like winning the Olympics — and nobody came to watch.”
He was silent for a long time. Then, unexpectedly:
“I’m alone too. For five years now. My house is like a museum — beautiful, but empty.”
“We’re like two exhibits behind glass,” Marina sighed. “Only my price tag got knocked off long ago.”
“You’re no exhibit. You’re a woman who walked through hell and didn’t break. You have a spine.”
“How old are you?” she asked suddenly, narrowing her eyes.
“Fifty-nine.”
“Hm. Still time to build another business, plant a tree, and get divorced three more times.”
“And,” he paused, “to marry again. A smart woman who hates stupidity but loves coffee with cinnamon. You dreamed about that, didn’t you?”
Marina studied him like a complex equation.
“Only if there’s no white wedding dress. And separate bathrooms.”
Whispers soon rippled through the office. Some “saw” them lunching together. Others swore they’d “heard” him call her Mashenka — though he always said Comrade Partner.
One day even Dima called. His voice sounded like a crumpled letter.
“Mom says… you and Dad live together?”
“Tell Mom we already share a bed. Yes. On an orthopedic mattress — healthy spine is key to success.”
“He’s really getting back at her, huh?”
“He’s getting back at her by not regretting the divorce.”
“You like that?”
“No, Dima. I’m just living. For real. For the first time.”
Then came the trial.
The courtroom was packed. Alla Viktorovna — in a strict suit, lawyer at her side, her face a frozen mask of confidence. She didn’t look at Marina.
Marina — composed, calm, carrying only a folder of documents and inner quiet. Not anger. Not revenge. Just facts. The decision had been made long ago.
On the stand, she spoke briefly:
“Yes, I was fired on falsified documents. And yes, I forgave. But forgiveness doesn’t erase responsibility. Especially when you’re both a director and a mother.”
After the verdict — four years probation and a ban on management — Alla Viktorovna finally looked at her.
“Do you think you won?” she asked quietly.
Marina smiled.
“I don’t think. I just don’t fear anymore.”
That evening, Nikolai Petrovich waited for her outside the courthouse.
In a suit. With a bouquet. And a shy smile.
“This is for you. For your courage. And for not becoming like her.”
“I almost did,” Marina admitted, accepting the flowers. “But you pulled me out.”
“Then let me offer you not a date,” he held out his hand, “but a life. Calm. No schemes. Chess. Morning coffee.”
Marina looked at him for a long time.
“Only if I wear a robe at home, with curlers and bear-print socks. And you don’t run away.”
“I’ll stay. Even if you curse at sausage packaging.”
She laughed.
“All right. Let’s try. But no schemes. Next time you go to detention.”
That summer, for the first time in years, Marina went south.
Not with a husband. Not with a laptop. Just with herself.
She sat by the sea. Drank wine.
And remembered the days she’d stopped believing she could laugh.
She was wrong.
Life was only beginning. Even at forty-eight.
And especially — when someone stood beside you who wasn’t afraid of your strength.
