“— And what is this supposed to be?”
Alexey’s voice—steady and cold, like a scalpel—cut through the cozy evening quiet. Larisa, absorbed in her reading, didn’t look up right away. He stood in the living room doorway, arms folded across his chest, his gaze fixed on a small paper bag with a bookstore logo lying on the coffee table. In his tense posture, in the way his thin lips had tightened, there was already a guilty verdict that required neither jurors nor lawyers.
“It’s a book,” Larisa replied calmly, deliberately returning her eyes to the page. She knew this wearying, methodical interrogation was about to begin, and the predictability of it stirred a dull, long-standing irritation inside her.
“I can see it’s not a sack of potatoes. I’m asking why. You already have a whole closet full of those dust collectors—you never reread them anyway. How much did it cost? Five hundred rubles? A thousand?”
He came closer, his shadow falling over the armchair, covering her and the book. He didn’t touch the bag, didn’t look inside. He stared at it as though it were evidence in a case about embezzlement of public funds. Alexey worked as a system administrator in a small firm, earned a very average salary, but when it came to the family budget he behaved like a financial inquisitor. Or rather, when it came to Larisa’s budget. Her income was almost twice his, yet it was her spending that underwent the most humiliating audits.
“It’s my money, Lyosha, and I don’t see why I should report to you about a book,” her voice stayed even, but inside the familiar cauldron of thick, hot tar was beginning to boil.
“Your money?” He smirked, and that quiet, condescending smirk was worse than any slap. “In a family, Larisa, there is no ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ There’s a common budget. And I, as the head of the family, am obliged to make sure that budget isn’t squandered on nonsense. Today it’s a book, tomorrow a handbag, and the day after what? A resort trip with your girlfriends? I saw the breakdown of your expenses last month. Manicure—two thousand. Meeting with Olya at a café—fifteen hundred. Don’t you think you’re living beyond your means?”
He spoke in his trademark lecturing tone, as if explaining the basics of survival to a foolish, capricious child. His weapon wasn’t raised voice, but a methodical, cold pressure that made her feel like a wasteful idiot—an ungrateful fool throwing away money he was supposedly safeguarding for their common good. But today something snapped. Perhaps the last straw was this very book—the small indulgence she allowed herself for her soul, for herself.
Larisa slowly closed the novel. The snap of the cover sounded unusually loud in the silent room. She set the book on the table beside the damned bag and stood. She looked him straight in the eyes, and there was no trace of apology or weary submission left in her gaze. Only a cold fury, accumulated over years.
“All right. Let’s talk about the budget. Show me your breakdown. Right now. Where do you spend your salary? I don’t see anything from you in this house except a pack of cheap dumplings once a week and your endless moralizing. Where does your money go, Lyosha? You don’t buy yourself clothes, you don’t pay for the apartment. What do you spend it on?”
He was taken aback. It was a low blow, a move he could never have foreseen. She had never gone on the attack before. He was used to her sulking, justifying herself, and ultimately giving in.
“That’s none of your business!” he snapped, but for the first time in many years a note of panic slipped into his voice. “A man doesn’t have to report to his wife for every kopeck!”
“Oh, is that so?” Larisa laughed bitterly, and the laugh grated like metal on glass. “So I must, but you don’t? How convenient. Very convenient. You know what, I’m tired. I’ll just look it up myself.”
She wheeled around and headed for the bedroom, where her laptop lay on the nightstand. He rushed after her, his face twisted by poorly concealed terror.
“What are you going to do? Don’t you dare! Larisa!”
But she had already flipped the lid open, her fingers flying to online banking as if by muscle memory. She didn’t need his password. She simply switched accounts, and his password was already saved there. She had never done this before, blindly trusting him. Her fingers darted over the touchpad, scrolling through the long list of transactions for the past few months. And there they were. Small, almost invisible transfers of two, three, five thousand rubles. Every few days. Recipient—Alexey Viktorovich K. Note—“for household needs.” He’d been skimming from her like a street rat. And there were the larger sums: thirty, forty, fifty thousand. Every month, on the same day—the day after his payday. Recipient—Margarita Alekseevna K. His sister. The picture snapped into place instantly, with stunning clarity.
“So you’re going to support your sister while living at my expense yourself? And you’re going to demand reports on every one of my expenses? Haven’t you grown a bit too brazen, my dear? You won’t see another kopeck of my money!”
Alexey stared at the numbers, the names, the dates, and his face turned as white as a hospital sheet. His carefully constructed world of total control and lies collapsed in a second. The game was over.
For the first few seconds after her outburst, a thick, viscous vacuum hung in the room. Alexey looked at the laptop screen, at the unspooling rows of figures that were mercilessly dissecting his double life. He didn’t feel remorse. He felt the animal, icy terror of a thief exposed. The face that had just been white with shock began to flush with a dark, unhealthy blush.
Larisa didn’t wait for explanations or excuses. She sat in the chair before the laptop, her back becoming perfectly straight, like a steel rod. Her movements were quick, precise, and utterly ruthless. Click after click, she changed passwords. Online banking, the mobile app, personal accounts. Each keystroke was the sound of a nail being hammered into his coffin. He stood staring at the back of her head, at how her fingers fluttered over the keyboard, and realized he was losing not just access to her money. He was losing power. That same sweet, intoxicating power of the petty tyrant he had so long and carefully built.
“What are you doing?” he croaked, as the full scale of the catastrophe finally dawned on him. “You’re destroying the family!”
“The family?” She didn’t turn around. Her voice was cold and detached, as if she were commenting on the weather forecast. “You destroyed the family when you decided you could live at my expense while simultaneously sponsoring your overgrown little sister. You don’t have to worry about the joint budget anymore. It’s gone. Now there’s your budget and mine. Let’s see how you live on your forty thousand.”
She snapped the laptop shut. The sound was dry and final. She stood up, walked around him the way one walks around an unpleasant obstacle, and left the bedroom. He was left alone in a room that suddenly seemed alien. He felt naked, gutted. His scheme—so simple and “ingenious,” and working for years—had turned to dust because of some stupid book.
The evening passed in a silence heavier and denser than any scream. Larisa ate dinner alone, reading her new book. She no longer looked in his direction. To her, he was an empty space, a piece of furniture that would soon be taken out to the trash. Alexey prowled around the apartment, unable to find a place for himself. His phone buzzed in his pocket. “Rita” flashed on the screen. His heart plunged somewhere into his stomach. She was expecting the monthly transfer. Today was the day.
He went into the kitchen, closing the door tightly behind him, and pressed answer.
“Yeah, Rit.”
“Lyoshenka, hi!” Her voice, as always, was coy and sugary—the voice of a woman used to getting what she wants. “I’ve been texting and texting, why aren’t you answering? Did you send it? I’ve had my eye on a pair of boots, there’s a sale.”
Alexey rested his forehead against the cold window glass. It was dark outside. Lights glowed in the windows across the way; somewhere out there, other people’s normal lives were unfolding.
“Rit, there are… some minor financial difficulties,” he forced out, trying to keep his voice firm.
The pause on the other end was short but ringing.
“What do you mean, ‘difficulties’?” All the sweetness vanished from her voice, leaving only a cold, demanding steel. “You got paid yesterday. What difficulties could there be?”
“Larisa… she found out everything,” he blurted, shifting the blame onto the only person it could be pinned on. “About the transfers. About everything. She changed all the passwords, I can’t do anything.”
“So what?!” Rita screeched so loudly he had to pull the phone from his ear. “Are you a man or what? You can’t put your own wife in her place? What do you mean ‘found out’? You’re my brother! You promised you’d help me! Mom’s pension is peanuts—do you want me to go to work? As a cashier at Pyatyorochka?!”
Her words struck his face like slaps. She didn’t sympathize. She wasn’t interested in his problems. She cared only about her boots and her comfort, which he was obliged to provide.
“Rit, I can’t right now! I barely have any money myself! She’s cut me off from everything!” his voice broke into a miserable, helpless whisper.
“So you just ditched me? Because of that shrew of yours? You let her do this? I’m disappointed in you, Lyosha. I thought you were the only real man in our family. Turns out you’re a typical henpecked loser. Deal with your harpy yourself. But I want the money. I’m waiting.”
Short, angry beeps. He lowered the phone. He hadn’t sacrificed his sister’s happiness. He had sacrificed the last shreds of her respect for the sake of his own survival. And now he was caught in a vise: a wife who despised him on one side, and a sister who saw in him not a brother but a broken ATM on the other. And he no longer had the money to buy his way out of this nightmare.
For two days the apartment existed in a state of cold war. They didn’t speak, only occasionally crossing paths in the hallway like two ghosts condemned to share a space. Larisa was pointedly calm and occupied with her own affairs. She worked, read, cooked dinner for herself alone; the demonstrative ignoring worked on Alexey worse than any scandal. He, on the contrary, had deflated. Having lost access to her money, he’d lost his swagger too. He moved around the house as quiet as a mouse, shoulders slumped, his eyes carrying the hunted look of a man driven into a corner. He feverishly counted the remnants of his pitiful salary, realizing that after paying the phone loan and a couple of small debts, he would barely have enough for transit and the cheapest pasta.
On Saturday afternoon, as Larisa was unpacking her gym bag in the entryway, the doorbell rang. The ring was impatient, almost hysterical—a short, angry trill repeated twice. Without turning around, Larisa tossed over her shoulder to Alexey, who was sitting in the living room:
“Open it. It’s probably for you.”
He rose from the couch but didn’t have time to take a step. Larisa herself turned and yanked the handle. Rita stood on the threshold. She was all decked out: bright makeup that in daylight looked like war paint, cheap but garish jewelry, and a look of extreme indignation on her face. She had clearly come to wage war.
“I’m here for my brother,” she threw, trying to shoulder her way past Larisa into the apartment.
“Does his wife not mind?” Larisa didn’t budge; her body became an insurmountable barrier. She gave Rita a cold, appraising once-over from head to toe, lingering on the chipped polish on her nails.
Alexey peered out from the living room. Seeing his sister, he grew even paler.
“Rita? What are you doing here? I told you—”
“Told me what?” Rita shrieked, ignoring him and addressing only Larisa, as the main enemy. “To wait while you deal with your harridan? This is all your fault! You turned him against me—his own sister!”
She made another attempt to barge into the hallway, but Larisa merely angled her shoulder forward and Rita ran into it like a wall.
“First of all, it’s not ‘you’—it’s ‘ma’am,’” Larisa said icily. “We haven’t drunk bruderschaft together. Second, I didn’t turn anyone against anyone. I simply stopped paying to maintain an adult, able-bodied woman. Your brother decided he could buy himself a pet that needed feeding, watering, and pampering. Only he was paying for that show out of my pocket for some reason. The booth is closed.”
Alexey, standing between them, looked pathetic. He kept trying to say something but couldn’t wedge a word into this hard, lashing exchange.
“Girls, let’s calm down…” he whimpered.
“Shut up!” both women barked at him in unison.
Realizing she couldn’t force her way in, Rita switched to blunt demands.
“This is his apartment too! And I have the right to be here! Lyosha, tell her! You promised to help me! I’ve got an interview in a few days—I need money for clothes, for transport! You can’t just abandon me!”
She looked at her brother with a plea mixed with command. She still believed her meek, obedient brother would stomp his foot and put “this bitch” in her place. But Alexey only shifted his gaze helplessly from his sister to his wife.
Larisa smirked. It was a cruel, contemptuous smirk.
“An interview? Where do they take people without experience or education? Although they say Pyatyorochka across the street needs a cashier. They give you the uniform for free, so you won’t have to spend on clothes.”
It was a punch to the gut. Rita gasped with outrage, her face flushing scarlet. What she had screamed at her brother in hysterics over the phone, this woman now threw in her face as accomplished fact, as a brand.
“Lyosha! Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she pleaded with him one last time.
Alexey stood with his head down. He couldn’t look either his sister or his wife in the eye. His silence spoke louder than any words. It was an admission of complete and final defeat.
Rita understood everything. There was no plea left in her eyes, only pure, concentrated hatred. She measured them both—a traitor brother and his victorious wife—with a long, venomous stare.
“May you both rot,” she hissed.
She spun on her heel, her heels clattering down the stairs. Larisa watched her go in silence, then quietly—without a slam—closed the door. The lock clicked with the finality of a guillotine. She turned to her husband, who stood rooted in the entryway like a pillar of salt.
“You can pack your things and go to her. I’m not going to feed the two of you.”
He flinched as if slapped. He’d expected anything—shouts, reproaches, gloating. But this calm, methodical relegation of him to the category of trash was the scariest thing of all.
“We were a family, Lara. We loved each other. What happened to you? Where did all this bile come from? All this malice? Are some book and some money really worth destroying everything?”
He tried to appeal to the past, to the feelings he hoped still smoldered in her. It was his last, weakest card.
Larisa looked him straight in the eyes, her gaze hard as diamond.
“Family? Love? Lyosha, wake up. Family is when you look in the same direction, not into someone else’s wallet. Love is when you care, not when you use. You didn’t love me. You loved my income, my apartment, my comfort—which you appropriated. You built yourself a convenient world where you’re the benefactor spending my money on your sister, and the stern master counting my pennies. That’s not love. That’s parasitism. And I don’t want to be a donor.”
He stepped closer, his hands balling into powerless fists. A last spark of anger flickered in his eyes.
“So what now? You’ll throw me out on the street? Think I’ll just leave like that? You’ll be alone. With your money, with your books. You’ll die here alone, because no one needs a woman like you!”
It was his final shot. The threat of loneliness. The only thing left he could try to frighten her with.
But Larisa merely smiled. Softly, almost tenderly—and that tenderness sent a chill down Alexey’s spine.
“Loneliness is when you live with someone who doesn’t respect you, robs you, and despises you. So I’ve been alone for many years, Lyosha—only there was always you beside me. Now you won’t be. And that’s not loneliness. That’s freedom. You’re not a man. You’re not a husband—you’re just an appendage to your sister. Her sponsor. Only now no one in your family, including you, will get a single kopeck from me anymore. And I’m going to divorce you.”
She said it as simply as if she were talking about uninstalling an unnecessary program from a computer. And in that simplicity lay a final, crushing ruthlessness. She wasn’t just kicking him out. She was annulling him, erasing him from her life, denying him even the right to be called a person. She reduced him to the level of a mistake that needed correcting.
Alexey looked at her, and his face slowly turned to stone. He understood it was over. There were no more words, no threats, no manipulations that could move her. He had lost. Not just the battle over money. He had lost himself.
Silently, without looking at her, he turned and went to the bedroom. Larisa heard him open the wardrobe, heard clothes being thrown into a sports bag. The rasp of the zipper sounded loud and final in the quiet. A few minutes later he came out, already dressed, bag in hand. He didn’t look at her. He walked past her like a stranger. In the entryway he stopped, took the key from his pocket, and set it on the console. Then he opened the door and left.
Larisa was alone in an absolutely silent apartment. She sat in her armchair, gazing out the window where evening was beginning. There was no joy, no grief on her face. Only emptiness. A vast, clean, sterile emptiness where a life had been burned to ashes. The war was over. Everyone was dead. And she was the only one who survived, to go on living on this scorched earth.
