A sharp, irritated slam of the front door echoed through the apartment, making Vera flinch. She set aside the book she’d been reading, marking the page with her finger. Sergey was back—and from the sound alone it was clear: today was another one of his “Groundhog Days,” when any little thing could set him off. Over the past few months his moods had been as changeable as April weather: from sudden, performative tenderness to fits of unrestrained rage. Today, it seemed, the storm phase had arrived.
He burst into the living room, flinging the door open so hard it banged against the wall, leaving a faint dent in the freshly hung wallpaper. His face was flushed dark red, and wild sparks danced in his eyes.
“You!” Sergey growled, jabbing a finger at her as if she were some unloved household pet. “I heard you talking to your sister! Her problems again! All those of-your-country-people conversations again! Can’t you just tell her to deal with her failures on her own?!”
Vera tried to answer calmly, keeping her voice even so she wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.
“She just asked for advice, Sergey. She’s having trouble with kindergarten for Liza—there are no spots, and she needs to go back to work. I said I’d help her look.”
“Trouble!” Her husband snatched the fresh newspaper from the table—a serious financial article Vera had just put down—and hurled it at the wall with such force the pages scattered like startled birds. “She always has trouble! Just like your parents—something’s always wrong, they always need something! Shameful! I told you: don’t talk to them so often!”
As always, Vera tried to smother the conflict before it spread—before it swallowed the entire evening, maybe the entire night. She had long grown used to Sergey’s venomous attacks on her family—simple as plowed earth, hardworking people. They lived modestly, without flashy glitter, but honestly, like a precise clockwork mechanism. Her father, Mikhail Sergeyevich, was a design engineer, a creator of classified defense systems wrapped in silence. Her mother, Irina Petrovna, shone at the blackboard, teaching mathematics at an elite lyceum. Their home didn’t worship wealth; it held love, respect, and strict, fair discipline—three facets of the same crystal. But Sergey found that “simplicity” an eyesore, and it always spilled into sneering words like “paupers,” “provincials,” and “people who don’t know how to live.”
“Sergey, don’t talk like that. My parents… they gave me so much. And Olya is doing what she can. She’s alone with a child.”
“Your parents are peasants!” Sergey cut her off, stepping toward her. His eyes shot lightning; a vein pulsed at his temple. He was furious—and that fury was aimed solely at her. “Do you even understand what it looks like in my circles?! The questions I get asked?! What I have to make up?!”
He grabbed her by the shoulder and squeezed so hard Vera cried out, feeling her bones creak under his fingers. His face twisted with rage, spit flying from his lips.
“Your family is a disgrace!” her husband declared—and then he hit her. It wasn’t hard, more a slap than a real punch, but the sharp pain sliced not so much into her skin as into her soul.
Vera recoiled, pressing a trembling hand to her burning cheek. Her eyes stung, but she held back tears. Not in front of him. For the first time in all their years of marriage, what rose in her heart wasn’t pain, or hurt, or fear—it was an icy, ringing emptiness. And inside that emptiness, an absolute, irreversible resolve began to harden.
“I see,” was all she managed. Her voice sounded чужим—foreign, cold.
Sergey seemed pleased with the effect. He puffed out his chest, scanning the room as if it were conquered territory.
“That’s right! So you understand from now on! This is my house, my family! And I won’t tolerate any disgrace here! Get out if you don’t want to listen!”
He turned away theatrically and marched to the kitchen to “drink and calm down,” clattering dishes and pulling his expensive Scotch from the bar.
Vera didn’t move. She stared at her shaking hands, at the newspaper lying crumpled near the wall. On her face there was less a mark from the slap than the imprint of realization: this was the end. Her family was her support, her honor, her unconditional love—and he had just stomped on it. With contempt. With violence. She felt the last crumbs of attachment to Sergey evaporating, leaving only bitterness behind.
The next morning Sergey went to work as usual—confident, arrogant. He was one of the vice presidents of a major federal bank, proud of his position, his connections, his power, his money. His world was reinforced concrete, and he was sure he held every thread in it, while Vera was just a beautiful but insignificant accessory to his status.
But the morning didn’t begin like it normally did. The office buzzed with nervous commotion. Secretaries whispered in corners, colleagues looked rattled. People talked about an urgent meeting, an unexpected audit, a “change of course” and “new investors.” It irritated Sergey—he felt his authority was under threat, and he didn’t know what was going on.
At noon, the chairman summoned him. Usually calm and unflappable, today the man looked strangely pale. In the chairman’s office, besides him, sat two others. One was a solid, well-dressed man in a strict suit tailored to perfection, with an attentive, penetrating gaze that seemed to see straight through Sergey. The other… the other was Anya’s father. Mikhail Sergeyevich. He wore the same kind of strict, impeccably made suit, but the familiar soft, slightly sly smile played on his lips—the same smile he always had when he told Vera funny stories from life.
Sergey froze. He blinked several times, trying to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming.
“Mikhail Sergeyevich? What are you doing here?” he forced out, his voice treacherously trembling.
Anya’s father only gave a slight nod; his smile widened. The chairman cleared his throat, visibly nervous.
“Sergey Vladimirovich,” he began in an official—but surprisingly deferential—tone, “allow me to introduce the new chairman of the board of directors. Or rather, the principal shareholder of our banking group. Mikhail Sergeyevich… and his family.”
Sergey’s head spun. He felt the ground sliding out from under his feet. He stared at Anya’s father—the man he’d called a “peasant,” a “disgrace,” a “simple laborer”—and now… now he was sitting at the head of the table like an owner. Like a man who could decide Sergey’s fate with a single word.
Mikhail Sergeyevich looked calmly at his son-in-law. There was no gloating in his eyes, only deep disappointment.
“Sergey, I never talked much about my affairs. My ‘little factory,’ as you like to call the defense enterprise where I worked, isn’t so little. And the ‘Financial Dawn’ banking group where you hold such a high position is only one part of our family holding company. We’ve been monitoring the bank’s work for a long time, and unfortunately, some things—especially regarding management ethics—have stopped satisfying us.”
He picked up a thin folder with the bank’s logo.
“For example, we’ve heard some very troubling reports about your… treatment of employees. And, most unpleasant of all, of my daughter.”
Sergey went pale. In his mind, lightning flashes of phrases and scenes from the past tore through him: his smug jokes about Anya’s “simple” relatives, his certainty in his own untouchable superiority, yesterday’s rage—his slap… It all collapsed onto him with deafening force.
He hadn’t known that his “shameful” family owned his bank.
At that moment Anya glided into the office like a statue. An impeccable, severe business suit hugged her figure; every strand of hair lay perfectly in place, as if carved from marble. In her hands she carried a folder—an unspoken echo of her father’s power. But the most chilling thing was her gaze: cold, detached, with not a spark of warmth left for Sergey—only scorched emptiness.
“Hello,” she said, looking straight at Sergey without the slightest emotion. “I brought the divorce papers. And the notice of your immediate dismissal from the position of vice president. All of your work cards have already been blocked, your access has been revoked. And your car, I believe, needs to be returned to the bank.”
Sergey sank onto the chair behind him, as if his legs had stopped holding him up. His world collapsed, crumbling into dust. That “disgrace” he’d thrown around turned out to be the foundation on which his entire life—his career, his ego—had stood. Anya, whom he’d considered naïve and spineless, now stood before him as the judge of his fate. And for the first time he saw, in her eyes, not pain but the same steel that was in the eyes of her “simple” father—and in her voice, absolute, unquestionable power
