Come on…
The lock didn’t surrender at once. As always, the key jammed on the second turn—but even that never-ending annoyance of the old door couldn’t touch Natalia’s mood today. She all but glided into the apartment, filling the stale hallway air with the scent of expensive perfume and a gust of crisp outside wind. Heavy kraft-paper bags from an upscale market crinkled in her hands, and in her purse lay a signed offer letter that seemed to scorch the lining like a live coal—pleasantly, like something hot that promised a brand-new life.
“Tyoma! You won’t believe what just happened!” she called, kicking off her stilettos. The heels hit the parquet with a dull knock. “I bought that wine—the one we saw at the restaurant on our anniversary and decided was too pricey? Today we can! Today we can do whatever we want!”
From the living room came the usual soundtrack: the TV droning on and the steady click-click of a controller. Natalia walked in glowing, practically shining. Artem lay on the couch in his beloved sweatpants stretched at the knees and a faded T-shirt. On the coffee table in front of him, dirty mugs and empty chip bags had formed a wobbling tower. He didn’t even turn at his wife’s voice, eyes fixed on the screen where his character calmly mowed down monsters.
Natalia dropped the shopping bags onto the only clear edge of the table with a bang, nearly tipping over an ashtray jar.
“Artem, hello!” She leaned in and blocked the TV with her body. “I’m telling you—they confirmed it. The order is signed. I’m head of the logistics department now. Starting Monday, I have my own office and a team of twelve.”
Artem paused the game slowly, with obvious irritation. He lifted his eyes—heavy, dull, and muddy. There was no excitement in them, no pride, no curiosity. Only the blank annoyance of a man interrupted while he believed he was busy with something important.
“Move,” he muttered, scratching his unshaven cheek. “You’re blocking the screen. So they approved you—so what? Why are you yelling like the building’s on fire? My head’s splitting after my shift, and you’re bouncing around.”
Something inside Natalia went slack, like a thread snapping. The joy that had been fizzing in her like champagne slammed into the icy wall of his indifference. Still, she refused to fold right away. Maybe he was exhausted. Maybe he simply hadn’t grasped what this meant.
“You don’t understand,” she said, laying out the groceries: sliced marbled beef, expensive blue cheeses, a jar of olives, and a heavy dark bottle of wine. “They raised my salary. Not by ten percent like they said—almost double. And there are quarterly bonuses. Artem, I’ll be making over two hundred thousand. We can pay off the car loan by winter!”
At the number, Artem’s face changed. The boredom vanished. He sat up slowly, feet dropping to the floor, and stared at her without blinking. His eyes narrowed into thin, prickly slits. He stayed quiet, chewing on the information, and in that silence Natalia could feel the air tightening.
“How much?” he asked softly. His voice sounded dry and brittle, like a twig snapping. “Two hundred? And what, exactly, are they paying a former senior manager that kind of money for—moving paperwork from one pile to another with a cute smile?”
“For skills, Artem. For pulling the China project out of the fire when everyone else gave up,” Natalia straightened, feeling her smile slide away. “Why are you acting like this? It’s our money. Our household budget.”
Artem gave a crooked, ugly little chuckle. He reached for the wine, turned the bottle as if he were an expert—despite knowing nothing about wine—then set it down with a hard thud.
“Our money?” he scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh. You just named the amount I—an engineer with actual qualifications—earn in three months of grinding work in the shop. And you’ll sit in an air-conditioned office and make three times more?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Natalia blinked, confused. “Different fields, different pay. You’re the one who refused that professional training last year.”
“Oh, so now I’m the problem?” Artem shot to his feet and loomed over her. He was taller, and in the dim room he looked frighteningly solid. “So I’m the dumb laborer who didn’t want to study, and you’re the brilliant logistics mastermind? Natasha, come back down to earth. Jobs like that and money like that aren’t handed out for nothing—especially not to people like you.”
“People like me?” Her voice turned cold.
“Average,” he said, counting off fingers as he stepped closer. He smelled of stale sweat and old tobacco. “Plain. Mediocre. You forget to turn off the bathroom light. You can’t remember where my socks are. You mix up left and right when you drive. And you want me to believe the board suddenly spotted a great leader in you? Don’t insult me.”
He picked up a packet of expensive cheese, weighed it, and tossed it back with contempt.
“Either they’re idiots, or you’re hiding something. Who pulled strings for you? That new deputy director you’ve been yapping about—Viktor, right? You rose too fast. A month ago you were whining that your reports didn’t match up, and now you’re ‘the boss.’ That doesn’t happen, Natasha. Not with your brain.”
Natalia stood there as if she’d been spat on. The celebratory dinner she’d pictured all the way home crumbled into ash before it even began. Instead of clinking glasses and warm toasts, she got a bucket of filth.
“Are you suggesting I slept my way into the job?” she asked quietly, looking him straight in the eyes.
“I’m not suggesting—I’m drawing conclusions,” Artem said with a grin that was worse than shouting. “Because I don’t see any other reason they’d pay you that. You’re an executor. A solid little workhorse. Not a leader. You can’t even manage your own kitchen—there’s never bread in this house. And you’re going to manage people?”
He turned away and collapsed back onto the couch, making a show of picking up the controller again.
“Get that stuff off the table,” he tossed over his shoulder, nodding at the delicacies. “My appetite’s gone. And put the wine away. We’re not celebrating anything. There’s nothing to celebrate. Celebrating a hiring mistake is bad luck. Tomorrow it’ll turn out they mixed up names or you misunderstood something. So don’t embarrass yourself.”
Without a word, moving with the careful, mechanical precision of a machine, Natalia put the wine into the cupboard. The ham and cheeses went onto the fridge shelf, shoved into the farthest corner behind a pot of yesterday’s borscht. The celebration died before it was born, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth and a tremor in her hands she couldn’t stop. She needed to get out of this suit—the symbol of today’s triumph—which in this apartment suddenly looked absurd and defiant, like a ball gown at a funeral.
She went to the bedroom, feeling her husband’s heavy stare drilling into her back. He didn’t stay in the living room. The shuffle of his slippers announced he was following. Artem filled the doorway, blocking the exit, arms crossed. His face held a mix of boredom and a particular cruel amusement—like a child ripping the wings off a trapped fly.
“And where are we rushing off to?” he drawled, watching her fumble with the cuff buttons, fingers shaking. “I’m talking to you. Or do bosses not listen to regular people anymore?”
“I want to change, Artem. Please step out,” she asked softly, eyes down. It felt like if she looked at him, she’d fall apart.
“And why should I?” He stepped into the room, cutting the distance. In the small bedroom his presence felt suffocating. “This is my bedroom. My apartment. And my wife—still mine for now. You still haven’t answered me. How are you going to lead people if you can’t even manage your own phone? Remember your hysterics last month when the internet went out? ‘Tyoma, help me, Tyoma, save me.’ And now you’re suddenly a top manager?”
“That was the provider’s fault, not mine,” Natalia finally lifted her head. In her eyes—usually gentle—there was now a cold, stubborn resolve to protect the last scraps of dignity she had. “And stop dragging up petty household nonsense. My job isn’t setting up routers. I run processes. I negotiate—”
“Negotiate!” Artem burst out laughing, sharp and barking. “Listen to yourself. What negotiations, Natasha? You can’t string two sentences together when we go to the housing office to sort out bills. You hide behind me every time. And now you’re a business lioness? Don’t make me laugh. They’ll crush you in your first week.”
He stepped right up and yanked at her blazer lapel as if testing the fabric.
“Nice expensive suit,” he sneered. “Bought with my money, by the way. I worked so you could stroll into your office looking pretty. And now you’ve decided you’ve outgrown me? Now you’ll bring money home and I’ll carry your slippers in my teeth?”
“I never said that,” Natalia’s voice shook, but she forced herself to keep going. “I just want us to live better. To afford more. Why does it make you so furious? Why can’t you accept that I’m good at what I do?”
Something twisted in Artem’s face. The mask of sarcastic skepticism slid off, exposing raw, throbbing rage. Her calm tone, her attempt to speak as an equal, her arguments—everything poured gasoline on the fire of his wounded ego. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard, snapping her head back.
“You really think because you got a promotion you’re smarter than me?! You think you’re the boss now?! Know your place! You’re a dumb woman who just got lucky! You turn that job down tomorrow—or I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll quit yourself!”
Natalia tried to wrench free, but his fingers bit into her shoulders like steel. A cold, sticky fear crawled up her spine. She had never seen him like this. Before, he could grumble, throw cruel jokes—yet now there was real hatred in his eyes.
“Let go—you’re hurting me!” she cried.
“Hurt?” he snapped. “And you think it doesn’t hurt me to watch this circus?” He shoved her, and Natalia fell awkwardly onto the edge of the bed. Artem towered over her, jabbing a finger toward her face. “Tomorrow you refuse the position. Hear me? Tomorrow morning you go to your Viktor—whoever it is—and you tell them you can’t handle it. That you overestimated yourself. That you’ve got family issues. I don’t care what you say.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Natalia whispered, rubbing her shoulder. “I’m not refusing. I worked for this for three years. This is my chance.”
“A chance to humiliate yourself,” he cut in. “I’m not letting you disgrace my last name. When you screw it up in a month—and you will, I guarantee it—my friends will laugh their heads off. They’ll say, ‘Artem’s woman got too big for her boots, climbed into a sled that isn’t hers, and made a mess of herself.’ I don’t need that.”
He leaned closer. His voice dropped into a threatening whisper that raised goosebumps on her skin.
“Or I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll quit. Believe me, Natasha, I can be creative. You won’t have peace at home. You won’t sleep. You’ll crawl into work like a zombie—red-eyed, hands shaking—and they’ll throw you out themselves. So choose: you leave quietly tomorrow, or we start a war. And you’ll lose, because you’re weak. Without me, you’re nothing.”
He straightened, tugged his shirt as if brushing the conversation off like dirt, and gave a contemptuous snort at his wife curled on the bed.
“Think,” he said. “You’ve got one night. And now go make dinner. Real dinner, not those moldy cheeses of yours. I want cutlets and mashed potatoes. On the table in forty minutes. Boss lady… pfft.”
He turned and left, slamming the door behind him. The bang echoed through the apartment, ringing in Natalia’s ears. She sat in the half-dark as a vast black emptiness spread inside her. No tears came. Only a clear, crystalline realization: the man she thought she knew for ten years was gone. Or maybe he had never existed—maybe it had always been a convenient mask, and tonight it had fused to the face of a monster for good. She looked at her hands. They still trembled, but somewhere deep under fear and hurt, a tiny, hot ember of anger began to glow.
Natalia did not go to the kitchen to fry cutlets. That would have been surrender—admitting he had the right to command her—and despite the fear, something inside her pulled taut with resistance. Instead, she sat at the small kitchen table, pushed the salt shaker aside, and opened her laptop with a decisive click. The screen flared with cold bluish light, highlighting the shadows under her eyes. She had to check her presentation. Tomorrow morning she needed to walk into that meeting not as a beaten wife, but as a professional—and that file was her only support, her shield against the madness that had taken over the apartment.
She tried to focus on the charts, but the lines swam. Artem’s yelling still rang in her ears. Still, Natalia forced herself to concentrate, fingers moving fast as she made final edits on a slide of logistics chains. Work had always calmed her—there were rules here, causes had effects, unlike her family life.
Artem appeared in the kitchen doorway without a sound, like a predator drawn by the scent of fear. He’d changed into a fresh T-shirt, but his expression hadn’t softened—still the same blend of disgust and triumph. In his hands he rolled an apple, tossing it up and catching it lazily.
“I think I said ‘dinner’ in plain Russian,” he said calmly, and the calm held more menace than shouting. “And you’re playing with your little toys again? Think if you hide behind a screen I can’t reach you?”
“I’m working, Artem. This is for tomorrow’s meeting. It has to be perfect,” Natalia said without turning, continuing to type even though her back felt stiff with tension. “Give me thirty minutes. Then I’ll cook.”
“Perfect?” Artem scoffed and stepped closer, peering over her shoulder. He felt like cold air itself. “Let’s see what you call ‘perfect.’ ‘Optimization of transport flows’… God, what nonsense. You copy those smart words off the internet? Do you even understand what you wrote?”
“I’ve been working on this for two weeks. Step back, you’re in my way.”
Instead of stepping back, Artem snapped the laptop shut, nearly catching her fingers. Natalia jerked, instinctively clutching it to her chest like a child.
“Don’t you dare!” she shouted, springing up. “Those edits weren’t saved! What are you doing?!”
“I’m doing justice, Natasha. Saving the company from embarrassment—and saving you from overworking,” he said, wrenching the slim silver laptop from her hands with frightening ease. Natalia grabbed the edge, but she didn’t stand a chance. Artem shoved her aside with his elbow and she flew into the refrigerator, slamming her thigh painfully against the handle.
“Give it back! Artem, don’t be an idiot—give it back right now! That’s a work computer!” Her voice broke into a shriek. For the first time that night she was truly terrified—not for herself, but for the thought that he could destroy her work, wipe out her effort as if it meant nothing.
Artem didn’t listen. He turned the laptop in his hands as if weighing it. A dead, icy smile played on his mouth.
“Work computer, huh? So it belongs to the company. And you, as the ‘responsible party,’ should take care of it. But you’re clumsy. Everything slips out of your hands.”
He turned and walked slowly toward the balcony. Natalia lunged after him, reaching for his arm, but he held up a palm to stop her—like swatting away a yapping little dog.
“Don’t. It’ll be worse,” he hissed.
He yanked the balcony door open. Noise from the night city and a cold autumn wind rushed in, instantly chilling the apartment that had been heated by the fight. Artem stepped onto the concrete floor of the loggia and moved to the open window. Ninth floor. Below, the courtyard was a black pit, lit only by a few dim streetlights and the tiny beetle-like crawl of parked cars.
“Artem… no.” Natalia froze in the doorway, white as a sheet. “Don’t do this. Please. Everything’s on there. There’s no copy.”
“No copy?” he said with fake surprise, holding the laptop out over the void. “How careless—for a department head. Tsk, tsk. See? I told you you’re useless. Professionals make backups.”
“I’m begging you…” she whispered, her heart seeming to stop.
Artem looked her straight in the eyes. There was no frenzy in him, no madness—only cold, precise calculation. He didn’t want to break the presentation. He wanted to break her. And he knew exactly where to hit. His fingers opened.
The silver rectangle slid into the darkness without a sound. Natalia lurched forward, but it was already gone. There was no scream, no crash—just silence swallowing it. Two endless seconds later, a muffled, heartbreaking crunch floated up from below: plastic and glass meeting asphalt. Immediately after, a car alarm began to wail, triggered by the falling object.
Artem calmly closed the window and turned the handle, shutting out the city noise. He came back inside and rubbed his palms together as if dusting them off after a job well done.
“There,” he said with that icy smile, looking at his wife still staring into the dark outside. “You can’t even keep a piece of equipment safe. Dropped it. Couldn’t hold it. What kind of boss are you, Natasha? You’re a walking disaster.”
Natalia turned her head toward him slowly. She wasn’t crying. Shock had dried up her tears and left only a burned, empty wasteland inside. She stared at the man she had shared a bed with for seven years and saw a complete stranger.
“Tomorrow you write a resignation letter,” Artem went on casually as he strolled past her into the kitchen. “Say you lost company property. Say you cracked under pressure. You’ll sit at home and have my kids like a woman’s supposed to—stop playing business lady. Otherwise I’ll give you little ‘surprises’ like this every day. This apartment has plenty of things that can ‘accidentally’ fall. The TV, for example. Or your cosmetics.”
He paused in the doorway and threw over his shoulder, “Now go see what’s left of your career. Maybe you can collect the keys as souvenirs.”
Down below, the alarm finally died, and a heavy, padded silence settled over the apartment—so thick every breath sounded like a gunshot. Artem sat on a stool with the air of a man who had completed an unpleasant but necessary duty. He was perfectly calm, even relaxed. In his world, the proper order had been restored: the threat to his authority was removed, and the woman who’d gotten too bold had been put back in her place.
Natalia didn’t run downstairs to gather the pieces. She understood it was pointless—electronics don’t survive a fall from nine stories. Instead she walked into the kitchen and sat down across from her husband. Her face was terrifyingly still, drained of emotion like a white marble mask. Artem had expected hysteria—screaming, sobbing, maybe a slap. That frozen silence unsettled him. He shifted, then spoke first.
“What are you staring at?” he grumbled, picking up the apple he still hadn’t finished. “I told you—it was for your own good. You’ll save your nerves. Tomorrow you go refuse the job, say you burned out. And everything goes back to normal. We’ll live fine. I’ll even ‘forget’ your little stunt with being ‘the boss’—if you behave.”
Natalia didn’t blink. For the first time in years she saw him clearly. Not a husband. Not a protector. Not a partner. Just a small, frightened man eaten alive by black jealousy. His ego was so fragile that any success of hers felt like a personal attack, like she was humiliating him simply by moving forward.
“You didn’t ‘forget,’ Artem,” she said quietly, her voice dry as dead leaves. “You’re scared.”
“Of what?” He choked on the apple piece, face flushing with outrage. “Me—scared? You’re talking nonsense, Natasha. Who would I be scared of? You?”
“You’re scared I’ll become better than you. That I’ll earn more, decide more, matter more,” she said evenly, like reading a verdict. “You didn’t destroy my presentation. You tried to destroy me as a person. Because next to me, your mediocrity becomes too obvious. You know you’re average. You hit your ceiling five years ago and haven’t moved since. And I kept going. And you couldn’t stand it.”
Artem slammed his fist onto the table. The tea cup jumped, spilling a brown puddle onto the tablecloth.
“Shut up!” he snarled. “You think you can call me mediocre? I fed you when you were on maternity leave! I renovated this apartment with my own hands! You’re nothing without me! You’re empty space that decided she’s a queen!”
“I was nothing while I listened to you,” Natalia said, not even flinching. “But today you made one mistake. You thought throwing the laptop away would break me. You didn’t break me—you freed me. I have nothing left to lose, Artem. The presentation is gone? Fine. Tomorrow I’ll go to the office and speak without slides. I’ll do it from memory. I’ll draw the схемes with a marker on the board. But I won’t refuse the position.”
Artem sprang up so fast he knocked the stool over. His eyes reddened, veins bulging in his neck. He hadn’t expected resistance. He was used to Natalia giving in, smoothing corners, searching for compromises. But now, across from him, sat an enemy.
“Oh, you’ll go?” he laughed bitterly, stepping right up to her. “You really think I’ll let you leave the apartment? You still don’t get it, Natasha. The games are over.”
He marched into the hallway. Metal clinked, a lock clicked—then another, final click. Artem returned, tossing a key ring in his palm—hers and his.
“That’s it,” he said, shoving the keys into his jeans pocket. “Quarantine. Tomorrow you stay home. You don’t have a phone, and I’ll cut your internet in five minutes—pull the cord. You’ll sit inside these four walls until this stupidity blows out of your head. Until you crawl on your knees and beg forgiveness for calling me ‘average.’”
Natalia rose slowly. She was a head shorter than him, yet somehow it felt like she was looking down on him. There was so much contempt in her eyes that Artem involuntarily stepped back.
“You can lock the door,” she said, her tone iced over. “You can take my phone. You can even hit me, if you’re brave enough to sink that low. But you’ve already lost. You think you’re in control? No, Artem. You’re just a jailer now. And I’m your judge. You’ll come home and see every day how much I hate you. You’ll eat that hatred for breakfast, lunch, and dinner instead of your cutlets.”
“Shut up!” he screamed, unable to stand her calm, shredding voice.
“I’ll make your life hell without even leaving this apartment,” she continued, stepping toward him. “You wanted me to know my place? I do. My place is anywhere—so long as it isn’t beside a pathetic failure like you. And tomorrow, when you go off to your ‘important’ job for pennies, I’ll find a way out. I’ll smash a window. I’ll scream until the emergency services show up. I’ll splinter this door into kindling. But I will get out. And when I come back, it won’t be your home anymore.”
Artem stood there breathing hard, fists clenched until his knuckles went white. The air in the kitchen crackled, charged to the breaking point. Between them there was no marriage left, no past, no shared memories. Only the naked, ugly truth of two people who had become mortal enemies inside forty square meters.
“Just try,” he hissed, but a flicker of uncertainty slipped into his voice. “Try saying a word to anyone. I’ll grind you into dust.”
“You already ground everything to dust,” Natalia said, turning away and heading to the bedroom. “Sleep on the couch. If you come into the room—I’ll defend myself with whatever I can grab. Even a knife. I’m not bluffing.”
She went into the bedroom and slammed the door, wedging a chair under the handle from the inside. Artem was left standing in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of cooling food and a life he’d smashed to pieces. He glared at the closed door, realizing he’d won the battle over a laptop—but lost the war he himself had started. The apartment wasn’t silent. It was filled with thick, black hatred they would have to breathe through the rest of that endless night…
