Andrey, why is my banking app showing “insufficient funds”? I’m trying to send the deposit for the maternity-hospital contract—it’s only thirty thousand upfront—but the bank keeps declining it.
Natalya stood in the middle of the kitchen, one hand braced against her lower back, which by the eighth month throbbed around the clock like a rotten tooth. In her other hand, her phone glowed—cold white light pulling her tired, puffy face out of the shadows. Dinner was cooling on the stove, but her appetite disappeared the second she saw the red rejection notice.
Andrey sat at the table and, with steady, almost theatrical concentration, sawed into his cutlet. He didn’t lift his head. His shoulders tightened under his worn T-shirt, barely noticeable—like a man expecting a blow from behind.
“Well?” Natalya dragged herself a step closer to the table. “Are you listening to me? There’s supposed to be two hundred and eighty thousand in there. We’ve been saving since month five. Where’s the money, Andrey?”
The fork scraping the plate cracked through the silence, absurdly loud—like a gunshot. Andrey finally set the utensils down, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and slowly looked up. There was no fear in his eyes—just that stubborn, suffering certainty of someone convinced he’s right, even while he knows he’s about to get torn apart for it.
“Natal, sit down,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t get upset.”
“I’m not upset.” Her voice went level and sharp, tight as a pulled string. “I’m asking a question. Where is the money for the birth and the crib?”
“It’s not there,” he breathed. “I took it out this afternoon.”
For a moment the floor seemed to tilt. The baby, as if he felt the spike of adrenaline, kicked hard under her ribs. She automatically pressed a hand to her belly to calm him, but she didn’t take her eyes off her husband.
“You took it out? Why? Did you buy a car? Were we robbed? What happened?”
“Vitalik,” Andrey said, and the name hung in the air like smoke.
Natalya closed her eyes. Vitalik—Andrey’s younger brother. Thirty years old, a perpetual “future billionaire,” still living with their mother and switching jobs every couple of months because “the bosses are idiots.”
“What did he do this time?” she asked, opening her eyes. “Slots again? Or another ‘crypto venture’?”
“Worse, Natal. A lot worse.” Andrey leaned forward, his face twisting into the solemn expression of a man announcing a national emergency. “Last night… well, he and the guys were celebrating. He took a car-share. Had a few drinks, thought he’d be fine. And he smashed into a G-Wagon at a stoplight. Serious people, Natal. Really serious. No insurance on the car-share, the account was fake, he was drunk… Long story short, they put him on a countdown. Right there on the pavement. Told him if they didn’t have three hundred grand by evening for the bumper and the headlight, they’d bury him.”
Natalya listened, but the meaning reached her slowly, as if she were underwater. Drunk. Car-share. G-Wagon. And her money. Her son’s money.
“And you…” She faltered, nausea pushing up into her throat. “You gave them our savings?”
“What was I supposed to do?!” Andrey snapped, slamming his palm onto the table. “Sit around until someone mails me his ears in an envelope? He’s my brother! My only one! Mom practically collapsed—ambulance and everything. I’m the older one. I’m the one who has to handle things. I scraped together everything we had, borrowed another twenty from Sergey, and took it to them. That’s it. It’s done. Vitalik’s alive, intact—just scared.”
He leaned back as if waiting for applause. If not a medal, then at least sympathy. He looked at her like a man who’d pulled someone out of a burning car, not noticing how her fingers whitened around her phone.
Natalya stared at him and realized she was looking at a stranger. This was the man she’d lived with for three years—the man who’d stroked her stomach and argued over baby names—who had just stolen from his own child without blinking to rescue a grown idiot who’d broken the law.
“You gave the money we saved for the birth and the stroller to your brother so he could pay for wrecking somebody else’s car?” Her voice rose, incredulous and cutting. “Are you out of your mind? I’m due in a month and we don’t have a cent! Your brother got behind the wheel drunk—so our baby is supposed to pay the price? Pack your stuff and go live with him. Let him support you now, since you’re so devoted. Because I’m changing the locks today.”
“Natal, don’t start, okay?” Andrey winced. “Money comes and goes. We’ll earn more. The important thing is he’s alive.”
“Your brother drove drunk!” Natalya’s voice cracked into a shout that ricocheted off the tiny kitchen walls. “He could’ve killed someone! And instead of making him face what he did, you just reached into your own son’s pocket!”
“What does our son have to do with it?!” Andrey sprang up, knocking his chair over. “The baby doesn’t care what crib he sleeps in! But Vitalik could’ve been beaten half to death! You’re selfish, Natalya. You only think about your comfort!”
That word—selfish—was the final drop. It tore the last thin veil of patience their marriage had been hanging from these past months while Andrey ran around babysitting his relatives’ disasters.
“Pack your things and go,” Natalya said in a voice so cold it drained the fight from his face. “Let your brother take care of you now, because I’m changing the locks right now.”
“You won’t,” he hissed, fear flickering in his eyes. “This is my apartment too.”
“This is my father’s apartment, Andrey. You’re not even registered here. You have ten minutes.”
“Moron,” he muttered, sitting back down and pulling his plate toward him with a show of defiance. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll cool off. Hormones. And anyway—let’s eat. The cutlets are getting cold.”
He speared a bite, signaling the discussion was over. To him it was just another domestic squabble—something you could chew through and bury under TV noise. He didn’t understand that the gears had already started turning, and there was no rewind.
“You’re making drama out of nothing, Natash. You’re just looking for a reason to fight,” Andrey said with his mouth full; a chunk of bread dropped onto the tablecloth. He lazily brushed it onto the floor. “So what, a contract. Millions of women give birth for free through the state system and nothing happens—no one’s crown falls off. It’s all marketing, a scam for naive little idiots like you. Doctors are the same everywhere, paid or free. They all swore the Hippocratic oath.”
Natalya stood in the doorway, her fingertips going numb with powerless fury. She stared at him, trying to pinpoint when he’d become this. When the caring guy turned into a cynical, cheap little bully who talked about her body and their baby’s safety the way someone might talk about buying used parts for a junk car.
“Are you actually serious?” Her voice trembled—not with tears, but with disgust. “The baby is breech, Andrey. The doctor warned there could be complications. The contract means a specific specialist will operate on me, not whatever exhausted team is on duty after a 24-hour shift. It means a private room so I can recover. It’s safety.”
Andrey rolled his eyes, telegraphing how exhausted he was by her “whining.” He pushed his plate away and turned toward her fully, adopting the pose of a wise mentor forced to explain basic facts to a foolish child.
“Oh, stop winding yourself up! Sveta—Sergey’s wife—delivered at a regular hospital, lay in the corridor for two hours, and she’s fine. The kid’s running around. And you want ‘comfort’…” His voice rose, the accusation ringing in it. “Do you understand now is not the time for comfort? We have a crisis in this family. My brother was one step from dying! And you’re thinking about curtain colors in a hospital room!”
“I’m thinking about our son staying alive!” Natalya snapped, stepping toward him. “And you’re thinking about covering your grown alcoholic brother’s ass!”
“Don’t you dare call Vitalik that!” Andrey jumped up, his face blotching red. “Yes, he slipped up. Yes, he screwed up. But he’s blood! We grew up in the same sandbox—he’s closer to me than anyone! And your ‘cribs’…” He jabbed a finger as if he’d won a point. “I already called Misha. There’s a stroller rotting at their dacha—so what if one wheel squeaks and the fabric faded? You’ll wash it, it’ll be like new. We’ll get a crib too—people give them away online, you just pick it up. Families live like that for years and don’t complain!”
Natalya listened and felt something inside her quietly die—love, respect, the last hope of a future together. Andrey hadn’t only taken the money. He’d stolen her sense of safety. He’d decided everything for her: she would deliver with risks, their baby would sleep in a stranger’s crib that smelled like another home, she would scrub an old stroller that might’ve sat in a garage with mice. All of it—so Vitalik could keep drinking beer and living without consequences.
“So in your opinion this is normal?” she asked softly, staring straight into his eyes. “My child should wear other people’s castoffs and risk his health because your brother can’t call a taxi when he’s wasted?”
“What castoffs?!” Andrey bellowed, grabbing at his head. “You’re greedy, Natalya! All you think about is money! Don’t you understand? If I hadn’t paid, they would’ve crippled him! You’re putting a stupid new stroller above a human life—how do you even say that?”
He believed himself. In his twisted world he was a savior, a noble knight sacrificing something small for something great. And his wife was just a nagging woman whining about paper bills. He didn’t want to admit that, in reality, he’d betrayed the only family he was truly responsible for—the one he’d built with his own hands.
“You’re right, Andrey,” Natalya said suddenly, her voice calm and hollow.
He stopped, startled by the sudden turn. A triumphant smile appeared, as if he’d finally cracked her “hormonal armor.”
“There you go,” he sighed, reaching for his fork again. “That’s what I said. You calmed down, thought it through. We’re family—we help each other. We’ll manage, Nat. At least my conscience is clear.”
“You’re right about one thing,” she continued, ignoring his soft tone. “We are a family. Me and my son. And you and your Vitalik are a different family. And you two should stay together. Far away from us.”
She turned and headed for the entryway. The weight of her belly didn’t slow her now—if anything, it steadied her, like an anchor in a storm.
“Hey, where are you going?” Andrey yelled after her, still chewing. “We’re not done! I’m telling you Misha will bring the stroller tomorrow!”
Natalya picked up her phone from the console table. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore. She found the contact labeled simply: Dad. She knew her father had never liked Andrey, calling him “a slick type,” but he’d tolerated him for her sake. Now there was nothing left to tolerate.
“Dad?” she said into the receiver, forcing steadiness into her voice. “Can you come over? Yes—now. No, not the hospital. Home. And bring a couple of guys from your shift. Yes, Andrey’s here. No, he’s not hitting me. Not yet. I just need to take the trash out. The oversized kind.”
She ended the call and caught her reflection in the mirror: a tired woman in a house robe, hugely pregnant, dark circles under her eyes. But there was no fear in her gaze anymore—only the cold fury of a mother who’d just watched someone try to steal her child’s bread to fund someone else’s fun.
From the kitchen, Andrey’s voice floated out, smug and mocking: “Who are you calling? Your mommy to cry to? Go ahead. She won’t give you money anyway—they’re building their dacha.”
He didn’t get it. He still didn’t get anything.
Natalya lowered herself onto the little bench to put her shoes on. She only needed to wait twenty minutes.
Andrey theatrically turned on the TV in the living room and cranked the volume. A sitcom laugh track spilled into the apartment, a surreal soundtrack to the nightmare that had moved in. He was sure he’d won. Natalya would sulk in the hallway and then come back. Where would she go at eight months pregnant—her parents’ cramped two-bedroom? No. She loved comfort too much. She’d cry, calm down, and tomorrow he’d bring that stupid stroller from Misha, and life would keep rolling.
“Natal, enough with the circus!” he shouted without looking. “Come have tea. I bought cookies—your favorite, oatmeal!”
No answer came.
The hallway stayed quiet. That silence irritated him more than screaming ever could. It pressed into his ears. He was about to get up and “settle this,” but the doorbell rang—long, insistent, demanding.
“Who the hell is that at this hour?” Andrey grumbled, sliding off the couch. “If it’s the downstairs neighbor again about noise, I’ll tell her where to go.”
He stepped into the hall. Natalya was already by the door, her hand on the lock. She didn’t look at him. Her face was white as plaster, but her eyes burned with cold determination.
“Step aside,” she said quietly.
“Who are you waiting for, delivery?” he smirked. “No money, remember? You said it yourself.”
Natalya flipped the latch and yanked the door open.
Cold autumn air rushed in—along with the smell of tobacco and cheap cologne. Gleb Sergeyevich stepped across the threshold.
Natalya’s father had always been a big man—a former shop-floor foreman, the type who solved problems with presence more than speeches. Tonight, in an unzipped leather jacket with a dull gray sweater beneath it, he looked enormous. His silver brows were drawn down into a hard crease of anger.
Behind him, two figures hovered in the doorway. Andrey recognized them—guys from his father-in-law’s crew, the “young bulls” who usually handled heavy lifting during moves. Their faces were bored, but their size made one thing clear: fighting would be pointless.
“Dad,” Natalya exhaled and, as if her strength finally drained out, leaned against the wall. “Thank you for coming.”
Gleb Sergeyevich didn’t even glance at his daughter. His heavy, leaden stare locked onto Andrey, who stood there in sweatpants and a T-shirt with some stupid slogan, his swagger evaporating in an instant.
“Good evening, Gleb Sergeyevich,” Andrey’s voice betrayed him with a wobble. “We were just… having tea. Come in—sorry, it’s a mess…”
“Shut your mouth,” the father-in-law said evenly, without raising his voice.
That calm tone turned Andrey’s stomach to ice. It wasn’t a request and it wasn’t rudeness. It was an order you give a dog right before you hit it.
Gleb Sergeyevich stepped forward, forcing Andrey backward down the hallway. The two men followed, carefully pulling the front door shut behind them—cutting off escape and killing any hope of neighbors stepping in.
“Natalya says you’ve turned into a rat, son-in-law,” Gleb Sergeyevich said, unfastening his jacket. “Stealing from your own. Taking food out of a pregnant woman’s mouth—out of an unborn kid’s mouth—so you can bail out your drunk brother. Am I understanding this right?”
“You’ve got it wrong!” Andrey tried to smile, but it came out pathetic, like a spasm. “This is a family matter, we’ll handle it ourselves. It was an emergency! They could’ve killed Vitalik! I’ll pay it back, I’ll earn it—”
“You’ll earn it,” Gleb Sergeyevich nodded. “Absolutely. For your own medicine.”
He tipped his chin toward his guys. One of them—stocky, close-cropped—walked past Andrey and into the bedroom without a word. The other stayed near the door, arms crossed, studying the magnets on the fridge with polite interest, like he was at a museum.
“Hey—what are you doing?!” Andrey squealed as he saw the man in the bedroom opening the closet. “This is my apartment! I’ll call the police! You can’t—”
“The only thing that’s yours here is the dirt under your nails,” Gleb Sergeyevich said, stepping close. He was a head taller and forty kilos heavier. Andrey caught the thick tobacco smell on his breath. “The apartment’s in Natalya’s name. Bought with my money. You’re nobody here. A hanger-on. And your lease ended five minutes ago.”
From the bedroom came the sound of drawers yanked open. The man wasn’t folding anything—he was just scooping Andrey’s clothes into a heap.
“Natalya!” Andrey shouted, searching for her. “You’re going to let them do this?! They’re tearing everything apart! Nat—tell them! I’m your husband!”
Natalya stood in the corner of the hallway, both arms around her belly. She looked at him with a kind of disgusted pity. For the first time in three years she was seeing his real face—cowardice. Brave only in a kitchen, with a woman. Faced with real force, he melted into trembling jelly.
“You stopped being my husband the moment you decided your brother mattered more than our child,” she said quietly. “Dad—let him take only his things. Don’t give him any of the tech. I bought the laptop on credit, and I’m the one paying it off.”
“You hear that?” Gleb Sergeyevich jabbed a finger into Andrey’s chest. The finger felt like a pistol barrel. “You got a backpack?”
“I do… in the closet,” Andrey rasped.
“Vasya!” the father-in-law barked toward the bedroom. “Stuff everything into the backpack. What doesn’t fit—trash bag. Express relocation.”
Andrey tried to lunge toward the bedroom, but Gleb Sergeyevich dropped a heavy hand onto his shoulder, pinning him.
“Don’t fuss. You don’t need to be in there. They’ll pack you an emergency kit. Underwear, socks, passport. The rest—we’ll mail later. If we feel like it.”
“This is insane…” Andrey whispered, bitter, helpless tears burning his eyes. “You’ll answer for this. This is vigilante nonsense. The nineties are over, Gleb Sergeyevich!”
“For men like you, the nineties never end,” the father-in-law smirked. “You decided to live by ‘rules,’ right? Saving your brother, spending the family stash without asking. So here you go—an answer by those same rules. You dumped your family, and your family dumps you. Fair trade.”
Vasya came out of the bedroom holding Andrey’s gym backpack, swollen with carelessly jammed-in clothes. In his other hand he dragged a pair of jeans that hadn’t fit and now trailed along the floor.
“Documents are in the side pocket, boss,” Vasya reported, tossing the backpack at Andrey’s feet. “Didn’t find the phone charger—whatever.”
Andrey stared at the backpack lying on the doormat. His entire life had been packed into it in two minutes by strangers. His cozy little world—his evening plans, his certainty about tomorrow—had been erased with one phone call from his father-in-law. He looked at Natalya, hoping for a flicker of sympathy, even a shadow of doubt. Her face was stone.
“Get dressed,” Gleb Sergeyevich ordered. “Shoes in your hand and out. Put them on in the stairwell. Don’t stomp around in here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Andrey shook his head stubbornly, grabbing the bathroom doorframe. “You can’t throw me out at night!”
Gleb Sergeyevich sighed heavily, like he was about to do an unpleasant but necessary chore—like unclogging a sewer line. Slowly, he rolled up his sweater sleeves.
“Vasya. Vitya,” he said calmly. “Help the young man leave the premises. He seems to have lost his way.”
The two men stepped toward Andrey in sync. There was no rage in their movements—just the practiced efficiency of movers who haul pianos to the fifth floor with no elevator.
Vitya’s hands were hard and final, like a hydraulic press. He didn’t even bother twisting Andrey’s arms—he simply grabbed him by the back of the shirt and the waistband, like a misbehaving cat, and lifted him clean off the floor. Andrey’s legs flailed as he tried to scrape his toes against the carpet, but it was laughably unequal. Vasya, silent and almost lazy, nudged him from behind, guiding the “cargo” toward the stairwell.
“Let go! What are you doing? Natashа!” Andrey screamed as he was dragged past his wife. “Do you see what they’re doing? This is gangster stuff! Tell them!”
Natalya didn’t look away. Arms crossed over her belly, she watched him the way you look at a crushed insect—without hatred, only deep disgust. In her eyes Andrey saw his sentence, and it was worse than any words: emptiness. The place where love and trust had lived that morning had been firebombed.
“Don’t yell. You’ll wake the neighbors,” Gleb Sergeyevich said evenly, swinging the front door wide.
Andrey was thrown onto the landing. He skidded a couple of meters, caught his foot on his own sneaker that had slipped off, and dropped to his knees on the cold, filthy concrete. His bulging backpack thudded down after him. Then his jacket landed on top like a joke.
He sucked in dusty stairwell air, breathing hard. The humiliation burned hotter than any slap. Slowly he got up, brushing off his knees, and turned around.
In the doorway of what was no longer his home, framed by the warm light of the hall, stood his father-in-law. Behind him loomed the broad backs of the “movers,” blocking the view of Natalya completely.
“Here’s how it is, hero,” Gleb Sergeyevich said quietly, but in the stairwell every word echoed like a hammer blow. “Listen close, I won’t repeat myself. You made your choice. You decided saving your drunk brother’s skin mattered more than caring for your wife and son. That’s a ‘manly’ decision—I’ve noted it. But every decision has a price.”
He stepped over the threshold and towered over Andrey. Andrey pressed his back into the peeling wall covered in marker scrawl.
“If you,” the older man lowered his voice to a whisper that raised goosebumps on Andrey’s skin, “come within a kilometer of the maternity hospital… if I see your face under the ward windows… if you try calling Natalya and tearing her nerves apart with your snotty ‘forgive me’ and ‘I’ll fix it’… I swear to you, Andrey, I’ll take a sin on my soul. You’ll be the one needing intensive care, and no brother of yours will buy you out. Do you understand me?”
“He’s my son!” Andrey shrieked, trying to salvage a scrap of dignity, but his voice cracked high and thin. “I have rights!”
“You don’t have rights,” Gleb Sergeyevich cut him off. “Rights are earned with care and responsibility. And you sold yours for three hundred thousand to buy a moron out of trouble. Your son is just noise to you if you’re ready to dress him in castoffs for your brother’s comfort. We’re done.”
He turned and walked back inside.
“Keys,” he remembered, glancing back.
With shaking hands, Andrey fumbled in his jeans pocket, pulled out the keyring, and threw it onto the floor. Gleb Sergeyevich didn’t even bend down. He kicked the keys into the apartment and slammed the heavy metal door shut.
The clang of locks sounded like a bullet to the head. One turn. A second. A third. Then the click of the night latch.
Andrey was alone.
A bare bulb flickered in the stairwell. The air stank of damp concrete and cat urine. He stood in one sock, clutching his jacket to his chest, staring at the door behind which his life had been left: warm dinner, a comfortable couch, a woman he loved—or thought he did—and a son he might never see.
Anger rolled over him, hot and sticky. Screw all of you, he thought. You’ll come crawling back. Who needs her with a kid anyway? She’s so proud. I’ll be fine. I’ve got a brother. We’re family. We’re strong.
He sat on the cold step, pulled his sneaker on, and with trembling fingers took out his phone. The screen was cracked—probably from the fall. He called Vitalik.
The ringing dragged on forever. Finally, someone picked up. Loud music thumped in the background, women laughing, glasses clinking.
“Yo, Andryukha!” Vitalik’s voice was cheerful and drunk. “Why you up?”
“Vit…” Andrey said hoarsely. “Natasha kicked me out. With my stuff. Right now. I’m sitting on the stairs.”
A pause. The music dipped slightly, but didn’t stop.
“What do you mean, kicked you out?” Vitalik sounded wary now. “Over the money or what? Damn, women are vicious these days… It’s fine, bro, don’t panic. She’ll cool off. Just—don’t go to Mom’s, okay? Her blood pressure’s jumping. Can’t stress her out.”
“I’ve got nowhere to go, Vit,” Andrey felt a lump rise in his throat. “Can I come to you? Just your room. Two nights—until I find a place.”
Another pause—longer, heavier.
“Listen, Andryukha… here’s the thing,” Vitalik’s voice turned slippery. “I’ve got, uh… a lady over. You know. We’re kind of busy. It’d be awkward. It’s tight here. Maybe you grab a hostel? Or crash at Sergey’s? Weren’t you the one with money? You got an advance, right? Oh—yeah. Right. Never mind.”
Andrey went still.
He listened to the weak excuses of the man he’d destroyed his family for an hour ago. The man who was now drinking beer on the money that should’ve paid for his nephew’s birth—who found it “inconvenient” to let his own brother sleep on the floor.
“Are you serious?” Andrey whispered. “Vit, I saved you. I gave everything. I got thrown out because of you.”
“Oh, stop being dramatic,” Vitalik snapped, annoyed. “That’s on you—can’t handle your wife and you’re blaming me. Alright, bro, I gotta go. Hang in there!”
Beep. Beep. The line went dead—short, sharp tones like nails being driven into a coffin lid.
Andrey slowly lowered the phone. The screen went dark, reflecting his twisted, stunned face. He sat on the dirty stairwell steps, hugging a backpack full of underwear, listening to the silence.
Behind the apartment door—nothing. No crying. No footsteps. Natalya wasn’t crying. She’d simply erased him like a mistake in a notebook. And his brother… his brother was just going on with his night.
Andrey let his head fall against the cold wall and closed his eyes. He wanted to scream, to smash something—but he had no strength. Only one clear, ringing realization: he’d bought his own ticket to this freezing stairwell with his bare hands, and he’d paid for it with his son’s future.
He had nothing. No one.
And he was standing in the darkness he’d built himself.
