“The safe is empty. There was one and a half million rubles in it. Where is it, Roma?”
Ekaterina stood in the kitchen doorway, clutching the heavy metal panel from the small hidden compartment they had built behind a false wall in the walk-in closet five years earlier. Her voice sounded hollow, as if she were speaking into an empty barrel. There was no hysteria in the question, only a dry, sandpaper-rough statement of fact that would have sent a chill down any normal person’s spine.
Roman sat at the table, taking his time with dinner. He carefully cut off a piece of fried pork, dipped it in ketchup, and put it into his mouth. His jaws moved steadily, rhythmically. A vein pulsed at his temple. He did not even look up at his wife, still staring at something on the smartphone propped against the sugar bowl.
“I asked you,” Ekaterina said, taking a step forward. “The document envelope is empty. The money for Maksim’s university was in there. Did you move it?”
At last Roman dragged his eyes away from the screen. He chewed slowly, swallowed, took a sip of tea, then wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, crumpled it, and tossed it onto the dirty plate. His gaze was dull and heavy, like a man who had rehearsed his speech long ago and had only been waiting for a reason to deliver it.
“I didn’t move it,” he said calmly, leaning back in his chair. The wood creaked miserably under his weight. “I spent it. Sit down, Katya. Stop hovering in front of me. That prosecuting tone of yours is ruining my appetite.”
Ekaterina did not sit down. She froze, feeling the floor beneath her feet turn soft and unstable. She could not understand how anyone could speak so casually about a sum they had scraped together little by little, denying themselves vacations and new clothes.
“Spent it?” she repeated, and the word felt foreign, slippery. “How do you spend one and a half million in a single day? Did you buy a car? Put it into stocks? Roma, that money was for our son’s education. Did you forget? He applies next year. There are barely any state-funded places in his program.”
Roman gave a short grunt, reached into the inside pocket of the jacket hanging on the back of the next chair, and pulled out a glossy folded brochure. He tossed it carelessly onto the table, right into a stain from spilled tea. The paper was thick, expensive, embossed in gold.
“Look,” he said with a nod toward it. “Brush up on your geography.”
Mechanically, Ekaterina picked up the leaflet. On the cover she saw an unreal, fairy-tale world: turquoise water, dazzling white sand, and an enormous hotel that looked like a palace from an Arabian tale built in some futuristic age. Across it were the words: Atlantis The Royal. Dubai. Luxury worthy of kings.
“What is this?” she asked, lifting her eyes to him in confusion.
“A gift,” Roman said, spreading into a smug smile as if he expected applause. “Mom’s turning sixty in two weeks. A milestone birthday. I thought, how long is she supposed to sit on that dacha with her cucumbers? The woman has never seen life. Alla Borisovna deserves a proper vacation. I got her a full package: business-class flights, limousine transfer, a luxury suite overlooking the bay. All inclusive, naturally. And I gave her some cash too, so she wouldn’t feel like some poor relation.”
Ekaterina looked at her husband and saw a complete stranger sitting in front of her. This man, with whom she had spent eighteen years, was now bragging that he had stolen their child’s future to indulge his mother’s whim. The brochure trembled in her hands.
“You spent one and a half million on a week-long vacation?” she asked quietly, feeling a cold fire spreading inside her. “Roma, are you out of your mind? We saved that money for four years. Maksim wears an old jacket, I haven’t been to the dentist in six months, we cut back on groceries… and you just threw it all away on a hotel?”
The smile slid off Roman’s face. His eyes narrowed into two sharp slits. He leaned forward abruptly, planting his elbows on the table.
“So now you’re going to tell me how to spend my money?” His voice turned hard, metallic. “I earn it, I decide. My mother raised me, fed me, put me on my feet. She worked herself half to death her whole life. And now, on her юбилей, I’m supposed to hand her carnations and a supermarket cake? So I can humiliate myself in front of the relatives?”
“That wasn’t your money alone, it was ours!” Ekaterina snapped, raising her voice for the first time. “And Maksim is your son too! Or did you forget that? He has to get into university! Without paid tuition he won’t make it, you know how competitive that program is! You’ve taken away his chance at a proper profession for one week in Dubai for Alla Borisovna, who already has everything she needs!”
Roman slammed his fist down on the table. The dishes jumped. A fork rang against the floor.
“Shut your mouth!” he roared, so loudly it felt as though plaster must have shaken loose in the hallway. “Don’t you dare speak about my mother like that! ‘She has everything she needs’… Have you seen her pension? It’s pennies! She has every right to live like a queen at least once in her life!”
He shot up from the chair, towering over his wife. His face flushed deep red, his neck blotched. He looked like a bull ready to charge, and Ekaterina’s plain good sense had become the red cloth before him.
“And Maksim?” Ekaterina did not back down, though every instinct told her to be silent. “Should he go work as a loader?”
“He’ll go work if he has no brains!” Roman shouted, spraying spit. “At his age I was unloading train cars already! He won’t die from it! You’ve raised him like some greenhouse flower, damn it! He’s still got a year before university, we’ll make the money back! I’ll make it back! All you do is whine and count how much I spend on my own mother!”
He snatched the glossy brochure from her hands, smoothed it out with almost manic tenderness, and laid it back down on the table, farther from the puddle of tea. Then he jabbed a finger hard into his wife’s chest.
“Mom wanted her anniversary in Dubai! I bought her the trip and paid for a luxury hotel suite! So what if it was the money we’d saved for our son’s education? He’s still got a year before university — we’ll earn it again! I only have one mother! Don’t you dare count my money, you greedy bitch!”
Ekaterina stared at him, eyes wide. In that moment she understood that arguing was pointless. The man standing before her was no longer the father of her child, no longer a partner, but a fanatic for whom his mother’s wishes were law and the needs of his own family were merely an inconvenience.
“You will not earn one and a half million in a year, Roma,” she said in an icy voice. “You make eighty thousand a month. It took us four years to save that. You stole your son’s future.”
“I said shut up!” Roman shoved her out of the way and headed down the hall toward the room where Maksim sat behind a closed door. “I’m going to explain to that brat what real values are. He sits in there buried in books, knows nothing about life. His father works himself to the bone for him, his grandmother prays for him, and you two…”
He strode down the corridor with the heavy, assured gait of a man who thought himself master of the house, a man who had just made a grand gesture and now expected gratitude for it. Ekaterina rushed after him, knowing something irreversible was about to happen.
Maksim was sitting with his back to the door, hunched over a physics textbook. The only light in the room came from the desk lamp, pulling stacks of notebooks, an open laptop with graphs on the screen, and a mug of cold tea out of the gloom. He was wearing headphones, so he heard neither the argument in the kitchen nor his father’s heavy steps in the hallway. He was solving a problem that could affect his mock exam score, and the whole world had narrowed to formulas and numbers.
The door flew open so violently that the handle slammed into the wall, leaving a dent in the wallpaper. Maksim jumped, ripped off his headphones, and spun around in his chair. His father stood in the doorway. His face was red, his tie hung crooked, and his eyes were full of that same murky fury his son had seen only a few times before — but remembered well. His mother rushed in right behind him, pale and shaking.
“Roma, don’t you dare!” she cried, trying to grab his elbow. “Get out of here! Don’t touch him!”
Roman shook off her hand like an annoying insect and stepped into the room. In that small space, smelling of books and teenage deodorant, he seemed huge and grotesquely out of place. He loomed over his son, fists planted on his hips.
“Studying?” he asked with a mocking smirk. “Chewing on the granite of science?”
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Maksim asked, glancing from his father to his mother in confusion. “I’m getting ready for my tutor tomorrow. What happened?”
“Your tutor…” Roman drawled, as if tasting the word and finding it disgusting. “Your tutors are an expensive hobby. Your mother says that without money you’re nobody. Nothing. Says if I don’t shell out one and a half million for your education, you’re doomed.”
“Roma, stop this right now!” Ekaterina stepped in front of her son, shielding him. “You’re drunk on your own power! Leave!”
“I’m sober as glass!” he barked, shoving her toward the wardrobe with his shoulder. “I’ve simply set the priorities straight. Hear that, student? Your little stash is gone. Floated away. Grandma’s going on vacation. To Dubai. To the best hotel.”
Maksim went still. He was a smart boy, older than his seventeen years in many ways, and he understood at once. The money they had saved from selling his grandmother’s one-room apartment — his mother’s mother’s place — and added to from their salaries, the money that was supposed to be his ticket into a prestigious technical university, was gone.
“To Dubai?” he asked quietly. “Dad, but we had an agreement… We were supposed to pay the semester fee in August…”
“Agreement?” Roman suddenly burst out laughing, a sharp, ugly bark of a laugh. “Look at them! Plotting behind my back! And who thought about my mother? Who thought about the woman who gave birth to me? You, pup, have you ever once called her just because? And now you’re demanding millions?”
Roman grabbed the physics textbook off the desk, turned it in his hands, then flung it back with contempt. It slid across the desk and knocked over the pen holder.
“You think too highly of yourself, Maksim,” his father said, lowering his voice — which somehow made it even more frightening. “You think you’re special? You think your father is supposed to carry you on his back until retirement? No, son. The free ride is over.”
“How is it a free ride?” Maksim’s voice trembled, but he did not look away. “I study. I work hard. You were the one who said education matters.”
“I said that before I realized the two of you had turned me into a cash cow!” Roman roared.
Then, suddenly, his eyes fell on the neat order of the desk: the tidy stacks of books, the laptop, the notes. All of that “intellectual” order seemed to trigger a fit of uncontrollable rage. It was a world in which he was valued only as a wallet. A world where his authority was measured by how much money he could provide. He wanted to destroy that world.
He stepped toward the desk, planted his wide hands on its edge, gave a guttural growl, and jerked it sharply upward and toward himself.
“Roma, no!” Ekaterina screamed.
But it was too late. The heavy desk gave way to brute force. It tipped and crashed over with a deafening slam.
The sound was horrifying. The laptop struck the floor with a sickening crunch; cracks spiderwebbed across the screen, the casing split apart. The lamp shattered, spraying glass everywhere. Textbooks, notebooks, pens — everything flew across the room and ended up in a heap of wreckage. The mug of tea smashed into the wall, leaving a dirty brown stain across the pale wallpaper.
Maksim barely managed to jump aside in time, pressing himself back against the windowsill. He stared at the devastation in horror, no longer recognizing his father. This was not the dad who had taught him to ride a bike. This was a barbarian destroying everything in his path.
Roman stood in the middle of the chaos, breathing heavily. His chest rose and fell, but his face showed satisfaction, as if he had thrown off some great burden.
“There,” he said, kicking an atlas lying on the floor. “No studies, no problem.”
“You smashed the computer…” Ekaterina whispered, sliding down the wardrobe until she nearly collapsed. “His coursework… all his files… You monster…”
“I’m a man!” Roman shouted, turning toward her. “I’m the master of this house! I decide who goes where!”
He shifted his gaze to his son, who stood pale as a sheet, fists clenched so hard that his knuckles had turned white.
“And you listen carefully,” Roman said, pointing at Maksim as he stepped over a broken desk leg. “If you don’t get a state-funded place, you’re going into the army. The army will make a man out of you, since your father apparently couldn’t. A year scrubbing parade grounds will teach you the value of money fast enough. And if you don’t want the army, then go to trade school. Learn to be a mechanic, a welder. Skilled hands are always needed. You’ll tighten bolts like I did when I was young instead of wasting your life in some office.”
“I’m not going to trade school,” Maksim said quietly through clenched teeth. “I’ll get in.”
“Oh, he’ll get in!” Roman sneered and kicked a thick reference book so hard it skidded to his son’s feet. “Without money you’re nobody! And the money went where it belonged. My mother deserves to отдыхать like royalty. She gave her life to raise me. And you… you haven’t earned a thing.”
He swept his gaze over the wrecked room like a general surveying a battlefield, then added in a calmer voice, though the cruelty was just as cold:
“Clean this up. And not a sound. If I see a miserable face tomorrow, I’ll throw you out. You can live on the street if you’re so proud.”
Ekaterina rose from the floor. The tears had dried in her eyes. Fear was gone; in its place was a cold, calculating resolve. She stepped over the pile of books and came right up to her husband.
“You didn’t just flip over a desk, Roma,” she said, her voice hard as steel. “You just erased everything that tied us together. Return the money. Right now. Cancel the trip.”
Roman looked down at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a contemptuous smile.
“You’re giving me ultimatums?” he asked softly. “Me? In my own house?”
“Return the money,” she repeated.
“Or what?” He bent closer to her face. “What exactly are you going to do to me? A gift is a gift, Katya. Mom is already packing her suitcase. And by the way, she’ll need spending money too. Shopping is expensive there. Restaurants too. She’s not going to sit in the hotel all week.”
A new light came into his eyes, even more unhinged than before. He had remembered there was another place to squeeze money from for his beloved mother.
“Return the money!” Ekaterina shouted, her voice stripped now of fear and ringing with the cold fury of a person pushed into a corner. She blocked his way into the hall, arms spread wide as if she could physically protect what remained of their normal life. “You have no right! This is theft!”
Roman stopped. His chest still heaved from the destruction he had unleashed in his son’s room, but his eyes were burning with a different fire now — practical, calculating. He looked at his wife not as a woman he had once loved, but as a malfunctioning part slowing down a machine.
“Theft?” he repeated, tilting his head. “Katya, you’ve lost all sense of reality. Everything in this house was bought with my money. These walls, this floor, your clothes. The money in that safe was mine too. I earned it. I spent it.”
“There was a share from my mother’s apartment in there!” she cried. “That was Maksim’s inheritance!”
“It was yours, then it became ours,” Roman said with a smirk, stepping closer. “A family is one common pot. And I control that pot, because I’m the head of the family. You…” He looked her up and down. “You’re just the keeper of the home who forgot her place.”
He tried to go around her, but Ekaterina did not move. She seized the lapels of his jacket and shook him with all the strength she had, as though sheer desperation could rattle sense into this wall of muscle and arrogance.
“Cancel the trip! Call the tour company right now!” she demanded. “Do you hear me? Put everything back!”
Roman slowly peeled her fingers off his jacket with visible disgust. Then he seized her wrists — not hard enough to break them, but hard enough to hurt and force her to let go.
“Listen carefully,” he hissed in her face, breathing onion and stale bitterness, though he was sober. It was the smell of rot from the inside out. “The trip is not being canceled. In fact, I’ve been thinking… ‘All inclusive’ is nice and all, but Mom needs cash on hand. Pocket money. She’s not going to wander around Dubai like some beggar just staring into shop windows. She’ll need gold, souvenirs, excursions. One ride up the Burj Khalifa costs half your salary.”
“We have no money!” Ekaterina gasped, trying to pull her hands free. “You took every last ruble! We have nothing left to live on until the end of the month!”
“We don’t,” Roman said. “But you do.” His eyes flicked to the gold earrings in her ears, set with tiny topazes — a gift from her parents on her thirtieth birthday. Then he looked at her wedding finger. “And there’s a few things in your jewelry box in the bedroom too.”
Ekaterina went cold. She understood at once where this was heading, and the realization nearly made her legs buckle.
“No…” she whispered. “You wouldn’t dare. Those are mine. They’re memories.”
“Memories belong in your head. This is a resource,” Roman said flatly. “The pawn shop on the corner is open all night. Gold is worth something now. I think we can scrape together a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand. Just enough for Mom’s shopping.”
He shoved his wife against the wall. Her shoulder struck the coat rack, but she barely felt it — adrenaline had dulled everything. She saw him head for the bedroom and ran after him.
“Don’t touch it!” she screamed, rushing in behind him.
But Roman was already at the dresser. He yanked open the top drawer so hard it nearly came off its runners. His broad hand rummaged through the contents, tossing underwear aside until he found the polished wooden jewelry box.
“There it is,” he said, lifting it with satisfaction. “The treasure chest.”
“Give it back!” Ekaterina lunged at him, trying to snatch back what was hers. “My mother’s ring is in there! The gift from when Maksim was born! You have no right!”
Roman simply switched the box into one hand and lifted it high above his head, far beyond her reach. With his other hand, he pressed against her chest, holding her at arm’s length.
“Stop the drama,” he said coolly. “I’m not stealing. I’m investing in my mother’s happiness. You’re the one who always said family should help each other. So help.”
He walked to the bed and turned the jewelry box upside down. Chains, pendants, and rings spilled across the blanket. There was not much — Ekaterina had never loved flashy things — but every piece carried a story. Her grandmother’s old wedding band. A delicate chain with a cross. A heavy bracelet Roman himself had given her five years earlier after a promotion.
Roman began sorting through the jewelry with his thick fingers, judging the weight and purity.
“This is scrap,” he muttered, tossing aside a thin broken chain. “This one’s hollow, barely weighs anything… But this — this isn’t bad.”
He picked up the bracelet, the one he himself had once given her.
“You gave me that for our anniversary…” Ekaterina’s voice broke. She stood there, arms hanging uselessly, knowing she was no physical match for him.
“Well, I gave it to you — so I can take it back,” Roman said, with the impenetrable logic of poured concrete. “That gives me every right.”
He swept all the gold into his fist, leaving only cheap costume jewelry scattered on the blanket.
“Take off the earrings,” he ordered, turning to his wife.
“What?” Ekaterina stepped back.
“The earrings,” he repeated. “Take them off. Are you deaf? Or do you want me to do it myself? I’ll tear them right through your ears.”
There was not a trace of pity in his eyes. Only cold calculation and irritation that this was taking longer than he liked. Ekaterina understood that he was not bluffing. He really would rip them out if it meant adding another few thousand to his mother’s vacation fund.
With trembling fingers she undid the clasps. First one earring dropped into his waiting palm, then the second. She felt stripped bare, humiliated, crushed. As if, along with those little pieces of gold, he was taking the last scraps of her human dignity.
“There now,” Roman said, dropping the loot into his trouser pocket. The gold clinked dully and vanished into the darkness of the fabric. “See? We can behave like civilized people when we want to. No need for hysterics.”
“I hate you,” Ekaterina said quietly. “May you be cursed.”
“Oh, spare me the theatrical curses,” Roman said with a dismissive wave as he walked toward the bedroom door. “One day you’ll thank me for honoring my mother properly. Alla Borisovna is a woman of standing — she has an image to maintain. And you… you’ll survive. You’ve got nowhere to wear gold anyway, sitting at home or shuffling papers around in that little office of yours.”
He paused in the doorway, looked over the bedroom, his wife standing frozen beside the bed, and added with a grin:
“And don’t even think about hunting for hidden cash. I know where you stash money for a rainy day. If I find out you’ve held anything back, don’t blame me. Mom still needs a good sunscreen, and the good stuff is expensive.”
Roman walked out into the hall, where Maksim was standing in the ruined doorway of his wrecked room. His son stared at him with the look of someone whose childhood had just died. Roman was unmoved. He patted the bulging pocket full of gold and winked at him.
“Watch and learn, student. That’s how real problems get solved. Everything for the family.”
He headed toward the front door, pulling out his phone as he went. He could hardly wait to tell his mother the good news: the financial side of her trip was now fully and finally covered — at the cost of his wife’s humiliation and his son’s future.
Roman stood in front of the hallway mirror, straightening the collar of his jacket. In his reflection he did not see a man who had robbed his own family. He saw a real man, a provider, a grateful son. In his mind, everything had fallen perfectly into place: he had performed a noble act, restored justice. The weight of his wife’s gold in his pocket felt pleasantly solid; in fifteen minutes it would turn into a wad of bills, and then into perfume, designer scarves, and dinners with a view of the dancing fountains for his beloved mother.
Ekaterina stood in the doorway to the living room. She no longer tried to stop him. She watched him with dry, inflamed eyes filled with something strange — a mixture of disgust and a terrible emptiness. As if she were no longer looking at the man she had shared a bed with for eighteen years, but at some enormous, fat cockroach too vile even to crush.
“You’re really going to her now?” she asked quietly. “After what you did to Maksim’s room? After emptying out my jewelry box?”
Roman turned around, zipping up his jacket. A triumphant smile played across his face.
“I’m not just going to her, Katya. I’m going to celebrate. We’ll drink tea, eat cake, look at photos of the hotel, and plan excursions. It’s a holiday. And you…” He waved a hand dismissively toward the wrecked bedroom. “You can sit here and sulk as much as you like. And by the way, clean up. When I get back, I’ll check. I want everything shining.”
Maksim stepped into the hallway. He was holding the remains of the smashed laptop. The screen hung by a single wire, the casing twisted and broken. He was not crying, but his jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles in his cheeks were jumping.
“Dad,” he said. His voice came out rough, cracked, almost adult.
“What?” Roman grunted, pulling on his shoes. “Don’t ask me for money for a new computer. Not a chance. You’ll earn it yourself. Grab a shovel and get to work.”
“I’m not talking about money.” Maksim hurled the broken laptop pieces to the floor, right at his father’s feet. Plastic shattered across the tile. “I just wanted to tell you something… I don’t have a father anymore. You died to me today.”
Roman froze for a second. His face darkened, then he threw his head back and burst out laughing — loud, cruel laughter.
“Oh, how scary. So dramatic, just like your mother. ‘I don’t have a father anymore’… The minute you get hungry, you’ll remember who fills the fridge. As long as you live in my apartment and eat my bread, you’ll open your mouth only when I say so. Got it?”
He straightened up and pulled out his phone.
“Hang on, I’ll call Mom. Let her hear what an ungrateful bunch of relatives she has.”
He hit dial and deliberately put the call on speaker. The ringing dragged on, echoing through the apartment now steeped in the atmosphere of ruins. At last the call connected.
“Hello, son!” came Alla Borisovna’s bright, demanding voice. “Are you coming? I’ve already taken out the cake. Did you get what we talked about?”
Roman winked at his wife and smiled broadly.
“Hi, Mom. Of course I’m coming. Everything’s settled. Hotel’s paid for, tickets are in your email. Atlantis, just like you wanted. Suite.”
“Oh, Romochka!” his mother’s voice rang with delight. “You’re my golden boy! My savior! I already called Lena and bragged — she nearly turned green with envy. She asked where we got that kind of money, and I told her, ‘My son is successful. He loves his mother.’”
Ekaterina leaned against the wall, nausea rising in her throat. They spoke as if there had been no theft, no betrayal, as if everything were perfectly normal.
“Mom, one more thing,” Roman said, raising his voice and glancing at his frozen wife. “I’m bringing you cash too. A decent amount. Pawned some gold — stuff that was lying around doing nothing. And I emptied out our family stash. So you’ll really enjoy yourself. Don’t deny yourself anything.”
There was a brief pause on the other end. Then Alla Borisovna gave a little laugh.
“That’s right, son. What does Katya need gold for? She’s pretty enough without it. And I need to look presentable in front of people. And what about the grandson — still pulling that sour face?”
“Yep, Mom. Upset because he thinks he’s been left without university,” Roman said, nudging a shard of the laptop with the toe of his shoe. “I told him the army will knock some sense into him.”
“Exactly!” Alla Borisovna chimed in enthusiastically. “Let him serve — maybe he’ll finally become a man. He’s growing up weak, all from their side of the family. No point wasting money on nonsense. Education is useless nowadays — what matters is having a grip! Come soon, Romulya, I’m waiting!”
Roman ended the call and looked at his family with open triumph.
“You hear that?” he said. “That’s wisdom. Learn while I’m still alive.”
He snatched the car keys from the shelf, tossed them in the air, and caught them neatly.
“All right, I’m off. I’ll be back late. Leave me some dinner. And Katya…” He had already opened the front door, letting fresh stairwell air into the hot, hatred-soaked apartment. “If I come back and the house is still a mess, or you start whining again about your pathetic little pennies, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m the head of this family, and things will be exactly the way I say.”
He walked out, slamming the heavy metal door so hard the sound was like a gunshot, the final blow to what had once been called a family. The lock clicked, cutting them off from the outside world and leaving them alone with the wreckage.
Ekaterina slowly slid down the wall onto the floor. She sat on the dirty tile in the hallway, surrounded by scattered shoes. Maksim came over, stepping across the ruins of his former life. He sat down beside her, put his arm around her shoulders, and rested his head against her the way he had when he was a little boy.
Silence settled over the apartment — not the ringing silence of suspense, not the lofty silence of peace, but the dead silence of ashes after a fire.
“Mom,” Maksim whispered, staring at the closed door, “we’re not staying here when he comes back, are we?”
Ekaterina lifted her head. Her eyes fell on the bare finger where her wedding ring had been half an hour earlier. All that remained was a pale mark on sun-darkened skin — like the trace of a shackle she had worn far too long.
“No, son,” she said firmly, and her voice no longer shook. “We are not staying here. Pack your things. Only what you absolutely need. We’re leaving now. Let him come back to empty walls.”
She rose to her feet, feeling inside herself an incredible, icy strength — the strength of someone who had nothing left to lose because the worst had already happened. Roman had destroyed his own home brick by brick, and tonight he had laid the final stone on the grave of their marriage.
An hour later, the apartment stood empty. Only the overturned desk, the shattered laptop, and the glossy Atlantis hotel brochure remained, lying on the floor in a puddle of spilled tea — a bright picture of paradise in the hell they had left behind forever.
