Part 1. Muddy Boots and a Gas Attack
My four-room apartment on Kutuzovsky Avenue was worth 42 million rubles. I had bought it five years before I met Viktor, investing every bonus I had earned as the financial director of a major metallurgical holding.
That apartment had always been spotless.
Until that Friday evening.
The lock clicked. The front door opened, and my husband Viktor stumbled into the hallway. Behind him came his mother, Antonina Pavlovna, dragging two enormous checked bags.
Viktor did not even bother to take off his shoes. In his dirty autumn boots, he marched straight across my pale ash-wood parquet, leaving thick wet tracks of street mud behind him. Antonina Pavlovna followed his example.
“Olga, set the table! We’re celebrating!” Viktor announced, dropping heavily onto my Natuzzi sofa that had cost half a million rubles.
At that exact moment, he let out a loud, rolling fart.
Then he threw his head back and burst out laughing.
“Ah, that shawarma near the metro was something else! We’re family here, no need to be shy, right, Mom?” he roared, rubbing his hairy stomach.
I stood by the kitchen island, my hands resting on the black quartz countertop, and looked at those two primates.
“What exactly are we celebrating, Viktor? And why has your mother arrived with bags?” I asked evenly.
My voice had no emotion in it.
I never shout.
My anger is measured in numbers and legal documents.
Viktor smirked with smug satisfaction. He pulled a folded paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. It had a blue stamp from the public services office.
“This, my dear Olya,” he said. “Today I registered my mother at your apartment. Permanent registration. From now on, she’s living with us. She has high blood pressure, and her old apartment in Lyubertsy is bad for her. Here the environment is better, clinics are nearby. So now we are the rightful owners here. I’m the man, and I made the decision. We’re family, and you should understand that we have to take care of elderly people. And in general, get used to considering my opinion.”
He burped loudly again and put his muddy boots on the glass coffee table.
Part 2. A History of Filth and a Notarial Trick
Viktor earned 90,000 rubles a month as a sales manager at a large logistics company.
My monthly income was over one million.
He had entered my life with one suitcase and an unlimited sense of his own importance.
His shamelessness had grown over the years. He thought it was perfectly normal to walk around my apartment barefoot and then put his dirty heels on the cushions. He never washed his dishes. But worst of all were his manipulations.
“We’re married, so everything belongs to both of us,” he liked to say while eating steaks from Azbuka Vkusa that had been paid for with my money.
But legally, he could not register his mother in my premarital property without my presence.
So how had he managed it?
The answer lay in something that had happened a month earlier.
Back then, Viktor had spent days whining that I worked too much and that we needed to renew contracts with the building management company and deal with some supposed waste collection debts.
“Olya, just give me a general power of attorney,” he had said. “I’ll handle all the paperwork myself so you don’t have to waste time. I’m your husband. I’m supposed to help you.”
Exhausted from annual reports, I went with him to the notary and signed the document.
But I am a financial director.
I read documents diagonally at scanner speed.
Hidden inside the power of attorney that Viktor had asked the notary to prepare in advance was one little clause:
“…with the right to register third parties at the place of residence…”
He thought I had not noticed.
He thought he had outplayed a “stupid woman” by taking advantage of her exhaustion.
He truly believed that a general power of attorney gave him control over my apartment.
I said nothing at the time.
I signed.
And the very next day, I made one phone call.
“Well, why are you standing there?” my mother-in-law’s voice pulled me out of my memories.
Antonina Pavlovna had already taken off her boots and slipped into my silk house slippers.
“Bring tea, daughter-in-law. And clear out the guest room for me. I don’t like the wallpaper in there. Too dark. Tomorrow we’ll call workers and have it redone. Vitya will take the money from your card. We’re family, after all.”
Part 3. Quiet Packing and Garbage Bags
“Of course, Antonina Pavlovna. Make yourself comfortable,” I said with a sweet, almost affectionate smile.
Then I turned and went to the bedroom.
I did not smash plates.
I did not claw Viktor’s eyes out.
I simply opened the lower drawer of my wardrobe and took out a pack of extra-strong black garbage bags, 120 liters each.
They were sitting in the kitchen.
Viktor was loudly chewing the sushi I had ordered earlier, while his mother clicked her tongue critically.
“What a stupid kitchen. Why do you need this island? A proper table should be here, covered with oilcloth. And the television should be bigger. I can’t watch my shows properly on that thing.”
While they were dividing the skin of a bear they had not killed, I calmly and methodically swept Viktor’s things off the shelves.
Into the black mouths of the bags went his cheap shirts, his washed-out sweatpants, the ones he loved wearing while farting on my sofa, his razor, and his ridiculous cologne.
I packed his entire life into three garbage bags.
No neat folding.
No careful sorting.
Just hardcore reality.
When I finished, I dragged the bags into the hallway and placed them next to my mother-in-law’s checked luggage.
Tomorrow would be the day.
I had waited deliberately.
I wanted Viktor to fall from the height to which he had raised himself.
And I wanted his fall to happen in front of the people whose opinions mattered to him more than anything.
Part 4. A Morning Surprise and a High-Status Delegation
Saturday morning.
10:00.
Viktor walked into the kitchen wearing nothing but his underwear, loudly scratching his backside. He opened my Liebherr refrigerator, pulled out a carton of milk, and began drinking straight from it, spilling drops down his chin.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
It was firm, heavy, insistent.
“Oh? Who’s that so early? Delivery or something?” Viktor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll open it. Let them see who the man of the house is.”
Still in his underwear and barefoot, he shuffled into the hallway.
I followed him slowly, holding a cup of coffee.
Viktor threw open the armored door.
Three people stood on the threshold.
The first was Ruslan Eduardovich, the owner of the very logistics company where Viktor worked as an ordinary sales manager. A man from the Forbes list. A hard, cynical billionaire.
Next to him stood his personal lawyer and two solid-looking men from his security team.
Viktor went pale so suddenly that his face turned the color of a toilet bowl. Instinctively, he covered his stomach with his hands.
“Ruslan… Ruslan Eduardovich?” my husband croaked, stammering. “What… what brings you here? We were just… my wife and I…”
Ruslan Eduardovich looked Viktor up and down with disgust.
“Vorobyov? What are you doing in my apartment dressed like that?”
Viktor blinked.
His brain refused to process the information.
“Your apartment? What do you mean, yours? This is my apartment! Well, my wife’s! I’m the owner here! We talked at the corporate party, remember? I told you about our place on Kutuzovsky!”
Ruslan Eduardovich turned his eyes to me.
“Good morning, Olga Nikolaevna. Did you not manage to disinfect the apartment before handing over the keys?”
I took a sip of coffee.
“Good morning, Ruslan Eduardovich. Forgive the visual discomfort. I am just finishing packing their things.”
Part 5. Public Execution and a Canceled Power of Attorney
Hearing the noise, Antonina Pavlovna floated into the hallway wearing my silk robe.
“Vitya, who are these people? They wander in here and don’t let anyone sleep!” she snapped indignantly.
Ruslan Eduardovich’s lawyer silently took a document from a leather folder and handed it to Viktor.
“Read it, Vorobyov,” Ruslan ordered coldly.
With shaking hands, Viktor took the paper.
“Extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate… Owner: Ibragimov Ruslan Eduardovich… Date of registration: three weeks ago…”
Viktor raised his eyes to me.
They were filled with primitive, animal terror.
“Olya… What does this mean? Three weeks ago? You… you sold the apartment?”
“Exactly,” I said, placing my coffee cup on the console table. “A month ago, when you slipped me a general power of attorney with a clause allowing third-party registration, I decided this asset had become toxic. The next day, I revoked the power of attorney at the notary’s office. Then I put the apartment up for a closed urgent sale at a discount. Ruslan Eduardovich was looking for investment property in this area. The deal went through immediately. I rented this apartment from the new owner for exactly thirty days so I could pack in peace. Today, the lease has expired.”
Viktor began to choke.
“But I was at the public services office yesterday! I gave them the power of attorney! They stamped it! I registered my mother!”
Ruslan’s lawyer gave a short, mocking smile.
“You used an invalid document, Vorobyov. Sometimes the public services database lags, and the young clerk failed to check the status of the power of attorney in the notarial registry. But legally, it has no force. The apartment does not belong to you. And the attempt to use a revoked power of attorney may fall under Article 327 of the Criminal Code: forgery and use of false documents.”
Antonina Pavlovna gasped and grabbed her chest.
“What do you mean, sold? What do you mean, someone else’s apartment? Vitya, you told me we were the owners here! You said I would live in Moscow!”
“You will live where you are actually registered, Antonina Pavlovna,” I cut her off in an icy tone. “And your son will now get dressed and roll out of here with you.”
Ruslan Eduardovich looked at Viktor with a gaze that could melt metal.
Viktor had always told stories at work about his success. About what a cool investor he was. About how his wife — me — obeyed him without question.
And now his CEO was seeing him in dirty underwear, pathetic, humiliated by his own stupidity, trying to steal square meters that had never belonged to him.
“Here is what will happen, Vorobyov,” Ruslan Eduardovich said sharply. “For this document fraud, I could hand you over to the police right now. But I do not feel like dirtying my hands. On Monday, you will come to HR and write a resignation letter of your own free will. Rats and idiots do not work in my company. You have five minutes to vacate my property. The men will help.”
The security guards stepped forward, cracking their knuckles.
Part 6. Black Bags and a Ticket Out
Viktor started rushing around the apartment.
His arrogance, his speeches about “we’re family,” his loud laughter — all of it vanished without a trace.
He was frantically pulling his trousers on over his underwear.
“Olya! Olya, forgive me!” he whined, trying to grab my hand.
I moved away in disgust.
“Where am I supposed to go? I’ve lost my job now! You destroyed me!”
“You destroyed yourself when you decided you could fart on my sofa and control my property,” I said, pointing to the door. “Your things are already packed. Three black bags. That is all you managed to acquire in five years.”
Antonina Pavlovna was sobbing loudly while trying to take off my silk slippers.
“You snake! You fascist! You’re throwing people into the street!”
The security guards pushed them into the hallway.
I threw three garbage bags and two checked bags after them.
“Have a pleasant trip back to Lyubertsy,” I said.
Then I slammed the door.
The divorce was processed automatically through the registry office because there was nothing for us to divide.
Viktor’s fate turned out exactly as he deserved.
After being fired from the logistics company with a ruined reputation — Ruslan Eduardovich made sure the market heard about his “reliability” — Viktor could not find work in Moscow. Now he lives with his mother in her old apartment in Lyubertsy, works as a warehouse loader, and drinks cheap beer.
His mother curses him every day for dragging her into Moscow and humiliating her.
And me?
I invested the money from the sale of the Kutuzovsky apartment into a luxurious penthouse on Mosfilmovskaya Street.
This time, it is in a secured residential complex with guards who will not let in a single person wearing muddy boots.
I drink my coffee in absolute silence, enjoy my designer renovation, and know one thing for certain:
The best way to get rid of a parasite is to let him believe he has won — and then pull the rug out from under his feet.
So what do you think? Should I have tried to save the marriage, forgiven my husband for that notarial scam, and simply removed my mother-in-law’s registration? Or does an attempted secret takeover of someone else’s home deserve exactly what happened — an instant sale of the apartment and public humiliation in front of his boss?
