Anna parked her black BMW by the gates of the country house and let out a long breath. It had been a brutal day—an audit meeting, urgent reports for her father, a tense call with the bank about the loan to expand the warehouse. All she wanted now was a glass of dry red wine, […]
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When Natalya came home, she found her husband Nikita in a very worried state. He was nervously pacing from corner to corner, constantly dialing a number on his phone. “Hi, sweetheart,” Natalya said lightly, pretending not to notice how wound up he was. “What’s for dinner?” Nikita seemed not to hear her and kept calling […]
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Alyosha was skiing early in the_busy forest park one morning when he suddenly heard: “Help! People, help!” He stopped, listened, and hurried toward the pleading voice, straight through the snowdrifts. He hadn’t gone far. Nearby there was a pedestrian path, and on it lay an elderly woman. She was trying to get up, leaning on […]
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“Mom, I’m hungry!” Olya tugged at Anna’s T-shirt hem while Anna sorted through empty grocery bags in the kitchen. Anna swallowed a sigh. In the fridge there was a carton of milk and three yogurts. For three children. “We’ll think of something, sunshine,” she said, automatically stroking her daughter’s hair. “We’ll make sandwiches, okay?” “But […]
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Alevtina Petrovna unfailingly appeared at the store at exactly seven in the morning. By that time the 24-hour “Groceries” was usually empty—only night-shift workers and the occasional sleepless passerby came in. Her worn gray coat and faded headscarf had long since become familiar to the staff. The old woman came twice a week, like clockwork—on […]
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Everything began three years ago, when Artyom brought his fiancée and her mother to meet his parents. Tamara Viktorovna, Artyom’s mother, immediately understood: the girl was a good one. Katya was a student at the teacher-training college—modest, well-mannered, from a “decent family.” True, when it turned out that this “decent family” meant a single mother […]
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Alyona stood in the middle of the kitchen holding the divorce papers. Her fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, but from indignation. Stepan was sprawled at the table, lounging in his chair with the air of a man who owned the universe. “Out of your apartment?” she repeated, trying to stay calm. “Stepan, this is my […]
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I asked you to tell me when you were going to the doctor! Why didn’t you tell me?” Zinaida Fyodorovna’s voice cut into the apartment’s morning silence like a fire siren. Ksenia froze in the entryway, handbag still in her hand. She had just come back from the women’s clinic, where she’d been registered for […]
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Alla stood in the middle of the living room, clutching a damp rag in her hands. A wine stain was spreading across the floor—the trace of a glass that had been “accidentally” knocked over. Vyacheslav sat on the couch, buried in his tablet, pretending not to notice what was happening. “You’re sleeping in the kitchen […]
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Isolde stood at the kitchen stove, mechanically stirring a vegetable stew. How many times had she repeated these motions over the past few years? Thousands? Tens of thousands? In the next room, Pavel was watching yet another TV series, occasionally chuckling at the main character’s jokes. She could hear him flipping channels, stopping now on […]
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