Month: December 2025

The Bonus That Tore Them Apart “I’m telling you—we earned this!” Rita tossed an envelope onto the table. “One hundred thousand, Vlad. One hundred thousand! Can you imagine what we could do with the kids’ room?” Vladislav slowly set his phone aside. “That’s great news. But don’t spend the bonus yet—my sister Karina’s wedding is […]

— Are you deliberately trying to make my mother have a heart attack? Nicholas rasped, hurling the remote onto the table as if he were tossing away a red-hot coal that had scorched his palms. — Don’t be so dramatic, please, Elena replied indifferently, without looking up from the dishes. The water in the sink […]

Zoya stood by the window of her apartment, watching the bustle of the street below. In her hands she held a cup of hot tea, a faint wisp of steam curling up from it. The past few months had been especially hard—her relationship with Andrei was coming apart at the seams, and she was withdrawing […]

Svetа’s new perfume hit me in the nose the moment I walked in—sharp, cloying, the smell of a winner. “Katya, my God, I’m so happy!” Sveta, my best friend, squeezed me in a hug. Her movements were quick, predatory. The fussiness I used to mistake for hospitality now looked different. “Come in—just a second… I’ll […]

“I’m entitled to property,” Georgy declared. “What property? Are you out of your mind?” Polina didn’t understand. “My property!” “Go sleep it off!” Polina slammed the door in Georgy’s face. “He’s definitely drunk—how else could he be talking such nonsense?” Polina fussed around the apartment in a pointless whirl, tidying up and putting random things […]

The dress had been hanging on the coat hanger for three days already. Every morning I walked past it and looked at it—blue, with tiny flowers, simple but new. I hadn’t bought anything for myself in a long time. Somehow there was never time, and no point either. Where would I go, a retired housewife? […]

The gravel under my car’s wheels rustled irritably as I turned onto the familiar country lane. I was smiling. Igor thinks I’m meeting friends in the city, but I’m racing to him instead. A surprise. He’d said there was a crunch at the dacha—he had to finish some urgent project that required total concentration. Our […]

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, […]