The oval mirror in an oak frame, inherited from the previous owners of the mansion along with a pair of armchairs and a heavy chandelier in the living room, reflected a woman in a beige dress with a collar right up to her throat. Exactly the kind Arthur would have approved of, if he ever noticed what she wore. If he had looked at her even once in recent years as a living person and not as a piece of furniture. Veronica ran her fingers over her cheek, studying her face the way one studies a map of a forgotten land.
Her features were still young—35 is no age—but her gaze held something of boarded-up windows, of houses where the lights had long gone out and which were slowly sinking into the ground, forgotten by all. Outside, a December blizzard raged, hurling snow against the cottage windows with the fury only a northern winter is capable of, and this white shroud cut off the elite community from the rest of the world more reliably than any fence. Any security, any wrought-iron gates with video intercoms.
Her life over these years had become an expensive fabric from which her husband had tailored not a dress, but a furniture cover—convenient, practical, inconspicuous against the backdrop of the decor. 3,650 days. She kept this count with the same frightening precision with which prisoners scratch marks on their cell walls.
And every day of silence lived was deposited somewhere inside her, turning into a strange kind of capital, the value of which she herself did not yet understand. But she felt it: it was accumulating, maturing, waiting for its moment. An invitation lay on the vanity table in a thick envelope with gold embossing.
The name “Rheinmetall Industries” stabbed her under the ribs so sharply that she had to close her eyes for a second and remember how to breathe. An economic forum, 8 years ago. A different life, a different her.
Back then, she sat in the simultaneous interpretation booth, her voice flowing into the headphones of ministers and industrialists, turning German speech into their native tongue so smoothly that the listeners forgot the interpreter even existed.
The door flew open without a knock. Arthur never bothered with such formalities in his own home, which he loved to call “My fortress,” forgetting that every fortress has a dungeon.
“Standing here, admiring yourself?” He scanned her figure the way a dealer assesses a car at a car market, looking for hidden defects, scuffs, signs of careless use. “Turn around.”
Veronica obediently turned, squaring her shoulders out of habit, and her husband stepped closer, tugged at her collar, smoothing out a non-existent crease.
The movement was sharp, more like an attempt to strangle than a gesture of care, and she felt his fingers scratch her neck.
“It’ll do,” he finally pronounced, stepping back. “Although you still look like a village shopgirl who won the lottery and doesn’t know what to do with the money. You chose the dress yourself, but what’s the point? Even Dior would look like it’s from a flea market on you.”
Arthur took a velvet box with a jewelry house logo from his jacket pocket and snapped it open.
“Put this on. The Germans need to see that I’m serious.”
The diamond necklace lay on her neck with a cold weight. Fifty thousand dollars turned into an elegant collar with a clasp she couldn’t undo herself. Veronica felt the stones press on her collarbones, the metal chilling her skin, and thought that slaves in ancient times must have felt something similar when their masters adorned them before a sale. The gold on their necks changed nothing about their status, only emphasized their ownership.
“Keep your mouth shut at the banquet,” Arthur continued, fastening the necklace’s clasp and checking if it held securely. “Herr Schmidt is bringing a whole delegation, serious people are there, it’s not for you to understand. You will be silent and smile. Got it? The last thing I need is for you to embarrass me in front of our European partners with your kitchen German.”
“I remember: be silent and smile.”
“And don’t offer your hand first. Your palms are always damp, like a milkmaid’s after her shift. The Germans don’t appreciate that, they’re a squeamish people.”
He walked out without looking back, his heavy, proprietary footsteps echoing on the stairs—the steps of a man accustomed to the world parting before him…
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