— It was, — she swallowed. — Artur, Maxim’s brother, he works at the State Registry, as a registrar. He slipped me some papers a week after I gave birth. He said it was for Bogdan’s registration, a formality. I could barely stand, Dad, the baby was screaming, I didn’t read them properly… And then it turned out the apartment wasn’t mine anymore. A deed of gift to Maxim. I didn’t sign anything like that, Dad, I swear. My signature was there, but I didn’t put it there.
Konstantin turned onto a side street, stopped at the curb, and turned his whole body toward his daughter. Yulya sat hunched over, clutching her son, looking as if she were expecting a blow. Not a physical one, but the stinging “I told you so” that hurts more than any slap.
— How long have you been living like this?
— Two weeks. Under a bridge. There’s a social worker there, her name is Alsu, she showed me a safe spot.
— Two weeks… — he repeated, and those two words contained everything. Fourteen nights under the open sky, fourteen days with an outstretched hand. His grandson in a carrier, in the middle of the summer heat, among indifferent strangers’ faces.
— Dad, I was afraid to come to you. I thought they were watching. Maxim said he had connections everywhere.
— Don’t cry.
Konstantin covered her hand with his own, feeling the sharp bones of her wrist under his fingers.
— Don’t cry. I know what to do with your husband and his mother.
He dialed a number from memory. An old one, from the nineties, the kind of contact you don’t save in phone books. The call was answered after the third ring.
— Luka Ignatievich. It’s Medvedev. I need a room in the far wing. Quiet, no questions asked.
A chuckle on the other end.
— Kostya, you know, for you, even the presidential suite. How soon will you be here?
— In forty minutes.
The motel on the M6 highway looked like it was stuck somewhere between the Soviet era and an attempt at modern renovation. A faded “Prival” sign, plastic chairs on the veranda, the smell of gasoline and fried onions from the roadside cafe. Luka Ignatievich Shevtsov met them at the entrance. A stocky man in his seventies, with the squint of someone who had seen it all, and a handshake that could crack your knuckles.
— Room twenty-seven, — he handed over a key with a wooden pear-shaped keychain. — It’s quiet there, windows face the courtyard. If you need anything, just knock, I’m always here.
— Luka, — Konstantin lowered his voice. — We’re not here. Understand? No one arrived, you saw no one.
The old man solemnly placed a hand on his heart, closing his eyes with theatrical gravity.
— Sealed lips, Kostya, you know me, I’ll swallow my tongue.
Konstantin nodded and started toward the room, but Luka grabbed his sleeve. His eyes lit up, as they always did before a long story.
— By the way, this reminds me of eighty-nine. I was hiding someone from some people then too… You know. Well, the story was a real doozy. He arrived at night, all covered in…
— Luka! — Konstantin threw up his hands in horror.
— Sealed lips, remember? — the old man pouted, offended, letting go of the sleeve. — I’m not saying who, I’m saying what. That’s a completely different thing.
Yulya, standing behind with Bogdan in her arms, smiled weakly for the first time in two weeks. Just the corner of her lips, almost imperceptible, but Konstantin saw it. And that shadow of a smile was worth all the nerves spent talking to Luka.
The room was small but clean. Two beds, a nightstand with a lamp, a window with yellowed tulle curtains. Konstantin locked the door with both locks, drew the curtains, and sat Yulya down on the bed.
— Now, tell me. Everything. From the very beginning.
And she told him. Haltingly, sometimes pausing to feed Bogdan the formula Konstantin had ordered for delivery. She told him how Maxim changed after the wedding. In public, he remained the model husband; at home, he turned into a controller, demanding an account of every outing, every purchase. How Emma Yakovlevna, a former vice-principal with the habits of a warden, would show up unannounced, rummage through closets under the pretext of helping, call Yulya a spoiled girl, and suggest that her father was making her dependent.
— “Your dad is, of course, a mechanic with money, but what does he know about family?” — she quoted her. — Maxim forbade me from calling you. He said it was destroying our marriage. Then he took my phone, supposedly to protect me from scammers. Every time I tried to contact you, he’d say I was tired, that I needed to rest, that the baby was more important.
Konstantin listened, and a slow, heavy rage built up inside him. He saw the pattern: a classic, well-practiced one. Isolate the victim, cut them off from support, make them completely dependent. And then came the financial control, the documents that Artur slipped to a Yulya exhausted after childbirth: rapid speech, professional terms, “just formalities,” “sign right here.”
— When I tried to leave, — her voice trembled, — Maxim snatched my bag. Artur pushed me, and I fell. They said, “Leave if you want, but Bogdan stays.” Emma Yakovlevna boasted about her connections. Her former students are everywhere: in the police, in child protective services, in the courts.
A knock on the door came so suddenly that Yulya flinched and clutched her son to her chest. A man’s voice, feigning friendliness, with a barely perceptible threat:
— Hey, folks! Open up, let’s talk nicely. My name’s Potap. I’m from Maxim Alekseevich.
Konstantin gestured for Yulya to be silent, went to the door, and opened it just enough to block the view into the room. A man in his mid-thirties stood on the threshold: shaved head, tracksuit, a strained smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
— What do you want?…
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