— Konstantin Dmitrievich?
— Yes.
Potap tried to peek over his shoulder.
— Look, let’s not be dramatic. Maxim Alekseevich is worried, there’s a child involved. He could file a report that his wife kidnapped their son.
— You’re going to leave now, — Konstantin said quietly, but in a way that made the smile on Potap’s face falter slightly. — Or I’ll be the first to file a report. For harassment, for coercion. About how your Maxim Alekseevich threw his wife and infant out onto the street. You think his connections are stronger than mine? Let’s find out.
Potap was silent for a moment, sizing Konstantin up, then shrugged.
— As you wish. But this conversation isn’t over.
He left, and Konstantin closed the door, feeling his heart pound furiously. So much for high blood pressure. So much for the doctor’s recommendation not to get stressed.
An hour later, a text message came from an unknown number. Konstantin read it twice, not believing his own eyes.
“Konstantin Dmitrievich, this is Potap. Don’t delete this. I’ve been working for the Zotovs for three years, and they owe me 200,000 for my services. They screwed me over like a chump. If you want to know what they’re planning, I can help. Let’s meet tomorrow at the Panikakha monument at nine in the morning. Come alone.”
He showed the message to his daughter. Yulya stared at the screen with wide eyes, her expression one of a person whose familiar world was crumbling.
— Potap… — she whispered. — But he… he was always the most loyal, like a guard dog.
Konstantin reread the message, weighing the risks. A trap? Possibly. But 200,000 was 200,000. A wronged man is more dangerous than any enemy.
— The enemy of my enemy, — he said aloud, and the phrase hung in the stuffy air of the room. — Especially if that enemy has been cheated out of money.
The morning was gray, with a city gloom that made the sky feel like it was pressing down on your shoulders. Konstantin arrived at the Mikhail Panikakha monument 15 minutes early, parked his car off to the side, and watched Potap nervously smoke by the granite pedestal, glancing around like a man unsure if he was doing the right thing.
— So you came, — Potap stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his sneaker and stuffed the butt in his pocket. The habit of a man used to covering his tracks. — Thought you’d be scared.
— I wasn’t scared in the 90s, — Konstantin stopped a few steps away, studying him. — Why start now?
Potap grunted, took out a new cigarette, but didn’t light it. He rolled it in his fingers like worry beads.
— They’re filing a police report tomorrow. Child abduction by the mother sounds crazy, but they have a system. Emma Yakovlevna has already called her people. The local cop is her former student. There’s some old acquaintance of hers at child protective services too.
— And the car? The apartment?
— They’re trying to offload the Tucson through some shark from Krasnoarmeyskaya, quickly, without proper documents. The apartment’s already been mortgaged for a loan, registered to a company called “Zotov Invest.” Artur is the director there, I don’t remember the exact name.
Konstantin listened, and every word fell into place in his mind. They’re rushing, he realized, which means they’re scared. Fear leads to mistakes, and mistakes lead to evidence.
— What do you want in return?
Potap finally lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag.
— They owe me 200,000. For three years of all sorts of… well, you understand. When this is over, help me collect. Officially, through the court, so it’s all legal.
— Deal.
That same night, Konstantin moved Yulya and Bogdan to his cousin’s apartment. Valerka had left for the capital to earn money in the spring, leaving a spare key just in case. The place was quiet: a five-story building deep in a courtyard, neighbors were all pensioners who went to bed with the chickens and didn’t care about other people’s business. Konstantin used one of his mechanic’s cars, weaving through backstreets, changing the route twice. Paranoia, maybe, but after Potap’s visit to the motel, he knew he couldn’t underestimate his opponent.
Pavel Georgievich Zverev showed up the next morning. A lean man with the attentive gaze of someone who had seen too much human depravity to be surprised by it. He immediately laid out a notepad, a pen, and a voice recorder on the kitchen table.
— Yulia Konstantinovna, we are now going to go over everything. Amounts, dates, who said what. Slowly and in detail.
After him came Rashid Isaev, a former officer of the Department for Combating Economic Crimes, now a private auditor with a reputation for being able to trace money even in a cesspool. He nodded to Konstantin like an old acquaintance and immediately took out his laptop.
— Full name, central bank data, approximate amounts. When was the last time you accessed your personal account?
Yulia answered quietly, but her voice was clearer than the day before. She was starting to believe that this wasn’t a dream, that she was really getting help.
— Artur made me sign documents, — she clasped her hands on her knees. — He always rushed me, said they were formalities, that I just had to trust the family. I’m not a lawyer, how was I supposed to know what was written in the fine print?
Rashid looked up from the screen:
— Classic. Works in the State Registry, uses his official position to run schemes for his own people. Registers deals, knows all the loopholes. These guys rarely get caught, they know the system too well from the inside. But when they do, they go down hard. Fraud, document forgery, abuse of power.
By noon, Konstantin’s phone started ringing off the hook. First, his cousin from Kamyshin called, then a third cousin, then some number he didn’t recognize at all. They were all saying the same thing.
— Kostya, have you seen what’s going on online? — his cousin’s voice rang with indignation. — Your Yulka is all over the public pages, they’re saying she’s some kind of scammer!
Svyatoslav Vinogradov, an investigative blogger whom Pavel knew from old cases, sent links to three city public pages on Facebook. The same video was everywhere: Yulia with Bogdan between cars, an outstretched hand, a pitiful sight. And the comments, hundreds of them, written as if from a template: “The rich have gotten completely out of hand,” “Daddy divorced Mom and is now taking revenge through his daughter,” “Staged for clout”…
Comments are closed.