On my wedding night, I crawled under the bed, wanting to play a prank on my husband. But someone else entered the room and put their phone on speaker. What I heard made my blood run cold.
10 years before that night, 22-year-old Snezhana sat by her mother’s bed in a private room at an oncology center, where IV drips quietly counted down the last days of Rimma Nikolaevna Shevchenko. The once energetic woman, who had founded a charity for orphans, was now a shadow of her former self, emaciated beyond recognition. Outside the window, Odesa bustled; vacationers laughed on the Arkadia embankment, and sellers of sea souvenirs called out to tourists, but here, in the sterile silence of the hospital room, time stood still.
— Aunt Zina… — her mother whispered, her voice so weak that Snezhana leaned closer, catching every word. — My own sister! And Valechka, my friend from university. She was my maid of honor at my wedding. They took the money from the foundation. Transferred it to their own accounts, forged reports.
— Mom, don’t talk about that now! — Snezhana tried to stop her.
— I must! You have to understand! — Rimma Nikolaevna turned her head with difficulty. — Money is a magnifying glass. It shows people’s true nature. But sometimes that glass burns you before you can see the truth. Promise me… Snezha, find someone who will love only you. Not for the Shevchenko name, not for the port shares, not for the house in Sovinyon. You, understand? Only you!
Snezhana promised, squeezing her mother’s fingers, and that promise etched itself into her deeper than any prayer, became part of her being, and defined the rest of her life.
Her father raised her differently than daughters are raised in wealthy families, where princesses are prepared for advantageous matches and high-society events. Fedor Grigoryevich Shevchenko, the CEO of the logistics holding “Black Sea Transit,” a man who built an empire from the ruins of the Soviet shipping company, did not take Snezhana to balls and receptions.
He had her sit beside him in negotiations, taught her to read between the lines of contracts, showed her where the traps were hidden in harmless phrases, and how to distinguish an honest partner from a fraudster by the way they conducted a conversation.
— They smell money like sharks smell blood in the water, — he said when his daughter started dating men. — To them, you’re not a woman, not a person, not a soul. You’re a lottery ticket with a guaranteed win.
And Snezhana created a disguise for herself, meticulously planned, polished to the smallest detail. She moved from the family mansion with a sea view to a shabby one-room apartment in the Kotovsky settlement, where neighbors were noisy in the evenings and the walls of the entrance were covered with dampness. She got a job as an office manager at a transport company for 15,000 hryvnias, drove an inconspicuous foreign car with a dented fender, though with a supercharged engine under the hood.
This was her little weakness — a reminder of who she really was. By day, she cut out discount coupons, counted change at the supermarket, wore clothes from mass-market brands, and at night, she managed an investment portfolio that brought in more than her official boss earned in a year.
Vadim appeared on a rainy Tuesday near the Opera House, as Snezhana was returning from work after a particularly tough week. Her boss had yelled about lost invoices, her neighbors had flooded the bathroom, and she just wanted to get home, have some tea, and forget everything. She dropped her wallet right into a puddle; it slipped from her wet fingers and plopped into the dirty water by the curb.
A man in a worn-out jacket standing nearby bent down faster than she could react, picked it up, wiped the dirt with the sleeve of his own clothes without a second thought about getting dirty, and handed it to her with a smile that took her breath away.
— Vadim, — he introduced himself, not looking away. — Sales manager at a car dealership. Barely making my targets, to be honest.
— Snezhana. Office manager. Not exactly rolling in it either, huh?…
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