At the mention of himself, Max gave a small, awkward cough and wandered over to the refrigerator, making a point of looking hungry. It was a simple move, but the message was clear enough: yes, his mother was right, and yes, food mattered more to him right now than whatever Alina was doing.
His silence said more than words could have. It said his mother had every right to be here. It said he was hungry. It said his wife was working when she should have been taking care of him. Alina took a slow breath and tried to steady the anger rising in her chest.
She kept her eyes on her mother-in-law’s flushed, self-righteous face. “I wasn’t expecting company today. I have a major deadline in two days, and I’m working around the clock.”
She said it in the same flat, professional tone she used with underperforming contractors on conference calls. It wasn’t an excuse. It was a statement of fact.
“Working?” Ludmila said with a laugh. She moved closer to the desk and leaned over, peering at the laptop screen as if she might discover a casserole recipe hidden in the code. “Honey, pushing buttons on a computer all day is not real work. Real work is keeping a home, taking care of your husband, making sure things are in order. This?” She waved a hand at the screen. “This is just fooling around.”
According to her, Max was the one carrying the family while Alina sat around pretending to be busy. At that, Alina slowly turned and looked at her husband.
He stood by the refrigerator, leaning against the doorframe, eating a green apple he’d pulled from the nearly empty fridge. He met her eyes for half a second, then looked away, suddenly very interested in the floor.
In that moment, one word flashed through her mind with perfect clarity: traitor.
Not mastermind. Not villain. Just a weak, ordinary, everyday traitor.
“I’m asking both of you to leave my apartment,” Alina said, carefully enunciating every word.
Her voice stayed calm, but there was steel in it now. “I do not have time for this. I need to finish my work. My team is depending on me, and so is my professional reputation.”
