“Money,” Gromov said flatly. “With enough money, you can buy almost anything. Even a little freedom.”
“What do we do?”
“Be careful. I’m putting surveillance outside your building. And…” He paused. “Don’t go anywhere unless you absolutely have to. Not until they find him.”
The days after Dmitry’s escape blurred into one long stretch of waiting. Vera and Masha barely left the apartment. They lived like people under siege. Gromov kept his word: a car with two solid-looking younger men—former colleagues of his—sat outside around the clock. But that didn’t ease the tension. Where had Dmitry gone? What was he planning? Did he want revenge? Police searched the city and surrounding areas, checked airports and train stations, questioned acquaintances. Nothing. A man with money and contacts knew how to disappear.
“Most likely he’s already out of the country,” Anton Sergeyevich said over the phone. “He probably has accounts and property abroad. He can live comfortably for a long time before anyone catches up to him.”
“Will they catch him?”
“Sooner or later, yes. Interpol is involved now. But it could take years.”
Years. Vera imagined years of looking over her shoulder, jumping at every knock, every sound in the hallway. That wasn’t living.
Masha was struggling in her own way. She hardly spoke about her father, but Vera could see the strain. It was one thing to learn your father was a fraud. Another to realize he might be dangerous, even to his own family.
“Mom,” Masha asked one evening, “do you think he’s… capable of something really bad?”
Vera was quiet for a long time.
“I don’t know anymore what he’s capable of. I thought I knew for twenty years. Turns out I didn’t know much at all.”
“I’m scared.”
“Me too, sweetheart. But we’ll get through it. We already have.”
New Year’s came quietly. Just the four of them—Vera, Masha, Vera’s mother, and Anton Sergeyevich, who brought champagne and homemade hand pies. Vera’s mother had been discharged from the hospital the day before, and now sat wrapped in a blanket in an armchair, weak but happy.
“To justice,” the lawyer said, raising his glass. “And to a better year ahead.”
“To family,” Vera added. “To the people who stay.”
They clinked glasses and drank. Fireworks burst outside, painting the sky in red and gold. Usually Vera loved that moment—the clean page of a new year. But now it all felt fragile, as if they were sheltering from a storm in a house with thin walls.
On January third, Gromov called.
“We found Sokolov’s car in the woods, about twenty miles outside town. Empty. Abandoned.”
“What does that mean?”
“Either he switched vehicles and kept moving. Or…” Gromov hesitated.
“Or what?”
“Or he’s still here. Hiding somewhere close.”
Vera went cold.
“Why would he stay? It would make more sense to run.”
“It would. But Sokolov may not be thinking clearly anymore. He’s lost his money, his reputation, his freedom. Men like that often want revenge. They want to punish the people they blame for the collapse.”
“Meaning me.”
“You. Anton Sergeyevich. Possibly your daughter. Anyone involved in exposing him.”
Vera looked over at Masha, who was sitting nearby and listening. Her daughter had gone pale.
“What do we do?”
“Same as before. Stay inside. Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know. Don’t go out without protection. My people will increase the watch. The police have been notified too.”
“And if he comes anyway?”
Gromov was silent for a beat.
“Then we’ll be ready.”
A week passed in taut, miserable waiting. Nothing happened, and that somehow felt worse than an open threat. Vera barely slept. Every sound set her nerves on edge. Footsteps in the hall. A door creaking. The elevator humming. Everything felt like a warning. Masha tried to hold herself together, but she was fraying. She spent hours by the window, staring out at the snow-covered street. Sometimes she cried quietly, turned toward the wall.
Vera’s mother, Zinaida Petrovna, was the only one who stayed calm.
“Enough shaking like leaves,” she said one morning. “That man has taken enough from us. Don’t let him take your peace too.”
“Easy to say, Mom. He’s out there somewhere. He could show up any minute.”
“So what?” Zinaida Petrovna straightened in her chair. “Let him. We’ll manage. Three women against one coward? We’ll run him out with a broom.”
Vera couldn’t help smiling. Her mother had always known how to cut through fear.
On January tenth, what they had all feared finally happened. It was late evening. Masha had gone to bed. Zinaida Petrovna was dozing in the armchair. Vera sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea, staring into the dark outside the window. One of Gromov’s men was downstairs on watch; she could see the glow of his cigarette from the parked car.
The doorbell rang like a gunshot. Vera jumped, spilling tea. Who could that be? Gromov had called earlier. Anton Sergeyevich too. No one was expected.
“Who is it?”
