— “Sign it, Maxim Viktorovich,” Anatoly Borisovich looked away. “It will be better for everyone.”
Maxim signed. His hand formed the letters mechanically; his brain refused to believe what was happening. When he left the office, his legs were weak. His ears were ringing, and only one thought pounded in his head.
“It’s Vera. It’s her father. They did something.”
He got home at half-past nine. Vera was feeding Artem porridge in the kitchen, and when she saw her husband in the doorway during work hours, her face turned pale. Maxim went into the room and slammed his fist on the table so hard that the glass in the china cabinet rattled.
— “Call your old man!” he turned to his wife, his eyes burning with rage. “Call him right now and tell him to call off all this crap. I’ve been fired, do you understand? Fired because of you!”
Vera slowly put down the bowl of porridge and wiped her hands on a towel. For the first time in three years of marriage, Maxim saw not fear or submission in her eyes, but something else. Cold determination.
— “I’m not calling anything off,” her voice was quiet but firm. “You got what you deserved, Maxim, for everything you did to me these past three years.”
Maxim crossed the room in two strides and slapped her across the face. Not hard, more out of helplessness and rage than a desire to inflict pain. Vera staggered, clutching her cheek, but she didn’t cry, just looked at him with such contempt that it made him uneasy.
He turned towards the door, feeling everything inside him boiling.
— “I’ll throw you out on the street, you understand? Along with your bastard child!”
He slammed the door and left, not even grabbing his jacket. Vera remained standing in the kitchen, holding her cheek and listening to Artem crying in his high chair, frightened by the shouting and the slam of the door.
The next day, a black Toyota Camry pulled up to their building. Maxim was smoking on the balcony when he saw two men in business suits get out of the car. They looked up at the windows, then one of them took out a phone and dialed a number. A minute later, Maxim’s phone rang. An unknown number. He pressed the green button and brought the phone to his ear.
— “Maxim Viktorovich Sokolov?” the voice was polite but cold. “Metallurgical plant security service. We need to talk to you about a Nissan X-Trail registered to Vera Alexandrovna Sokolova.”
Maxim felt everything inside him clench. He looked down. The men were standing at the entrance, looking right at him.
— “Please come down. The conversation will take five minutes.”
Maxim went down. His legs felt like jelly. The men introduced themselves: Andrei Viktorovich and Sergei Petrovich. They showed their security service IDs. Everything was official. Everything was by the book. And that made it even more terrifying.
— “The car is located at this address: 15 Zavodskaya Street, apartment 7,” Andrei Viktorovich handed Maxim a printed photo. “With Svetlana Igorevna Morozova, your colleague. She has been passing it off as a gift from her husband for six months.”
Maxim stared at the photo, unable to utter a word. It was his car. That is, Vera’s car, parked in front of Svetlana’s building. The photo had been taken the previous evening, judging by the time stamp in the corner.
— “The car is registered to your wife,” Sergei Petrovich spoke calmly, as if discussing the weather. “Tomorrow at 10 a.m., Vera Alexandrovna will come to collect her property. The keys and documents must be ready. Any questions?”
