— Now, by filing for divorce without demanding a division of property, he is legally renouncing everything that is registered in your name. My advice: sign the consent silently, without mentioning the assets, and wait for the court’s decision. The man who called her a naive fool has fallen into the trap of his own overconfidence.
The meeting with Golitsyn took place three weeks later on the clinic’s rooftop, where a relaxation area with a view of the tower had been set up. Yaroslav Nikolaevich was around seventy, and even in his weakened state after the surgery, wrapped in a blanket in a wicker chair, he exuded that special aura of power that distinguishes people accustomed to their words becoming reality.
— So this is you, — he said, looking at her for a long time from under his gray eyebrows, — the woman who gave a part of herself to a demon, and God redirected her gift to me.
He spoke directly, without social pleasantries. He said he had studied her story from the orphanage to the betrayal. That he saw something in her that reminded him of his granddaughter who had died ten years ago.
— The money from Rossinsky’s assets is good, — he continued. — But without the ability to manage it, it will melt away like snow. The world is cruel: a good person without teeth will be eaten alive. — He held out his wrinkled hand to her. — Become my adopted granddaughter. Legally, it’s just a change of surname, but in fact, it’s family. Join it. Get trained and transform into a woman who can look at her ex-husband and see not a giant, but a pathetic ant.
Arina remembered Alla Mikhailovna’s taunts, Yana’s contemptuous smile, Arseny’s cold eyes. If she returned to the world as just Arina, without connections, without support, they would find a way to crush her again. She took Golitsyn’s hand, and her grip was stronger than one might expect from a woman who had been on an operating table three weeks ago.
— Teach me, — she said. — Teach me how to destroy them.
Golitsyn smiled broadly, with a predatory glint in his eyes.
The schedule for the following months was ruthless. Five in the morning meant rehabilitative physical therapy with an instructor. At seven, breakfast with Yaroslav Nikolaevich while reading business publications. Why did the steelmakers’ stocks fall? How will this affect the construction industry? From nine to three, private lessons: management, corporate law, accounting, public speaking. From four to seven, practice in real negotiations in the holding’s offices.
Arina immersed herself in her studies with the fury of a person who has nothing to lose and something to prove. Her education from the economics college turned out to be a good foundation; she just never had the opportunity to develop it before. Each lesson became a brick in the wall of her new personality, each skill displaced her former insecurity. She learned to read financial reports, understand market mechanisms, and carry herself among people with money and power. In the evenings, she sometimes cried from exhaustion; the scar on her side healed slowly, aching before it rained. But in the morning, she got up and continued.
The external changes reflected the internal ones. Long hair gave way to an elegant bob, baggy clothes were replaced by business suits from good brands. But the most important change was in her eyes: no more pleading for approval, no more orphanage fear of being unwanted and cast aside. Only a sharp, analytical gaze of a person who knows her own worth.
Reports from the lawyer Nesterov arrived every week, neatly filed in a folder with the holding’s logo, and Arina studied them with the same attention a surgeon studies scans before a complex operation. The divorce was finalized four months ago. The magistrate stamped the papers in a single hearing, without even asking unnecessary questions, not interested in the reasons for such a swift separation. Meanwhile, Arseny was preparing a lavish wedding with Yana, had booked a restaurant for 150 guests, a dress from a Milanese atelier, and wedding rings from a jeweler who served half the city’s elite.
Alla Mikhailovna’s condition, meanwhile, was steadily worsening. Dialysis three times a week at a private clinic, cardiac complications that required constant monitoring, bills piling up like a snowball — about 200,000 a month just to keep his mother in a relatively stable condition.
— He’s started selling off the cars, — Nesterov reported at their next meeting, laying out documents on the conference room table. — First the Porsche went, then the SUV. Rumors on the market are that ‘Our Textile’ is looking for a major investor to cover a cash flow gap. Desperately looking…
