“If that suitcase crosses the threshold of my office, it will fly out the window. Along with everything inside it,” Dana coldly told her bewildered husband.
“I didn’t come to live with you. I came to live with my son, so keep quiet,” the mother-in-law declared to her daughter-in-law and dragged her suitcase into the hallway.
The huge, swollen bag made of cheap imitation leather flopped onto the Italian tiles like a seal onto an ice floe. The sound was dull, damp, and final. Dana looked at the piece of luggage the way she usually looked at a snapped elevator cable: fully aware of the scale of the disaster and the urgent need for dismantling.
Galina Viktorovna, a heavyset woman whose face had been deeply engraved by eternal dissatisfaction, was already inspecting the coat rack like she owned the place. Her coat, smelling of mothballs and an old wardrobe, covered Dana’s beige trench coat.
“Roma!” the guest barked. “Where are you? Your mother has arrived, and he’s hiding.”
Roman floated out of the living room. He was wearing stretched-out sweatpants and a T-shirt that said “Game Over,” looking like an overgrown teenager.
“Oh, Mom. Why didn’t you call?” he asked lazily, though a spark of hope flashed in his eyes. Hope that the balance of power was about to change.
“Surprise,” Galina Viktorovna snapped. “I rented out my apartment. Sveta needs the money more. They have a mortgage, children, and Igor lost his job again. And you two have a three-room apartment with empty corners. I’ll live here. We’re not strangers.”
Dana remained silent. She felt the flywheel of a mechanism begin spinning inside her, one she had kept on the brakes for a long time. Six years of marriage. Six years she had dragged Roman upward like an overloaded winch. She had enrolled him in courses, arranged plumbing jobs for him with her contractors, bought cars that he crashed. And he had only grown heavier, covered in complaints and laziness.
“Galina Viktorovna,” Dana’s voice was even, but dry, like the crackle of static electricity. “We don’t have a spare room. The room you consider spare is my office.”
“Your office is at work,” the mother-in-law waved her off, squeezing past her into the kitchen. “At home, a woman should be cooking soups, not shuffling papers. Roma, why are you standing there? Take the suitcase into that room. And unfold the sofa.”
Dana shifted her gaze to her husband. Roman was shifting from foot to foot, avoiding her eyes.
“Roma,” she said quietly. “If that suitcase crosses the threshold of my office, it will fly out the window. Along with everything inside it.”
“Dana, why are you starting?” Roman whined, a shrill note slipping into his voice. “She’s my mother. Where is she supposed to go now? Onto the street? Sveta is really in debt. We have plenty of space. Are you really that stingy? You always measure everything in square meters and money. Greed will be your downfall, Dana.”
He picked up the bag. Dana saw his back tense — not from the weight, but from stubbornness. He had been waiting for reinforcements for a long time. His mother-in-law was not merely a guest. She was a tank, under whose cover Roman planned to start a war for territory.
“I heard you,” Dana said.
She did not shout. Not yet. She simply turned around, took her car keys, and left the apartment. The door closed softly, but with such air pressure that the chandelier in the hallway swayed.
The bar “Zhelezyaka,” on the outskirts of the industrial zone, was a place where people gathered who believed life owed them something. Roman sat at a sticky table surrounded by empty plates that had held fried bread snacks. Across from him sat Igor, the husband of his sister Sveta, and Sveta herself — a thin, twitchy woman with eyes that were always darting around.
“She’s suffocating me, you understand?” Roman complained, knocking back the contents of his shot glass. “I’m nobody to her. Bring this, hand me that, fix the toilet. And she’s the queen of elevators. ‘Dana Sergeyevna,’ pff!”
“Women are all like that nowadays, all businesslike,” Igor agreed, wiping his greasy fingers on his trousers. “Mine keeps nagging too: go work, go work. But where is there work? The country’s in crisis.”
“Igor, don’t compare,” Sveta interrupted. “Dana is just spoiled rotten. We came to her with open hearts, and she turned up her nose. She didn’t even want to let Mother through the door! Can you imagine? A close family member!”
“Exactly!” Roman slammed his fist on the table. “I’m just as much the owner of that home as she is. By law, half of everything is mine. I tolerated it for a long time. I thought she would change, become a normal woman. But she turned into a machine. No respect at all.”
A waitress approached the table, a tired woman of about forty.
“Another round?” she asked.
“Of course!” Roman declared. “We’re celebrating. The card is linked to my wife’s account, let her choke on her text alerts.”
“Listen, Rom,” Sveta lowered her voice, leaning toward her brother. “Maybe it’s time to put her in her place. Mom will dig in there, you pressure her from the inside, and we’ll help from the outside. Who is she without you? Just a woman with a screwdriver. You’re the man. You should take what’s yours.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Igor drawled, picking his teeth with a toothpick. “She has a company. There’s money flowing there. You need to demand a share. Or make her transfer the apartment to you as a guarantee. Otherwise she’ll throw you out tomorrow, and that’s it.”
“She won’t throw me out,” Roman smirked, feeling a surge of drunken courage. “She’s afraid of me. Without me, she’ll be lost. Who fixes her faucets? Who looks after the car? I’m her support. She just doesn’t appreciate it. But now Mother has arrived, and now everything will be different. We’ll bend her.”
“That’s right,” Sveta nodded. “Mom knows how to eat someone’s brain out with a teaspoon. In a month, Dana will hand you the keys to the safe herself, just to get some peace and quiet.”
Roman leaned back in his chair. He felt like a commander. An army was forming around him: his mother behind enemy lines, his sister and brother-in-law on the flanks. He was no longer a lonely loser. He was a victim of tyranny, ready for rebellion.
Dana’s office was located in a former factory building. High ceilings, brick walls, the smell of metal and grease — she felt calmer here than at home. But today there was no calm.
Bank transaction printouts lay on the desk. Over the past three days, large sums had left the family account. Liquor stores, an electronics store — a new phone, obviously for Sveta — and a suspicious transfer to Igor with the note “for repairs.”
But something else was worse. The chief engineer, old reliable Petrovich, came to see her that morning, twisting his cap in his hands.
“Dana Sergeyevna, there’s something… Your husband, Roman, was at the warehouse yesterday.”
“And?”
“He tried to take out a couple of coils of copper cable. He told the guys you had allowed it, supposedly for the country house. But I didn’t let him. He shouted, threatened to fire me. Said he would soon be the director here, and you would just be his secretary.”
Dana felt a bitter lump rise in her throat. This was no longer just family nastiness. This was sabotage. Roman had not merely climbed onto her neck — he had started sawing the branch he himself was sitting on.
She dialed her husband’s number.
“Hello?” Roman’s voice was cheerful and insolent. In the background she could hear the television and Galina Viktorovna’s voice.
“Roman, don’t you want to tell me anything about the cable?”
“Oh, come on, don’t be petty. Igor needed to change the wiring at his country house. Are you really sorry about a piece of wire for family? GREED is a sin, Dana.”
“You tried to steal property from my company. And you threatened my employees.”
“Your company?” Roman laughed. “And who feeds you while you sit there? Family means everything is shared. Anyway, don’t lecture me. Mother asked you to buy a cake for tonight. Come home early. We’ll celebrate the housewarming. And don’t come empty-handed.”
The call ended.
Dana put the phone down. She walked to the window. Down below, in the parking lot, workers were loading equipment. This was her world, the one she had built for ten years. Brick by brick. And now vandals had burst into that world with dirty feet and demands.
She became frightened. Not because she might lose money, but because she had been living with an enemy. He was not simply lazy — he was vile. He had gathered a pack around himself and was preparing to tear her apart.
That evening, she did not go home. She booked a hotel room. She needed to develop a plan. Submission, heart-to-heart talks, attempts to appeal to conscience — none of that worked anymore. You do not negotiate with terrorists. You destroy them.
Three days passed. Dana did not appear at home. Roman’s phone was bursting with threats and demands, but she did not answer. She knew they were stewing in their own juices there, winding each other up.
On Thursday, she arranged a meeting. Not at home, not at the office. At a restaurant with private booths. She invited everyone: Roman, Galina Viktorovna, Sveta, and Igor.
They arrived like victors. Galina Viktorovna in a new dress — obviously bought with Dana’s money — Sveta with a new phone, Roman swaggering, confident that his wife had crawled back to make peace.
They sat down and ordered the most expensive dishes.
“Well, had enough fun?” the mother-in-law asked, chewing her salad. “You abandoned your husband and left an old mother alone. You have no conscience, girl.”
“We’ve decided this,” Roman began, not letting her answer. “You transfer half the company share to me. And the country house. Then we’ll forgive you for your behavior. And Mom stays to live with us. She’ll keep order, because you’ve completely lost control.”
“And pay off Igor’s debt,” Sveta added. “Our loan is burning. You’re rich.”
Dana looked at them. Faces distorted by greed. They did not even hide that they had come to rob her. Six eyes looked at her as if she were a piece of meat.
And then Dana struck. Not with her fist. With emotion.
She abruptly stood up, knocking over her chair. The crash made everyone flinch.
“YOU IDIOTS!” she screamed so loudly that the music in the neighboring hall fell silent.
Her face did not turn red. It became white as chalk. Her eyes widened, madness splashing in them, but somewhere deep in her pupils a cold clockwork mechanism was ticking.
“YOU THINK I’M RICH?” she laughed hysterically, grabbing a napkin from the table and tearing it to shreds. “YOU THINK I HAVE MONEY?”
Roman choked on his wine.
“Why are you yelling? Calm down…”
“SHUT UP!” Dana shrieked, throwing the menu at him. “You want a share? YOU WANT IT? Then take it! TAKE EVERYTHING! The company is bankrupt! I owe twenty million to gangsters! Tomorrow they’ll bury me in cement! Is that what you want? Do you want to become accomplices?”
A deathly silence hung in the booth. The mask of smugness slid from Galina Viktorovna’s face.
“What… what gangsters?” Sveta whispered.
“THOSE KIND!” Dana paced around the booth, waving her arms. She was playing her best role. The role of a woman on the edge of suicide. “I hid it! I tried to pull through! But you! You finished me off with your spending! They came yesterday! They said if I don’t pay, they’ll slaughter the whole family! EVERYONE! They know the addresses of all the relatives!”
She suddenly leaned toward Igor.
“You wanted money? They’ll come to you, Igor! They’ll ask where the funds from the account went! I’ll say you took them! I’ll transfer everything to you! Right now! Roman, sign! Take the company, take the debts, take the gangsters! SAVE ME, YOU’RE A MAN!”
She pulled a folder of papers out of her bag and placed it on the table.
“SIGN! You wanted to be the owner? Then be one! Answer for everything!”
Roman pressed himself into the sofa. His face turned gray. Fear — sticky, animal fear — flooded his eyes.
“I… I didn’t know… Dana, what are you… what debts?”
“Huge ones!” Dana shouted, no longer holding back. “And now they’re your problems! You’re family, aren’t you? You’re a clan, aren’t you? Then pay! Mother, sell your apartment! Sveta, sell a kidney! I DON’T CARE!”
“Son, let’s get out of here,” Galina Viktorovna hissed, grabbing her bag. “She’s crazy. We don’t need problems.”
“But Mom…” Roman mumbled.
“RUN!” his sister barked at him. “Did you hear? Gangsters! To hell with your wife and her problems! I told you she was shady!”
They jumped up from their seats. The freebies were over. The zone of responsibility had begun, and these people had no intention of entering it.
“Roma, are you staying?” Dana asked, breathing heavily, looking at her husband with a mad stare. “We’ll die together, right? Like in a fairy tale?”
Roman looked at her, then at the door, where his mother’s back was disappearing.
“I… I’ll go after Mom. She’s unwell. I’ll call you. Later.”
And he ran out of the booth, stumbling over the threshold. A traitor and a coward fleeing a sinking ship — the very ship he had tried to drill holes into.
Part 5. Dismantling Complete
Dana sat down on the chair. She fixed her hair. Her breathing instantly became even. The madness vanished from her eyes, replaced by icy calm.
She took out her phone and dialed a number.
“Sergey Alexandrovich? Yes, this is Dana. Change the locks in the apartment. Right now. Pack his things into boxes and leave them on the landing. Yes, everything. And the mother-in-law’s suitcase too. Warn security at the office: Roman is not to be allowed in. If he tries to break in, call the police. I blocked his cards five minutes ago.”
She took a sip of water. Of course, there were no gangsters. There had been temporary supply difficulties, which she had already resolved. But these rats understood only the language of fear. They were not running from poverty. They were running from responsibility.
Roman called an hour later.
“Dana, we’re at Sveta’s. You sort things out yourself, okay? We’ll stay here for now. Don’t call me, so they don’t track us.”
“Roman,” Dana said in a calm, cheerful voice. “I just did the math. There are no debts. I was joking.”
“What?” There was a pause on the line. “What do you mean, joking?”
“Well, I had a hysterical episode. A nervous breakdown. Everything is fine. The company is operating. Profit is coming in.”
“Oh, you stupid fool!” Roman’s voice instantly filled with arrogance again. “You really are something! Fine, I’ll come over now and we’ll talk. You scared me so badly. Mother is checking her blood pressure. You owe us compensation.”
“NO,” Dana said. The key word sounded like the blow of a hammer. “You will not come. The locks have been changed. Your things are in the hallway. I filed for divorce electronically.”
“What are you doing? Starting again?” His voice trembled. “We’re family…”
“You have no family, Roma. You betrayed me for people who will now throw you out once they realize there’s nothing more to take from me. By the way, I blocked all the cards. Yours and the ones I gave your mother-in-law. Good luck.”
She hung up.
Roman stood in the cramped hallway of his sister’s apartment.
“Well?” Igor asked. “Will there be money?”
“She… she blocked the cards,” Roman muttered. “And she won’t let me go home. She said divorce.”
“What do you mean?” Sveta squeaked. “And where are you going to live? We don’t have space! And how are we supposed to pay the loan? You promised!”
“Son, couldn’t you have been gentler with her?” Galina Viktorovna spoke from the kitchen. “Where am I supposed to go now with my suitcase? My apartment has been rented out for a year!”
“But you were the ones who said we had to pressure her…” Roman said, confused.
“You’re an idiot, Romka,” Igor spat angrily. “A loser. Go sort it out. We don’t need freeloaders.”
“GET OUT!” Sveta shouted. “Don’t come back until you bring money!”
Roman stood there, pressing the silent phone to his ear. He realized the coalition had collapsed. He had been a tool that had broken. Now he was alone. Outside. Without money.
And somewhere back there, in the restaurant, Dana was finishing her dinner, free and unreachable, like an elevator that had gone to the very top floor — a floor to which he no longer had access.