Part 1. A Stage Persona
Oleg had the kind of face that belonged in a display window—symmetrical features, lively expressions, and a smile he could switch on and off like a dimmer. Marina watched him from the far end of the table, dissecting him the way she dissected malicious code: searching for weak spots and inconsistencies. Tonight they were having dinner at friends’ place, and Oleg was on a roll.
“Come on, you know what I mean,” he preached, holding a glass of pomegranate juice with effortless elegance. “Warmth at home isn’t created by walls—it’s created by people. Though, sure… it’s hard to build a nest when you’re living there as a guest.”
The others nodded with sympathetic little hums. Marina clenched her jaw but said nothing. This was his fourth character: The Suffering Husband. At work, in the high-end plumbing showroom, he played The Man of Taste. With his mother, he became The Devoted Son Nobody Appreciates. And alone with Marina—The Misunderstood Genius.
“So what, Marina still hasn’t handled the documents?” Lena, the hostess, asked tactlessly.
Oleg sighed deeply, shoulders sagging. His whole posture screamed acceptance of fate.
“I’m not pushing. I understand—it’s her security. It’s just… four years. I hung that wallpaper, chose the baseboards, put my heart into every inch. And legally? I’m nobody there. If something happens, I’ll be out on the street with one suitcase.”
Marina felt irritation coil tight inside her like a spring. “Put my heart into it,” in Oleg’s world, meant standing nearby and telling the workers which shade of beige looked “more refined.” The financial side of the renovation—just like the purchase of the apartment—he carefully stepped around.
“Oleg, maybe stop putting on a show?” Marina said softly, but unmistakably.
He looked at her like a wounded dog.
“Marish, I’m not accusing you. I’m just sharing what hurts. That’s what friends are for—to listen.”
Now the whole table was staring at Marina as if she were a tyrant keeping a poor man trapped in a golden cage. She understood the mechanism: pure social engineering. Oleg was manufacturing public opinion so he could later use it as leverage.
At home, the moment the door clicked shut behind them, his martyr mask vanished. Oleg tossed his keys onto the hall table.
“You embarrassed me. Why did you cut me off like that?”
“And why are you whining?” Marina went into the kitchen, pouring herself water.
“I’m not whining. I’m stating facts. Are we a family, or two random passengers? If we’re family, property should be shared. I want to feel solid ground under my feet.”
Marina looked at him. There was no love in his eyes—only the cold calculation of a gambler raising the stakes.
Part 2. The Set Falls Apart
Over the next two weeks, Oleg applied pressure with professional precision. He left pamphlets about “family law” on the table, sighed while staring at the new curtains, and hinted that his friends had long since signed their property over to their wives or husbands as proof of eternal love.
“You don’t trust me,” he said one evening while Marina was working at her laptop. She was hunting for security holes in a major bank’s server, and she didn’t want to be dragged into another drama.
“Oleg, this is closed.”
“No, it’s not!” His voice rose as he tried on a new tone—righteous outrage. “I’ve lived here four years. I bought that couch!”
“You paid the delivery,” Marina corrected without taking her eyes off the screen. “I paid for the couch.”
“That’s nitpicking! I invest emotionally in our home! I create the atmosphere! And you cling to your precious square meters like Scrooge McDuck. You know what the guys say? They say you’re treating me like an idiot.”
Marina slowly closed the laptop.
“So the guys are talking? And of course you don’t tell them your paycheck goes into your ‘image,’ while utilities and groceries are on me?”
Oleg flicked his hand at her like she was a buzzing fly.
“You earn more. That’s normal in the modern world. This isn’t about money—it’s about guarantees. Transfer half the apartment to me. A gesture of goodwill. Proof of love.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I don’t know whether we even have a future,” he said, pausing theatrically, waiting for her to panic.
Instead of panic, Marina felt a strange relief. The puzzle finally clicked. All these years he hadn’t been living with her—he’d been investing his time, expecting real estate as the payout.
“Oleg, do you really want to know why I can’t transfer the apartment to you?”
“Because you’re a greedy egoist?”
“No. Because it isn’t mine.”
Oleg froze. His face lengthened; the Demanding Husband mask slipped, revealing a confused boy underneath.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. The apartment belongs to my aunt Varvara. She works up in Yamal. She bought it ‘for the future’ and let me live here until I got on my feet—or until she retires.”
“You’re lying,” Oleg breathed.
“The documents are in the top drawer, the blue folder. Look. The owner is Varvara Stepanovna Kovalyova. I’m not even registered here permanently—only temporary registration.”
Oleg darted to the dresser. He tore through the papers with the fury of a border officer. When he found the registry extract, his hands dropped. The sheet trembled in the air.
“Four years…” he rasped. “Four years I lived in someone else’s apartment? I hung wallpaper FOR YOUR AUNT?”
“You hung it for yourself, so you could live somewhere nice,” Marina shot back.
Oleg looked at her with raw, genuine hatred. His investment project had collapsed. The stock had crashed to zero.
Part 3. A New Victim Role
After the truth came out, Oleg changed. If before he’d played The Cheated Homeowner, now he put on the costume of The Defrauded Investor. He stopped speaking, slept demonstratively on the edge of the bed, and made sure his every movement screamed betrayal.
They ended up in the same circle again—someone’s birthday. Oleg drank more than usual and decided it was time to premiere his new tragedy.
“Did you know Marina is a master liar?” he announced loudly when the music dipped.
Forks froze midair. Marina felt the blood drain from her face—not from shame, but from rage.
“Picture this,” Oleg swept the room with a cloudy stare. “You live with someone, plan a future, think it’s your shared home. Then you find out you’re just a tenant in some mythical aunt’s place up north. I was used! I was made to renovate some stranger’s dump!”
“Oleg, shut up,” Marina said coldly.
“No, let everyone hear it!” he ranted, waving his arms. “You’re a fraud! You stole years of my life and my money! I demand compensation!”
Someone tried to calm him down, but Oleg shoved the hand away.
“Don’t touch me! I’m the only honest one here. She planned it all. She hid the documents so I’d keep investing!”
Marina stood up. She didn’t scream, and she didn’t defend herself. She simply took her purse and walked out.
At home, she moved like an algorithm responding to a critical threat. Suitcases. Clothes. Shoes. Everything was packed in forty minutes. No neat folding—everything was shoved in. His favorite blazer, his endless creams, his gaming consoles.
She stacked it all in the hallway, changed the door code (the smart lock had been her idea and her purchase), and sat in an armchair in total darkness.
When the lock beeped—wrong code—and someone started pounding on the door, Marina didn’t move. Her phone exploded with calls. She waited.
Oleg hammered for ten minutes. Then he went quiet—probably when he saw his suitcases.
Part 4. A Cold, Controlled Breakdown
The next day Oleg didn’t come alone. He brought Ilya, his childhood friend—either as a witness or emotional backup. Marina opened the door.
“I’m here for the rest of my things,” Oleg muttered, refusing to meet her eyes. “And we need to discuss compensation for the furniture.”
He walked in like he owned the place. Ilya hovered awkwardly at the threshold.
“What compensation?” Marina asked. Her voice was quiet, level—almost dead.
“For everything. The built-in wardrobe, the table, the bed. Half the cost. Or I take the furniture.”
“You don’t have receipts,” Marina said.
“Oh really?” Oleg smirked and turned to Ilya. “Hear that, Ilyukh? Typical. Robbery in broad daylight. Marina, you do realize I can sue you? For unjust enrichment.”
And that was when Marina snapped—though not into the tears of a wounded woman. This was a supernova.
“SUE?!” she roared so loudly Oleg jerked back and crashed into the coat rack.
Her face twisted—not with sorrow, but with furious, almost insane amusement. She burst out laughing, and that laughter was scarier than any curse.
“YOU’RE GOING TO SUE?!” She advanced on him. “Go on! Do it! And I’ll bring your bank statements to court!”
Oleg tried to speak, but she didn’t let him breathe. She used anger like a battering ram.
“You want to count pennies? Great—I’ve done the math!” She yanked open a drawer, pulled out a folder, and slammed it on the table. “It’s all here, Olezhenka! Every burger I paid for! Every shirt! You lived here for free! You ate on my money! You saved thirty thousand a month in rent for four years! That’s one and a half million—one and a half million, you broke parasite!”
Oleg pressed himself against the wall. He had never seen her like this. He’d expected tears, pleading, cold logic. He hadn’t expected a tsunami. Ilya, gray with fear, started backing toward the door.
“You want the furniture?” Marina grabbed a chair and smashed it down onto the floor. A leg cracked with a sharp crunch. “Take it! Eat it! But first pay me back for utilities! I’ll file a counterclaim! I’ll ruin you! I’ll send recordings of your ‘performances’ to the tax office—let them look into your little under-the-table jobs!”
“M-Marina, calm down,” Oleg stammered. His confident plaintiff act crumbled to dust. What he saw in front of him wasn’t his wife—it was a fury ready to burn everything to the ground.
“OUT!” she bellowed, stabbing a finger at the door. “So that in one second there isn’t even the smell of you in here! Or I’ll call the police and say you stole my jewelry—and believe me, I’ll find a way to make it stick!”
Oleg, pale as paper, grabbed the bag he’d forgotten last time and bolted onto the landing, nearly knocking Ilya over. Marina slammed the door.
In the sudden silence she walked to the mirror, adjusted her hair, and exhaled calmly. Her pulse was at one-twenty, but her mind was ice-cold. The breakdown had been controlled. It was the only language a coward like Oleg understood—raw force and calculated madness.
Part 5. The Final Act
A month passed. Marina savored the quiet. She finally bought the armchair Oleg had called “tasteless,” and repainted one wall in the living room.
Oleg, meanwhile, tried to rebuild his reputation. He told anyone who would listen that his wife was mentally unstable, a hysteric who threw him out into the cold. But the friends who’d been at that birthday—and Ilya, who’d seen the finale—weren’t rushing to support him. Ilya told everyone how Marina produced the bills, and the number “one and a half million” stuck in people’s heads better than Oleg’s complaints about her cruelty.
Then the final blow came from somewhere he never expected.
A well-dressed woman walked into the plumbing store where Oleg worked as a senior consultant and was aiming for a management role. She was outfitting bathrooms for a new country club. The order promised to be huge, and Oleg turned on every ounce of charm he had.
“Excellent choice, madam,” he purred, stroking a marble countertop. “Your taste is impeccable. I’ll personally supervise delivery. We can discuss a discount…”
The woman removed her sunglasses and studied him closely.
“Oleg, right?” she asked.
“Yes, at your service. Have we met?”
“Not in person. I’m Varvara Stepanovna. Marina’s aunt.”
Oleg’s smile slid off his face and turned into a grimace of horror.
“O… very nice to meet you.”
“I don’t think so,” she cut him off sharply. “Marina told me everything—about the ‘dump,’ and your demands. You know, young man, I’m not just some retiree from the north. I’m a co-owner of this chain of building centers—one of which you have the nerve to work in.”
The floor seemed to tilt under Oleg’s feet. He’d worked for the company three years and had never once bothered to learn who sat at the top of the holding’s board.
“I… I didn’t know…”
“Of course you didn’t. You’re interested in nothing but yourself. Marina asked me not to interfere—said she could handle it. And she did. But I don’t like it when my employees… and my nieces… are bullied by petty freeloaders.”
Varvara Stepanovna pulled out her phone.
“You have five minutes to write a resignation. And if I find out you’ve tried to get a job anywhere in this industry in our city—believe me, my references will reach any employer faster than your résumé ever will.”
Oleg stood in the showroom, surrounded by gleaming porcelain and chrome—the things he loved most. His career, his reputation, his comfortable life—everything crumbled into dust.
“But I… I just wanted fairness…” he mumbled.
“Fairness has arrived,” Varvara Stepanovna tossed over her shoulder as she turned toward the exit. “OUT.”
Oleg shuffled into the back room. For the first time in his life, he had nothing left to perform. The audience was gone, and the lights were off.