“Have you lost your mind?” Irma stood in the bathroom doorway, clutching a slippery, acrid-smelling silicone bowl in her hand.
Albina, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, did not even flinch. She lazily adjusted the rustling foil on her hair and flicked ash from her cigarette straight into the sink.
“Oh, don’t start. So what, it’s just a little bowl. I urgently needed to bleach my roots before meeting with the designer, and you don’t have a single normal bowl here.”
“That is Polina’s custom liner!” Irma’s breath caught from outrage. “We had it made to order, waited a month for it! It cost forty thousand, Albina! The silicone has absorbed the dye, and now that chemical stuff will eat away at the skin on her stump!”
“Oh, stop yelling,” Albina grimaced and reached for her phone. “Big deal, some rubber. Your Polinka can manage without that thing for a while. She won’t fall apart. And I’m launching a brand. I need to look presentable.”
Irma walked into the kitchen, feeling everything inside her tremble. Sergei was sitting at the table, methodically picking dinner leftovers out of his teeth with a toothpick, while beside him his mother, Galina Konstantinovna, was pouring tea into cups. In the corner, hunched on a stool, sat fourteen-year-old Polina, frightened, pulling the sleeve of her stretched-out sweater over her right arm—or rather, over what was left of it after last year’s accident.
“Seryozha, tell your sister she has no right to touch Polina’s things!” Irma threw the ruined liner onto the countertop.
Sergei did not even raise his eyes.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of it? Alka has it hard right now. She has a startup. She needs to look like a million bucks. So she stained it—wash it somehow.”
Albina, swaying her hips, walked into the kitchen to pour herself some water. As she passed the table, she carelessly waved her hand. There was a metallic clatter.
Polina’s temporary mechanical prosthesis, which had been lying on the edge of the table, flew straight into the cast-iron pan Irma had just taken off the stove after frying cutlets.
A nasty hissing sound rang out. The kitchen instantly filled with the nauseating smell of burning plastic. The hypoallergenic plastic tendons on the artificial fingers quickly began to blacken and melt, turning into a charred lump.
Polina let out a quiet, frightened cry.
“Oops,” Albina theatrically pressed her palm to her lips, but there was not a drop of fear in her eyes. “How clumsy of me. But you left it on the edge yourselves!”
“What have you done?” Irma rushed to the stove, grabbing an oven mitt to knock the melted prosthesis onto the floor. But it was too late—the artificial hand had turned into a mess.
“Oh, stop howling, Irma!” Galina Konstantinovna set her cup of tea aside in displeasure. “Big deal, a piece of plastic. Glue it back together with your superglue, and that’s that. Our dear Albinochka has no time for your cripples right now. She’s opening a showroom, a clothing brand! Her head is full of other things.”
Sergei quietly snorted, exchanging a glance with his sister.
At that moment, Irma’s phone vibrated in her pocket. The screen lit up: “Elena Dmitrievna, prosthetist.” Irma went out into the hallway, pressing the phone to her ear.
“Irma, hello,” the doctor’s calm voice sounded through the receiver. “I’m reminding you that we have entered the final month. Polina’s forearm muscles are already starting to lose tone. If we don’t install the bionic prosthesis within thirty days, irreversible atrophy will begin. After that, there simply won’t be anywhere to attach the bionics, do you understand? Have you prepared the money? The clinic’s special account is waiting for a payment of seven hundred thousand rubles.”
“Yes, Elena Dmitrievna. We have the money. We’ll transfer it tomorrow,” Irma breathed out.
She hung up and opened the banking app. Seven hundred thousand—the money from selling her grandmother’s dacha—had been lying in her separate savings account. Irma opened the deposit to make the transfer and went cold.
On the screen glowed a round, mocking zero.
She blinked, deciding it must be a system error. She refreshed the page. The balance did not change.
She burst into the kitchen.
“Seryozha, where is the money from the account?”
Sergei froze with the toothpick in his hand, his face instantly breaking out in red blotches. He threw a quick glance at his mother.
“What’s wrong with you? I took it temporarily.”
“You took the money set aside for my sister’s prosthesis? The sister who has one month left not to remain disabled for the rest of her life?!” Irma screamed.
“Polina manages with her left hand. She’s already adapted!” the mother-in-law suddenly spoke up, narrowing her eyes. “And Albina needs a start in life! Don’t be selfish, Irma! Your bionics won’t help a cripple, but Albina’s rent in the shopping center is due right now! If we hadn’t paid the deposit today, the space would have gone to someone else! Sergei did the right thing as a man—he helped his sister!”
Encouraged by his mother, Sergei straightened his shoulders and looked confidently at his wife.
“Yes, Ir. I used the power of attorney you gave me for the clinic. I transferred the deposit for the showroom in the Atrium. Everything is official, don’t worry. Once the business takes off, we’ll return those miserable pennies to your Polinka. You need to think about people, not just yourself!”
“Return the money right now,” Irma took a step toward her husband, but Galina Konstantinovna rose between them like a hawk.
“He won’t return anything to you!” the mother-in-law snapped, spraying spit. “The money is in circulation, the lease has been signed! We won’t let some capricious girl of yours ruin the family business! Sergei is the head of the family. He has the right to manage the budget!”
“That was my personal money!” Irma shifted her gaze to her husband. “Seryozha, you committed theft. Do you understand that?”
“Oh, stop it,” Sergei grimaced, hiding his eyes. “What theft? Was there a power of attorney? There was. I showed it at the bank, everything is legal. I didn’t take it to go partying. Once Alka gets going, we’ll pay it back in six months. That’s it. The subject is closed. My head is splitting.”
Irma looked at Polina. The girl was crying quietly, her face buried in her knees. The mechanical stump of the prosthesis on the floor had already cooled, turning into a shapeless black mass. Tomorrow they had to go to Elena Dmitrievna, but there was nothing to go with.
The next three days turned Irma’s apartment into Groundhog Day.
Albina and her “startup guy” boyfriend Kirill, a lanky guy in dirty hoodies, practically moved in with them. They declared Irma’s living room their “temporary headquarters.”
“We need to visualize the sales funnel,” Kirill declared in a businesslike tone, sprawled across Irma’s light-colored sofa in street jeans still drying with gray spring slush on them.
The Swedish oak parquet floor, which Irma had ordered from Finland and guarded like the apple of her eye, became dotted with round, sticky marks from cans of energy drinks and beer. On the windowsill, an unfinished pizza sat sadly souring in its box, already attracting flies.
But the limit came on Thursday evening.
Irma returned from work exhausted, with a headache. Opening the door to the living room, she froze.
Right on the custom-made designer nonwoven wallpaper, an enormous crooked “sales mind map” had been drawn in black permanent marker. Arrows, circles, inscriptions: “Albina Brand,” “Traffic,” “Warm-up.” In several places, sheets of poster paper had been fastened to the wall with cheap brown tape. Kirill was just tearing one of them off—along with the tape, a chunk of plaster fell away, exposing the gray concrete of the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, don’t get in the way, we’re brainstorming!” Albina did not even turn around, drawing another thick arrow straight on the wall with the marker. “You’ll put up new wallpaper, big deal. But look at the conversion we’re planning!”
“Get out of my house!” Irma walked up to the wall and snatched the marker from her sister-in-law’s hand.
“How are you talking to people?” Galina Konstantinovna came out of the kitchen with a cup of tea. “People are working! My son is registered here, by the way, which means his relatives have the right to be here too! You’re a petty bourgeois, Irma. You tremble over every rag and wall while people are building a great future!”
Sergei, who entered after her, shot his wife a displeased glare.
“Seriously, stop throwing tantrums. So they drew on the walls. We wanted to renovate anyway. The guys are doing business. On Saturday we’re having a celebratory dinner. We’re drinking to the launch of the showroom in the Atrium. Mom will cook, so let’s do without your sour face.”
Irma did not argue. She took out her phone and silently photographed the walls, the sticky rings on the parquet, and the smirking faces of her husband’s relatives.
The next morning, sitting in her office at the headquarters of a development company, Irma opened the internal commercial real estate monitoring database.
She was the Director of Commercial Risks. The Atrium shopping center, where Albina had rented a boutique, belonged to their holding company. The lease contracts were handled by a subsidiary LLC, Management Company Development.
Irma entered “Volkova Albina Viktorovna” into the tenant search.
The system produced the contract card. Deposit: 700,000 rubles. Payment received yesterday. But the payer was not Albina. In the “Source of payment” field were Irma’s personal account details, and in the purpose line: transfer by power of attorney from Volkov Sergei Viktorovich.
She leaned back in her chair. The trap that Sergei and his little family had so cheerfully built had one very weak spot.
She picked up the internal phone.
“Ivan Petrovich? This is Irma from Risk. I need you to come by with a lawyer. There’s one very questionable lease contract in the Atrium. It looks like we’re dealing with fraud and misuse of funds belonging to a minor. Yes, right now.”
“You understand, Irma Sergeyevna, that this is a serious mess?” Ivan Petrovich, the bulky head of the holding’s security service, rubbed the gray back of his head and pulled the account statement closer. “Your dear husband made a transaction by power of attorney from your personal account to the details of our subsidiary, MC Development. But the account is your premarital property, and the money is designated for a specific purpose. For us, this is a clear article of the Civil Code: unjust enrichment. We accepted money from a third party without legal grounds.”
“I know, Ivan Petrovich,” Irma replied. “If I sue to recover it as an illegal payment, the company will suffer legal and reputational risks.”
“Exactly! We don’t need this headache at all before the audit,” the security chief nodded. “The lawyers have already prepared the order. We’ll return the money to your account today as an erroneous payment. But for the tenant… what’s her name? Volkova Albina… fun times are about to begin.”
Ivan Petrovich smirked.
“There is no longer any security deposit under the lease agreement. That means the tenant violated a material condition of the contract. And under clause 8.4 of our rules, if the deposit is annulled due to falsified information, the developer terminates the contract unilaterally. Plus a fine in the amount of that same deposit. Seven hundred thousand rubles. And not only that girl will be liable for it, but also her co-borrower. Your husband, Sergei Volkov.”
“Proceed,” Irma nodded.
Saturday came quickly. Irma’s apartment was buzzing. Balloons swayed festively against the marker-covered walls of the living room. On the table, a chicken baked in mayonnaise steamed, plates of salads stood nearby, and a bottle of semi-sweet champagne was chilling in the refrigerator.
Galina Konstantinovna bustled around arranging wineglasses, while Albina and Kirill laughed loudly, discussing how they were going to “bend this city over with their brand.” Polina sat locked in her room. Irma had strictly forbidden her to come out to the guests.
Sergei, already rather drunk, stood at the head of the table and forcefully tapped his fork against a glass.
“Quiet, ladies and gentlemen! A moment of attention, please!” he said, casting a victorious gaze over the gathered friends and relatives. “Today is a great day! My little sister Albina is opening a boutique in the best shopping center in the city! And thanks to whom? Thanks to our family!”
He shifted his heavy, drunken gaze to Irma, who was sitting at the edge of the table, not touching either food or alcohol.
“Our Irmochka only knows how to count other people’s money at work. At home, she’s useless—she can’t even have a child. That’s it, my dear, the gravy train is over! Now Albina is the main investor in our family. Soon she’ll be turning over millions! And you, Irma, since you’re no use at all, go make porridge for Polinka tomorrow. You two can manage somehow with one left hand!”
The guests laughed awkwardly. Galina Konstantinovna nodded triumphantly, and Albina clapped her hands.
Irma calmly rose from her seat. From her business bag hanging on the back of the chair, she took out two folded sheets of paper and placed them directly on Sergei’s plate, on top of a greasy piece of chicken.
“What is this scrap paper?” Sergei frowned, trying to focus his eyes.
“This is your summons to reality, Seryozha,” Irma said in an icy voice. “The first sheet is a statement from my bank. Seven hundred thousand rubles returned to my account today at four in the afternoon as an erroneous payment. Tomorrow morning, Polina and I are going to Elena Dmitrievna’s clinic for the prosthetic fitting.”
The mother-in-law froze with the salad bowl in her hands.
“How… returned?” Sergei mumbled, turning pale. “But I transferred it… the contract was signed…”
“And the second sheet,” Irma pointed to the document with the holding company’s blue stamp, “is an official notice from LLC Management Company Development. The lease contract with Volkova Albina has been terminated unilaterally due to the absence of a security deposit. Moreover, the tenant and her guarantor—that is, you, Seryozha—have been fined seven hundred thousand rubles for attempted fraud.”
At that very second, Albina’s phone, lying on the table, vibrated. The screen lit up: “Atrium Administrator.”
Her sister-in-law pressed the speaker button with trembling fingers.
“Albina Viktorovna?” a sharp voice came through the phone. “We inform you that access to your showroom has been blocked. The premises have been sealed until the penalties owed to our company are paid in full. Vacate the space within twenty-four hours.”
“How dare you?!” Galina Konstantinovna slammed the salad bowl onto the table with all her might. Mayonnaise splattered across the clean tablecloth. “You set this all up yourself, you snake in the grass! Decided to ruin your own family? Seryozha, son, she robbed you! That’s your money. You’re the husband!”
“That was Polina’s money,” Irma said clearly. “And it has been returned to its rightful owner. Now get out of my house.”
“What?!” Albina shouted, clutching her phone convulsively. “Where are we supposed to go? We have merchandise there! We have a brand presentation on Monday! Sergei, do something!”
Sergei sat with his head in his hands. The alcohol had instantly evaporated from him. He understood what the legal department of a development holding was. Those people did not forgive debts.
“Ir… let’s talk,” he rasped, raising his frantic eyes. “I lost my temper. Withdraw that claim. Let Alka work…”
“You have one hour to pack, otherwise your things will fly out the window,” Irma said, standing up and opening the front door.
Forty minutes later, the iron door slammed shut behind the guests, the mother-in-law, and the dejected Sergei.
Irma walked to the window, took a deep breath, and smiled for the first time in a long while.
A month passed.
Galina Konstantinovna sat in the tiny kitchen of her Khrushchev-era apartment, absentmindedly stirring a cup of cooled tea made from a cheap tea bag. Court notices lay fanned out across the sticky oilcloth-covered table.
Irma had not wasted any time. The divorce went through quickly. Since the family car had been purchased with her personal premarital funds, the court left the car to her. But the main blow was something else: Irma’s lawyers proved that Sergei had used the power of attorney for selfish purposes, causing direct financial damage to the minor Polina. The court recognized the seven hundred thousand rubles as his personal debt to the child. Now bailiffs deducted half his salary every month to repay the debt.
And the developer’s lawyers had claimed the remaining half, demanding payment of that very corporate fine for the failed lease.
In the living room, on an old sofa with squeaky springs, Albina lay scrolling mindlessly through the newsfeed on the screen of a cracked phone. She had failed as a businesswoman: the merchandise remained sealed in the shopping center’s warehouse because of debts.
Sergei entered the hallway, dragging his feet heavily.
“Those letters again?” he asked, walking into the kitchen.
“Again, son,” Galina Konstantinovna sobbed quietly. “The bank called. They blocked your card…”
“That’s because he’s a loser!” Albina shouted from the room. “A real man would have taken that woman’s apartment from her, but you screwed everything up! Because of you, I lost my brand!”
“Shut up, you bitch!” Sergei shouted, slamming his fist against the doorframe. “I got thrown out of my own apartment and buried up to my ears in debts to the bailiffs because of your clothes! Have you earned even a single kopeck, you living-room business lady?”
“Boys, girls, don’t fight…” the mother-in-law began wailing out of habit, covering her face with her hands.
But no one listened to her. Another filthy brawl broke out in the room, filled with shouting and mutual curses.
Galina Konstantinovna looked out the window. Somewhere out there, in her spacious, clean three-room apartment, Irma lived. Today she had posted a photo on social media: happy Polina smiling as she tried on her brand-new, chrome-shining bionic prosthesis. The girl was holding a cup of tea with it.
With her right hand.
The mother-in-law lowered her head onto the table and began to cry bitterly and helplessly.
