“The apartment is mine, so the rules are mine! Go wherever you want, even under a bridge. I’ve run out of patience.”
Roman stood in the middle of the living room like a Roman patrician, except instead of a toga he was wearing a velour tracksuit. He pointed dramatically at the door, as if he had rehearsed the gesture in front of a mirror.
I silently nodded.
As a logistics dispatcher, I was used to emergencies. A truck full of fish stuck at customs? A driver getting drunk in Voronezh? A husband deciding to play alpha male? The algorithm was the same: assess the damage, plot a new route, remove the unreliable link.
On the sofa, like spectators in a VIP box, sat his relatives. My mother-in-law, Zinaida Sergeyevna, pursed her lips as if she were personally issuing me an eviction order from her former dormitory. Beside her, my sister-in-law Zhanna fidgeted, already mentally trying on my shoes.
“Roma is right,” Zinaida Sergeyevna added weightily, adjusting the brooch on her enormous chest. “You brought nothing into this house. The manager of an auto repair shop needs a reliable support system, not a woman who is always buried in spreadsheets. He needs a wife with status.”
I methodically packed my things into a suitcase. Rolling clothes is the best way to save space. Practical and fast.
“Exactly!” Zhanna chimed in, fluttering her eyelash extensions. “Romka is a well-off man now. I’m opening my own boutique soon, and he’s going to give me the startup capital. We are businesspeople. And who are you? A salaried little mouse.”
I carefully zipped up my toiletry bag, straightened, and looked at my sister-in-law.
“A boutique, Zhanna, requires you to register as either an individual entrepreneur or an LLC. And under our country’s laws, if a citizen has enforcement proceedings with bailiffs for overdue microloans exceeding five hundred thousand rubles, their accounts are automatically frozen. Your business will end at the stage of buying a cash register.”
Zhanna jerked so sharply that she dropped her phone. It landed on the parquet floor with a crack.
She deflated and turned pale, like a punctured Chinese air mattress on a pebble beach.
Roman flushed crimson, realizing that his triumph was being spoiled.
“Enough talking! Keys on the table. Did you think I would put up with your cold face forever? I want emotions! Passion!”
“Passion isn’t my department, Roma. Try the fire inspector,” I said, placing the keys on the cabinet. “Goodbye.”
Stepping out into the cool March evening, I did not “slide down the wall” or sob in some alleyway. I called a taxi to a hotel. Sitting in the back seat, I took out my phone and made exactly one call.
“Katya, hi,” I said, watching the lights of the evening city flicker past. “You said your TV channel didn’t have enough juicy material for the Consumer Shield segment? Write down this address. Empire Motors Auto Service. Yes, the very one where expensive foreign cars are serviced.”
Katya, my school friend and also the producer of a scandalous show on local TV, perked up.
“Olya! Are you really ready to turn in your beloved husband?”
“He is no longer my beloved husband. Write down the facts,” I said, my voice as even as asphalt on a federal highway. “The scheme is classic: on the invoices, they list original German parts. In reality, the mechanics install cheap Chinese substitutes or cleaned-up used parts. Roman pockets the difference, bypassing the register. That’s Article 14.7 of the Administrative Code — consumer fraud — plus tax evasion. I’ll email you the license plate numbers of three cars that had fake brake pads installed yesterday. The owners don’t yet know they’re driving time bombs.”
“I adore you, Olya! Tomorrow morning we’ll go there with a mystery shopper and hidden cameras.”
The next morning, I was drinking cappuccino in a cozy rented one-room apartment, scrolling through the news feed. My phone pinged. It was the building chat, where the administrator was Larisa, my former mother-in-law’s bosom friend. A noisy woman, greedy for other people’s dirty laundry.
“Dear neighbors!” Larisa announced in large letters. “Our respected Roman Nikolaevich has finally kicked out his leech! Let’s support a good man! She lived off everything ready-made — no borscht, no comfort!”
I took a sip of coffee, opened the keyboard, and typed a reply.
“Larisa Gennadyevna, supporting a man who hides part of his salary in envelopes to avoid paying child support for two children from his first marriage is, of course, very noble. By the way, since we’re talking about the law: how is your illegal renovation doing, the one where you removed a load-bearing wall leading to the balcony? The housing inspectorate doesn’t just fine people 2,500 rubles for tricks like that; it also requires them to restore everything to its original condition at their own expense within a month. I was actually planning to clarify this matter with the inspector.”
A silence hung over the chat that could have been cut with a knife.
A minute later, a system notification appeared: “User Larisa Gennadyevna deleted the group.”
She vanished from digital space as swiftly as a cockroach caught in a suddenly switched-on light.
By lunchtime, the real show began.
Katya sent me a link to the TV channel’s live social media broadcast. Roman was in the frame. His face, usually arrogant and polished, now resembled an overripe beetroot. He ran around the reporter, waving his arms, while the mystery shopper demonstrated to the camera an oil filter that was crumbling in his hands, sold as an original part for an outrageous price.
“This is a provocation! You have no right to film! This is my property!” my ex-husband screeched.
“Roman Nikolaevich,” Katya chirped sweetly into the microphone, “the property belongs to the owner of the service center, Mr. Markov. Who, by the way, will be arriving here soon, along with representatives from consumer protection and the tax authorities. You are simply a hired manager, aren’t you? How would you comment on the double bookkeeping?”
Roman froze, opening and closing his mouth.
His grandeur crumbled like plaster in a Soviet-era apartment block during an earthquake.
Three hours later, my phone was burning up with calls. Zinaida Sergeyevna called. Roman called. I methodically pressed “Block.”
That evening, I received a message from an unknown number.
“Olya, it’s Zhanna. Roma was fired for cause and blacklisted. The owner is pinning all the losses and shortages on him. Mom is bedridden with high blood pressure. Roma is screaming that you set the TV people on him. Tell me it isn’t true! How are we supposed to live now?! He was planning to take out a loan in my name to solve the auto service problems!”
I smiled. I opened the window, letting in the fresh autumn air.
Algorithm complete. Toxic cargo discarded. The logistics chain of my life rebuilt from scratch — without flaws or defects.
“Go wherever you want, Zhanna. Even under a bridge,” I typed in reply. “Your rules, your problems.”
I pressed “Send,” blocked the final contact, and went to make myself dinner.
Ahead of me lay a peaceful, comfortable, and, most importantly, entirely mine life.
