— Katya, urgent! I need money. Fifty thousand. By tonight.
Slava burst into the apartment without taking off his jacket or shoes, leaving wet traces of melted street snow on the clean laminate. The hallway instantly filled with the smell of cold synthetic fabric and tension.
Ekaterina didn’t even turn her head. She was sitting deep in an armchair in the living room, a tablet resting on her knees, the screen frozen on a page listing the specifications of a Bosch Serie 6 washing machine. She was methodically, almost with pleasure, comparing energy efficiency ratings and spin cycle speeds. The old Indesit in the bathroom had started making a noise like the dying roar of a wounded beast during spin cycles, and Katya had decided she’d had enough.
— Slava, take your shoes off, please. You’re tracking dirt.
He ignored her request, walked into the room, and stopped in the middle, breathing heavily. His face was pale, almost grey, and his eyes darted around, unable to focus on anything.
— Did you hear me? Fifty thousand. It’s serious. Lenka’s in trouble.
Ekaterina slowly scrolled down the screen with her finger, moving to the customer reviews. Her calmness was so deliberate it seemed almost unnatural, calculated. She didn’t hurry. She read a short paragraph about the quiet operation of the inverter motor, then carefully placed the tablet face down on the coffee table. Only then did she raise her eyes to her husband. Her gaze was clear, cold, utterly composed.
— No.
One short word, spoken evenly, without the slightest trace of emotion. It hit Slava harder than if she had started yelling. He had expected anything — reproaches, sighs, a long and tedious interrogation — but not this immediate, flat refusal.
— What do you mean “no”? — he took a step toward her, his voice cracking into a nervous falsetto. — You don’t understand, this is no joke! These are the kind of people… they won’t wait. They’ll make her real trouble, Katya! Real trouble!
— And whose fault is that, Slava? — Katya tilted her head slightly, looking at him as though seeing him for the first time, the way an entomologist studies a strange, twitching insect. — Mine? Or yours? Or maybe our old washing machine — the one I’ve been saving to replace — is somehow responsible for your sister once again getting mixed up with scumbags?
He flinched as if slapped. The mention of a washing machine in the context of his sister’s life being in danger seemed monstrous, the height of cynicism.
— What does the machine have to do with it?! This is about a person! My sister! Don’t you have anything sacred? She’s in trouble!
— Lena is permanently in trouble. That’s her normal state, — Katya’s voice now carried a faint metallic note. — Let me remind you. Two years ago, we paid off her “urgent” payday loan because she couldn’t afford a new phone. A year ago, we gave thirty thousand to her “good friend” to cover clothes she owed money for. Last summer, I personally went to get our mother’s earrings out of pawn because Lena “desperately needed money for a project.” Every single time, it was “the last time.” Every single time, you swore it wouldn’t happen again.
She spoke not like an offended wife but like an accountant reading a year-end report with dismal figures. Every word was a fact, each number a nail she methodically hammered into the coffin of his attempts at pity. Slava was silent, breathing heavily — there was nothing to refute; it was all true. But the truth didn’t matter to him now — only the urgency did.
— This is different, — he finally muttered. — This time it’s worse.
— Worse for who, Slava? — she asked quietly, making him flinch. — For her — yes, maybe. But for our budget, it looks exactly the same as always: another hole we’re expected to plug with our money. My money. Well, I won’t. Enough.
— You’re talking about money when her life might be on the line? — Slava stopped pacing and stared at her, desperation and reproach in his eyes. He was trying to break through her icy calm, appeal to whatever humanity he believed she still had. — She’s my sister, Katya. My blood. I have no one else. We’re supposed to help each other — that’s what family is.
Katya stood up. Instead of moving toward him, she walked to the window, creating more distance between them. She looked not at the street, but at his blurred reflection in the dark glass.
— “Family,” — she repeated the word as though tasting something rancid. — Let’s talk about family, Slava. When your “family” in the form of Lena “borrowed” my credit card three years ago to invest in a “super-profitable cosmetics startup” and blew thirty-five thousand on a pyramid scheme, who spent half a year paying the bank back with interest? Our family. And when she decided she needed a vacation and bought tickets to Thailand with the money we’d saved for a down payment on a mortgage — promising to “return it in a month from her first paycheck” — who ended up without the money and without the vacation? We did.
She turned to face him. Her expression was perfectly calm, but her eyes burned with a cold, focused fire. She advanced, and he instinctively backed up until he hit the bookshelf.
— Every time, Slava, every damn time, you came to me with that same beaten-dog face and told me “Lena needs saving.” And I saved you. Not her — you. Your nerves. The illusion of our normal life. I paid so you wouldn’t walk around like a ghost and could sleep at night. I bought your peace of mind. And you know what? It’s gotten too expensive.
His arguments crumbled under the relentless hammering of facts. He opened his mouth to say she was overcomplicating things, that these were just youthful mistakes, but she didn’t let him speak.
— Mistakes? When she brought her latest “fiancé” into our home and he left with my laptop — was that a mistake? Or when she got a job with a mutual acquaintance and was fired two weeks later for a till shortage we had to cover to avoid burning bridges — was that a mistake too? Lena isn’t someone who makes mistakes. She is one big, walking mistake. A black hole that swallows money, time, and nerves from everyone near her.
Slava sagged, sliding down the bookshelf to the floor, burying his face in his hands. Everything she said was true — brutally, nakedly true — and now, spoken aloud in her cold, even voice, it had a crushing weight.
— But what am I supposed to do? — he whispered into his palms. — They won’t let her go. They just won’t…
Katya stood over him, looking at his trembling shoulders without the slightest trace of sympathy. She didn’t see a suffering husband — only another link in the toxic chain trying to close around her wallet again. And she broke it.
— I don’t care that your dear sister has money problems again. I’m not helping her anymore. Let her fend for herself and finally get a job.
— But she—
— This house is a Lena-free zone. And that’s final. — Her voice didn’t rise; it grew quieter, but gained the hardness of steel.
Her words hung in the air, dense and heavy. They didn’t just refuse help — they demolished the whole framework in which he was the caring brother and she the understanding wife. In this new reality, drawn by her, he was an enabler of a parasite, and she was a donor whose patience had run out.
At that moment, the silence was broken by the vibration of his phone on the floor near his foot. The loud, insistent buzz on the laminate made him jump. On the screen: “Lenusya.” He exhaled sharply and grabbed the phone with clumsy fingers.
— Yeah, Lena, yeah… — his voice was a hoarse whisper. He shot Katya a nervous glance. She stood by the window, motionless, but he could feel her attention. — I’m trying! I’m talking to her!… No, I know there’s no time… Just wait a little longer, please, I almost… — he faltered; lying while looking into her cold eyes was physically hard. — I’ll fix it! Do you hear me? I’ll fix everything! — he almost shouted, then hung up.
The call hit him like a defibrillator shock. The apathy vanished, replaced by raw, panicked fear. He jumped to his feet, pale as wet asphalt.
— Did you hear that? They won’t stop! This isn’t just a debt, Katya, it’s… it’s different! You sit here in your cozy little world, thinking about your new washing machine, and you judge her! Do you even know what it’s like to be cornered with no way out?!
He closed the distance, no longer the petitioner but facing an obstacle to his “rescue mission.”
— It’s my money too! We’re family — that means everything is shared! I have a right to half! We should sell something, take a loan, whatever! But we have to get that money!
He stopped a step away, breathing hard, playing his last card — “shared budget,” “family,” “my rights.” He expected her to explode so he could push through in the chaos. But she didn’t. She waited for him to run out of steam, then silently walked away.
He heard the zipper of her bag in the hallway. She came back holding her wallet, placed it on the coffee table, and calmly pulled out three crisp thousand-ruble notes.
— You’re right. You should save your sister, — she said quietly, each word sinking in. — Here. Three thousand. For a ticket to your hometown.
Slava stared at the money, not understanding.
— You’ll go to her, — she went on in the same businesslike tone, — get a second job, maybe night shifts. Loader, guard, whatever. And you’ll pay off her debts yourself. Protect her. Be there, like a brother should. That’s your only way out, Slava. Because here, in this house, there’s no more money for her. Ever. Now take it and go. Lock the door behind you.
The three thousand rubles looked like a mockery, an insult wrapped in neat bills. Something inside him snapped. His fear for Lena turned into cold fury aimed at the woman before him.
— You think you can just buy me off like some pest? We’re married — everything here, all our accounts, is shared! Half is mine, and you can’t decide alone! I demand my share! Fifty thousand is less than my part — give me my money!
Katya’s look was the kind you give a child throwing a tantrum over an expensive toy. No fear, no anger — just final, cold resolve.
— Fine, — she said calmly. — You’re right. You’re entitled to half. Let’s calculate it.
She took the tablet, opened her banking app, and showed him not their shared account, but her personal one. The number was so huge his brain stalled.
— This is my personal account, opened two years before we met when I sold my grandmother’s apartment. See this transaction? That was the down payment for this apartment, made a month before our wedding. This apartment is mine.
He said nothing.
— Our car? Bought with my bonus — here’s the deposit record. All the big purchases — my money. Now, let’s look at “our” budget. Here’s your salary. And here it goes: transfers to Lena for payday loans, paying her fines, buying her phone. Slava, — she looked at him with empty eyes, — you were never my partner in this family. You were a dependent with a sister attached. But the product’s out of stock.
She picked up her phone, tapped the screen. His own phone pinged. He looked: “3,000.00 RUB from Ekaterina V. Message: ‘For the trip to your family.’”
He stared at the bills, then at the message — and understood. This wasn’t an ultimatum. This was a final settlement. He’d just been fired from her life, severance pay included. He stood there in a room that had never been his, realizing he had nothing left — no money, no rights, not even the illusion that he mattered here.