— Get out, you loser! — Tamara Ilyinichna’s scream cut through the quiet apartment like a knife. — And take your child with you! Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? That you could sneak your outcast into a proper family?
Jana clung to the doorframe, her hands icy cold. Tjomka, barely three years old, pressed his face against her chest. He didn’t cry, he just swallowed, his body tense with fear.Behind Tamara, Stas stood in the hallway, staring at his phone screen as if none of this were happening to him at all.
Three years of marriage, Jana thought bitterly, three years in which she had gone from a cheerful student to an exhausted woman serving him and his mother.— Stas? — she whispered. — Do you believe this nonsense? This is Tjoma. Your son. Look at him.
He lifted his eyes, empty, expressionless. No anger, just boredom and the wish that the noise would finally stop.— Mom isn’t lying, Jan. Lubka from the third floor saw everything. Go. Don’t lose your nerves.— Lubka? — Jana whispered in disbelief. — The drunk who borrowed a hundred rubles from me yesterday?
Tamara Ilyinichna shoved her aside with unexpected force. The door slammed, the lock clicked. Jana was left alone in the darkness, smelling of old cigarettes. Slowly, she began packing her few belongings into her broken suitcase, her hands shaking so much that Tjomka’s sock kept falling to the floor.
— Mama… shall we go to Grandma Ljuda? — the little one sniffled.— No, darling. Grandma Ljuda isn’t here anymore. We… we’ll go to Aunt Oksana.Outside, November rain poured icy water over the streets. Jana dragged the suitcase, whose wheel had already fallen off, to the bus stop.
In her bag: a phone with a cracked screen, her passport, and fifteen hundred rubles — barely enough for a tiny room in a dormitory.Forty minutes later, Oksana opened the door. In an avocado-colored pajama, dark circles under her eyes and eye masks still on.
She stepped back when she saw her soaked friend and the pale child.— Come in. The kettle is hot.An hour later, Tjomka slept in the armchair, covered with a warm blanket. Jana sat in the kitchen, clutching a cup with both hands, staring into space. Her teeth no longer chattered, but an unpleasant trembling remained.
— So Lubka saw you with the man? — Oksana asked, spreading butter on bread. — And Stas believed it?— He didn’t care. He just needed an excuse. Tamara Ilyinichna had been annoying him for a long time: “Why do you need this girl with no dowry? Look at Lenka Korneyev’s father, he’s a deputy.
And what does Jana have?” Mother dead, father gone.Oksana suddenly froze, knife in hand:— Jana, do you remember the package from your father?Jana flinched. The envelope, thick, sealed with red wax, an inheritance from her deceased, strict father. “Only open it in the utmost emergency,” he had said.
— Is this the utmost emergency now, Jan? — Oksana asked softly. — Or should we wait for the debt collectors to come?Jana nodded. She ripped open the envelope: a keychain in the shape of a silver tower and a folder of documents. A residential complex called “Imperial,” in the middle of the city, luxurious, fully paid.
— Damn… — Oksana gasped. — This isn’t a simple inheritance, Jan. This is… palace-level.That night, Jana entered the twelfth floor of the Imperial. Silence, the scent of expensive renovations. Panoramic windows, fine parquet floors, kitchen technology that even amazed Oksana.
She ran her hand over the back of a sofa and felt: her father had provided. A safety net of velvet and silk to protect her from the wrong man.Her phone rang. A message from Stas: “Mom says you stole a silver spoon. Complaint filed.”
Jana laughed, first softly, then loudly. Forty million rubles’ worth, and he was worried about a spoon.— Hello, Ksusha? — she dialed her friend. — We’re starting the campaign. I need contacts for a guy who can recover deleted chats. And Lubka’s address.
A week later, they had everything: Lubka suddenly paid her utility bills, Stas’s first wife, Alina, got in touch. She had experienced the truth about Tamara Ilyinichna: poisoned meals, fear, forced sales.In the evening, Jana posted a photo on social media:
in a silk robe, a glass of juice, the city lights at night. Geotag: Imperial.Doorbell. Video intercom: Stas. A bouquet of wilted chrysanthemums, tangerines. He looked like a beaten dog in the palace.— Jan… is this really yours?— Want to see the receipt?
He swallowed. “No… I believe you.”But the game was over. Jana had learned to defend herself. Tamara Ilyinichna went silent, Stas disappeared from her life. The apartment, her son, her freedom — finally home.A month later, Jana saw Tjomka laughing in the courtyard, next to Alina’s daughter.
Two women, connected by pain and triumph, building a new life. Jana drank her coffee. Real. Aromatic.— Mama, I’m home! — shouted Tjomka, rushing inside, his cheeks red from the frost.— Home, my son, — Jana smiled. Now they were truly home.