She led him not to the kitchen, but into the hallway, away from the bedroom. She didn’t want this conversation to happen near what lay on her pillow. “Someone was in the apartment,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, trying to catch any shadow of a lie, the slightest movement that would give him away.
His face showed genuine astonishment. “What do you mean? How?” “The door was locked.” “I don’t know how.”
“But someone was here.” “And they left a message.” “In our bedroom.”
“On my pillow.” He frowned. Alarm appeared in his eyes.
“What did they leave? Let’s go have a look.” “No,” she cut him off. “You go alone. I’ll watch you.”
He hesitated for a second, then resolutely headed for the bedroom. Anisa remained in the doorway, watching. She saw him approach the bed, saw his gaze fall on the pillow. He froze.
Just stood there, staring at the glove. There was no surprise or fear in his posture. Only a kind of heavy, dull resignation.
As if he were seeing something he had long been expecting. He slowly turned to her. “I don’t know what this is,” he said.
His voice was hollow. “I have no idea.” “You don’t know?” Anisa let out a short laugh that sounded more like a cough.
“Really? An expensive woman’s glove appears in our house, which has two locks, and you don’t know what it is.” “Maybe you forgot to lock the door?” His voice became pleading. “Maybe someone got the wrong apartment? There are plenty of crazy people out there.” “Stop it, David,” she interrupted him.
“Just stop. I’ve had enough of your stories.” She turned and walked out to the kitchen.
She heard him pick up the glove, heard a rustling sound. A minute later, he followed her, holding the glove with two fingers as if it were a dead rat. “I’ll throw it away,” he said.
“We’ll change the locks tomorrow. I’ll call a locksmith. Everything will be fine, Anisa.”
“It’s just some stupid, nasty joke.” She looked at him, at his pathetic attempts to pretend everything was under control. And in that moment, she understood completely: he wasn’t just a participant in this deception.
He was a pawn. A weak, cowardly pawn in someone else’s game. And whoever was running this game was now openly laughing at both of them.
The next day was the annual banquet hosted by the mayor’s office for the leaders of the city’s industry. Attendance was mandatory. Anisa, as factory director, had to be there.
The thought of going out in public, smiling, pretending everything was alright, was unbearable. “I’m not going,” she told David that morning. “You have to,” he objected softly but insistently.
“Anisa, we have to go. Especially now. We have to show everyone that we’re okay.”
“If we don’t show up, rumors will start flying. Please. For me.”
“For us.” His words were dictated by fear, she understood that. But there was a logic to them, too.
To hide would be to admit defeat. And Anisa Malinina never surrendered without a fight. “Alright,” she said through clenched teeth.
“We’ll go.” She worked on autopilot all day, giving orders, signing documents, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She thought about the woman in the sand-colored coat, about the black glove.
They were links in a single chain, and that chain was slowly tightening around her neck. That evening, getting ready for the banquet, she chose her dress like a weapon. Nothing soft, nothing feminine.
She put on a severe, high-necked dress of a dark green color that fit her like a second skin. She pulled her hair back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her makeup was flawless, concealing the dark circles under her eyes and the fatigue.
She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a stranger with a hard, cold gaze. She and David drove to the restaurant where the event was held in silence. He was driving, and Anisa could see how tense his hands were, gripping the wheel.
He was afraid. And that gave her a strange, cruel strength. The restaurant hall was buzzing like a disturbed beehive.
The glitter of chandeliers, the clink of glasses, laughter, fragments of conversation. All the city’s movers and shakers were here—the mayor, officials, factory directors, local businessmen with their wives in diamonds. Anisa took a deep breath and entered the hall with her head held high, feeling dozens of curious eyes on her.
David walked beside her, trying to appear confident, but his nervousness gave him away completely. They exchanged handshakes, smiled, uttered meaningless phrases. Anisa played her part flawlessly.
She discussed new tax rates with the director of the metallurgical plant, accepted compliments from the mayor’s wife about her dress. She was an iceberg, calm and cold on the surface, while inside everything seethed with tension and dark foreboding. It was at that moment, when she relaxed for a second, taking a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray, that she saw her.
An elderly woman was heading toward them. She moved through the crowd slowly but inexorably, like an icebreaker, and people parted before her. The woman was dressed in an old-fashioned but expensive dark velvet dress.
Her grey hair was styled in an elegant coiffure, and her face resembled a mask carved from ivory. A mask of cold, concentrated fury. Anisa recognized her immediately.
She had seen her in photographs in her mother-in-law’s old album. It was Regina Dobrynina, Kira’s mother. David saw her too.
He froze; the glass in his hand trembled. He paled. “Mama… Regina Igorevna!” he stammered as the woman came right up to them.
She didn’t even glance at him. All her attention was fixed on Anisa. Her small, faded eyes drilled into Anisa.
For a moment, silence fell in their corner of the hall. People standing nearby felt the tension and fell quiet, turning to look. And then Regina Dobrynina raised her hand and pointed a trembling, ring-laden finger at Anisa.
Her voice, loud and piercing like the screech of an unoiled door, cut through the hum of the hall. “Homewrecker!” The word hit like a slap. Instantly, a circle of emptiness formed around them.
All conversation ceased. Hundreds of eyes stared at them. “Look at her!” Regina continued to shriek, her voice cracking with hatred.
“She pounced on a grieving man! Took another woman’s place, another woman’s bed, another woman’s home! While my poor, sick Kirochka was fighting for her life in a clinic, this… this predator was stealing her husband!” The scandal was instantaneous, crushing, public. This wasn’t just an accusation; it was a verdict, delivered on the city’s main square. Anisa stood, stunned, feeling her cheeks burn.
She looked at David, seeking support, protection, any kind of action. But he just stood there. Frozen…
His mouth was half-open, his eyes darting fearfully from his mother-in-law to the guests to Anisa. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t move a muscle.
He did absolutely nothing to defend his wife. He simply let it happen. The humiliation was total.
Anisa couldn’t take any more. She turned and, without looking at anyone, walked toward the exit. She walked quickly, her steps measured, her back straight, hearing the wave of voices behind her growing like an avalanche…
She wasn’t running. She was retreating from the battlefield, not giving the enemy the satisfaction of seeing her tears. The next day, a strange silence hung over the factory.
People avoided her gaze, greeted her too quickly and then looked away. News traveled faster than a virus in their town. She sat in her office, trying to work.
But the lines in the documents blurred before her eyes. She felt dirty, disgraced. Around noon, her secretary knocked on the door.
“Anisa Nikolaevna, a package for you. A courier brought it.” “Leave it,” Anisa said.
On the desk lay a plain envelope made of heavy paper. No return address, no markings. Just her name, printed out.
She took a letter opener and slit it open. Inside was a photograph. Glossy, color.
Their wedding portrait. The very one that stood in a silver frame in their living room. She and David, happy, smiling, looking at the camera.
A memory of a day that had seemed to her the beginning of a new, honest life. But something was wrong. She held the photograph closer to the light.
And the blood froze in her veins once again. David’s face was untouched. But her face.
Her face in the photograph had been completely destroyed. Someone had taken a sharp object—a blade or a needle—and methodically, with furious, meticulous cruelty, had scratched it out. In place of her smile, her eyes, was a torn, ugly wound, a scar on the glossy paper.
Her fingers gripped the photograph so hard the glossy surface dug into her skin. The ragged scratches where her face had been weren’t just vandalism. It was a message.
Clear and merciless: You don’t exist here. You are nothing. And in that moment, any hope that this was some monstrous misunderstanding evaporated.
This was war. Declared quietly, but with ultimate cruelty. She didn’t throw the photograph away.
She carefully placed it in a drawer in her desk, under lock and key. It was evidence. Another piece for her collection.
The glove, the fur receipt, and now, her obliterated face. She looked at her hands. They weren’t shaking.
Last night, after the scandal, she had felt humiliation and powerlessness. Now, she felt only a cold, calculating rage. The rage gave her strength.
They were trying to erase her. First from society, by making her a laughingstock. Now, from her own life, from her own past.
What would be next? Would they throw her out into the street without a penny? That thought hit her like an electric shock. Money. Her money.
She had worked hard all her life. Since she was 18, while still at university, she had worked part-time in a tailor’s shop. Then she came to this factory as a simple seamstress, worked her way up to foreman, head of a workshop, and for the last three years had been the director.
She was used to relying only on herself. When she married David, she hadn’t stopped. She regularly set aside a portion of her director’s salary, a substantial one, into their joint savings account.
It was her safety net. Her guarantee of independence. She had told David the money was for the future, for expanding production, for buying new Italian equipment for the factory.
He had always agreed, nodded, said what a clever, far-sighted woman she was. Now, the thought of that account burned in her mind. If they were systematically destroying her, then money would be the first thing they would target.
David, with his story of debts for a mythical clinic, was the perfect tool. She had to act. Immediately.
She called her best friend, Maria Pavlova, the head of HR at the factory. Maria was the only person she could trust right now. “Masha, hi. I need to slip away for a couple of hours. Cover for me if anyone asks.” “Anisa, what’s wrong? After yesterday… I called you, you didn’t answer. Are you okay?” Maria’s voice was full of concern.
“I’m not okay, Masha. But now’s not the time to talk. Just tell anyone who’s looking for me that I’m at a meeting with the administration.”
“Understood. Hang in there, my friend.” She took her bag and left the office….
