One week before the apartment sale, my father-in-law told me: «While your husband is away, take a hammer and smash the tile behind the toilet in the bathroom!»…

Explaining—pointless. Any word from her now would only confirm their diagnosis. She took her purse.

Looked at the three of them, this united group, this alliance of traitors. They stood like a monolith. Mother protecting her younger daughter.

And her husband hugging her sister. And she, Emily, was outside the line. A stranger.

Superfluous. She turned and walked to the exit. No one stopped her.

No one called out. She heard her mother’s soothing whisper behind her. «There, see, Sophia, everything’s fine, it’s over.»

She stepped onto the landing, and only there could she breathe. The air burned her lungs. The humiliation was physical, pressing on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

She descended the stairs, holding the railing because her legs trembled. Outside, she didn’t drive home right away. She just walked the dark empty streets, not watching the way.

Cold wind hit her face, but she barely felt it. Inside, everything was scorched. She had lost.

Not just lost the battle, she hadn’t even started it. They were one step ahead. They hadn’t just prepared an escape.

They had prepared a role for her. The role of a crazy, unstable wife whose words couldn’t be trusted. And the scariest part—her own family had readily accepted that role.

Back at her car, she sat inside for a long time, staring at the dark windows of her apartment. There was an enemy there. She knew it.

He was probably already there. Waiting for her. But there was nowhere to run.

It was her home. Still hers. She went up.

The door was unlocked. She entered, and her heart sank. The light was on only in the bedroom.

She slowly walked down the hallway. David was there. He stood with his back to the door, at the open closet, methodically packing things into a large suitcase on their bed.

He didn’t feign surprise or guilt. He was just doing his job. He was packing his old life to throw it away.

He heard her steps and turned. The mask of a caring, concerned husband was gone. His face was cold, alien, impenetrable.

«I thought you’d stay longer at your mom’s,» he said calmly, tossing a stack of T-shirts into the suitcase. Decided not to waste time. Emily stopped in the doorway.

She looked at him, the suitcase, their shared bed where he was now packing for another life. With another woman. With her sister.

«So it’s true,» she said. Her voice was hoarse. «All of this is true.»

He smirked. A short, evil smirk. «And you thought I was joking? Thought it was a game?» Emily, you’ve always been so naive.

So predictable. He went to the dresser. Pulled out his socks, rolled into balls, and threw them into the suitcase.

He moved quickly, businesslike. Like a man with little time and much to do. The apartment will be sold the day after tomorrow, he continued in the same icy tone, not looking at her.

«As you probably already know. I’ll get the money. By power of attorney. You won’t get a cent.»

He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather forecast. As if 15 years of their marriage, this home, this life meant absolutely nothing. «You can’t do this,» Emily whispered, though she understood how stupid it sounded.

He not only could. He was already doing it. «I can.

And I will,» he snapped the suitcase shut. The click of the locks sounded like a sentence. He turned to her.

«You’re a fool, Emily. You’ve always been one. You lived in your made-up world where everything is right and fair.

But the world isn’t like that. In it, the one who is bolder wins. The one who takes what he wants.

Sophia and I want to be happy. And we will be. And you, you’ll stay here, in this little town, with your righteousness and broken trough.»

His words were like blows. Each word hit the mark. And at that moment, something in her exploded.

The remnants of fear, humiliation, despair gave way to pure, unclouded hatred. «You’ll get nothing,» she shouted. This outburst of defiance surprised even her.

«I’ll go to the bank tomorrow morning. We have a joint account. I’ll withdraw everything to the last cent.

These are our joint money that we’ve saved for 15 years. You won’t get them.» She threw it in his face like a challenge.

This was her last line of defense, her last hope. The money they had saved for old age, for a rainy day. The amount was decent.

Enough to start a new life. David looked at her. And laughed.

It wasn’t a cheerful laugh. It was a scary, mocking laugh of a man hearing a naive child’s threat. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes.

Emily fell silent, thrown off by his reaction. After laughing, he wiped his eyes. Went to his desk in the corner of the room, pulled out a drawer, and took out a folded sheet of paper.

He approached her and tossed the sheet onto the bed. Right on the bedspread she had made that morning. «Withdraw it,» he said, grinning.

«Try.» Emily looked at the paper distrustfully. It was a bank statement.

From their joint account. She picked it up. She stared at the numbers, but her brain refused to comprehend them.

List of transactions. Long, the whole sheet. Last six months.

Cash withdrawals. Cash withdrawals. Amounts varied, but always large.

$5,000. $7,000. $10,000.

Every week, sometimes twice a week, money disappeared from the account. She reached the last line. Account balance.

Zero. A round, perfect, merciless zero. She raised her eyes to David.

He stood with arms crossed, enjoying her face. He had waited for this moment. He savored it.

«You, you took everything,» she whispered. «Everything,» he confirmed. «To the last penny.

The last transfer I made last week. You never checked the balance. You trusted me.»

He hadn’t just planned to steal the money from the apartment sale. He had already stolen everything else. Everything they had built and saved together.

All 15 years of their life he had simply erased, cashed out. Turned into a zero on the bank account. Emily stood in the middle of their bedroom, in the apartment being taken from her, with the statement in hand that told her she was an absolute bankrupt.

They hadn’t just taken her future. They had stolen her past too. She wasn’t just on the threshold of ruin.

She was already at the bottom. David grabbed the suitcase and, without turning, left the bedroom. Emily heard his quick steps in the hallway, the click of the front door lock.

Then silence fell. Absolute, dead silence, like in an empty house that had just been abandoned. She remained standing in the middle of the room, with this bank statement in her hands.

The paper was thin, almost weightless, but it pressed on her with the full weight of 15 years of deception. Zero. This zero wasn’t just a number.

It was the assessment of her life. Her trust. Her love.

Everything she considered their shared asset, their future, was just dust that he had methodically and coolly swept out of their life over six months. She slowly sat on the edge of the bed. Their bed.

The one they had chosen together in the furniture store, arguing about the mattress firmness. She ran her hand over the bedspread. Everything in this apartment had been chosen, bought, built by them together.

And all of it turned out to be a lie. Props for his long, well-planned scam. She stood and walked through the apartment.

Like a sleepwalker. Peeked into the living room. New couch.

Curtains she had hemmed herself. Went to the kitchen. The kitchen set they had paid off on credit for two years.

She touched things, and they seemed alien, cold. This was no longer her home. It was a crime scene, and she was the main victim who hadn’t noticed until the last moment.

What to do? Where to go? Her mind was a ringing emptiness. Call friends? What would she say? Hello, my husband stole all our money and is running away with my sister, and my mom thinks I’m crazy? They wouldn’t believe. Or they would, but start pitying.

And pity was the last thing she needed now. Pity would finish her off. She replayed the scene at her mother’s in her head again and again.

Sophia’s face, twisted in fake sobs. Her mother’s face, full of righteous anger directed at her. And David’s face, calm, confident face of a puppeteer pulling all the strings.

They were in it together. A strong, cohesive team. And she was alone.

And then, in this abyss of despair, another face surfaced in her mind. Stern, wrinkled, with tired eyes. Michael’s face.

The only person who hadn’t tried to deceive her. The only one who had handed her a hammer and said, «The truth is there.» He was her only chance.

The only person in this collapsed world she could, strangely, trust. She didn’t hesitate. Grabbed her purse, car keys, and ran out of the apartment without turning off the light.

She raced through the night city. Streetlights, shop windows, headlights of oncoming cars all blurred into smeared colored streaks. She was driving to the other end of the city, to an old working-class neighborhood, where her father-in-law lived in a gray nine-story building.

She hadn’t been to his place in several years. David always found excuses not to visit his father, saying he had become difficult, unsociable. Now Emily was starting to understand why.

The entrance greeted her with the familiar smell of old buildings from childhood—a mix of dust, sour cabbage, and something indefinable. The elevator wasn’t working. She climbed on foot to the seventh floor, each flight difficult.

She stood before his door, covered in worn brown leatherette. Her heart pounded. What if he doesn’t accept her? What if he says these are her problems, their family problems, and he doesn’t want to get involved? But there was no other way.

She knocked. Quietly, uncertainly. Shuffling steps sounded behind the door…