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!»…

She had done what she needed to do. She had made her sister confess. She hadn’t just heard it; she had recorded it.

The phone she held in her coat pocket had been recording since she entered the cafe. This recording was her only weapon. Weak, possibly illegal, but the only one.

She turned, without another word, and walked to the exit. She felt her sister’s triumphant gaze on her back. Let her look.

Let her enjoy her victory. For now. Outside, she took a few steps and leaned against the building wall.

Her legs buckled. Not from weakness. From realization.

She had just looked into the face of pure, unadulterated evil. And this evil had the face of her own sister. Blackmail.

Photo. Negative. This wasn’t just a family quarrel over a man and money.

It was a thought-out criminal operation. She got in the car. Her hands shook so much she couldn’t insert the key into the ignition right away.

She pressed «Stop» on the phone. Saved the file under a meaningless name «Pie Recipe.» Silly, but the first thought that came to mind.

She drove straight to Michael. He was the only one who could understand her. Who could help decide what to do next.

He was waiting for her. When she entered, he immediately saw from her face that something had happened. «You talked to her?» he asked.

Emily silently nodded. She pulled out the phone and played the recording. They sat in Michael’s old kitchen and listened.

Listened to Sophia’s calm, confident voice reveling in how she blackmailed the notary, threatened him with the photo. When the recording ended, Michael was silent for a long time.

He sat with his head bowed low, looking at his hands. «Scum!» he finally exhaled. Quietly.

With quiet, concentrated hatred. «They’re both scum. What do I do with this now?» asked Emily.

«Go to the police. But the recording was made illegally. They might not accept it.

And even if they do, it’ll still take time. And I have none.» Michael raised his head.

«You’re right. No time.

But now we know their weak spot. The notary. He’s afraid.

But he fears Sophia more than us. She has real dirt on him. And we have only words.

But there’s something else.» He stood and began pacing the small kitchen. Back and forth.

Like a beast in a cage. I’ve been thinking, who are they selling the apartment to so urgently. He reasoned aloud.

Cash. Urgency. No checks.

Usually not like that. Ordinary people buying a home check everything a hundred times. Hire lawyers.

Why this one? Connecting with him is like sticking your head in a lion’s mouth. David isn’t that stupid. He must have understood what he was getting into.

Michael stopped and looked at Emily. There must be a reason. Something linking David and this thug.

Something more than just selling an apartment. Maybe a debt? Maybe David owed him money, and selling the apartment is a way to pay it off? This thought seemed logical. It explained the rush, the choice of buyer, and David’s desperate willingness to go to any lengths, including crime.

He wasn’t just fleeing to paradise. He was saving his skin. But where did the debts come from? Emily tried to process it.

Yes, lately he had problems at work, but not to that extent. To borrow from thugs. We don’t know a lot about him, Emily, Michael said bitterly. Both of us.

We saw only the facade he showed us. And what was behind it, he approached her and placed his heavy hand on her shoulder. We need to go back to the apartment.

Right now. He left, taking one suitcase. But he might have left something.

Something he planned to take later. Some trifle, note, document. He was in a hurry.

Might have missed something. The idea of returning to that apartment, which had become a place of torture for her, was unpleasant. But Emily understood Michael was right.

They were acting blind. They needed any information, any clue. They arrived at her building around midnight.

Last hours before execution. Climbed in silence. The apartment met them with ringing emptiness and the light still on in the bedroom.

«Start with his things,» said Michael. «His desk, his side of the closet. Look for anything strange.

Any paper.» They began the search. It was a strange, disgusting feeling.

Rummaging through the things of the man you’d lived with for 15 years, like a thief. Emily opened his desk drawers. Receipts, old business cards, some tech manuals.

Nothing. She checked the pockets of his jackets hanging in the closet. Empty.

Michael methodically scanned the bookshelves, flipping through each book. Emily went to the part of the closet where his winter clothes hung. Old jackets, coats.

Things he hadn’t worn in years. She began mechanically checking pockets. And suddenly her fingers felt something in the lining of an old, heavy winter jacket.

The lining was torn in one place, and inside, between the fabric and insulation, there was something. She carefully reached in and pulled out a folded, heavily crumpled sheet of paper. It was unofficial paper.

Just a sheet torn from a grid notebook. She unfolded it. On the sheet were just a few words, handwritten in uneven, sweeping script.

«Sale is your last chance. After that, I’ll collect the debt from your little sister.» Emily read this phrase over and over.

Cold spread through her body. «Collect the debt from your little sister.» From Sophia.

So there was a debt. And Sophia wasn’t just an accomplice. She was collateral.

Guarantee for repaying this debt. The whole puzzle formed one ugly picture. David got into debt with Raven.

Possibly from those same gambling games Sophia mentioned. He couldn’t pay. And as guarantee, he offered his mistress.

His wife’s sister. And now, to save her and himself, he had to give Raven the apartment. This wasn’t escape to paradise.

It was a desperate attempt to escape the hell he had driven himself into. And at that very moment, as she stood in the middle of the bedroom, clutching this terrible note, she heard a sound. The sound of a key in the lock.

Her heart dropped and plummeted. He was back. David.

Michael, who was at the other end of the room, froze and looked at her with frightened eyes. Emily acted instinctively. She crumpled the note and shoved it deep into her jeans pocket.

The front door slammed. Quick, nervous steps in the hallway sounded. He burst into the bedroom.

He was like a ruffled, cornered beast. His eyes gleamed wildly, hair disheveled. He didn’t notice them right away.

He rushed to the closet, to that very section with winter clothes she had just searched. Where is it? Where the hell is it? He muttered to himself, frantically rummaging pockets, shelves. He shook out things, threw them on the floor.

He was in panic. He was looking for something. Vitally important.

That very note she held in her pocket. And then his gaze darted around the room. He saw Michael frozen by the bookshelves.

Then his wild, panic-filled eyes met hers. Time stopped. He looked at her.

And in his gaze was no anger, no hatred. Only pure, animal horror. The horror of a cornered animal suddenly discovering someone else in its cage.

And that someone was her. His wife, whom he had betrayed and robbed. And now she knew.

She knew everything. The silence in the bedroom rang. They stood opposite each other.

Emily, clutching the condemning note in her pocket, and her husband, David, with the expression of a cornered beast on his face. Michael stood silently by the wall, like a shadow. «What are you doing here?» he finally squeezed out.

His voice was hoarse. He looked from Emily to his father, trying to understand what they knew. «The same as you, apparently,» Emily answered calmly, though her heart pounded so he must hear it.

«Looking for what you so carelessly left.» She saw his gaze dart to her pocket. He understood.

He understood she had found the note. Panic in his eyes turned to dull, hopeless fury. «None of your business!» he shouted.

«Get out of my house.» «This is still my house too,» David, Emily said calmly. «Until tomorrow afternoon.»

That enraged him. He stepped toward her, but Michael immediately stepped forward, shielding her. «Don’t touch her,» he said quietly.

But in his voice was such steel threat that David stopped. He looked at his father, and in his gaze was a mix of hatred and fear. «You too,» he hissed.

«Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Always ruining everything.» «I’m trying to save what can still be saved, son,» Michael answered wearily.

«But it seems too late. You’ve dug such a hole you can’t climb out yourself. Raven isn’t someone to joke with.»

At the mention of that name, David flinched. He realized they knew everything. Or almost everything.

He didn’t argue anymore. Didn’t threaten. He simply turned like a beaten dog and ran out of the apartment, slamming the door with all his might.

Emily exhaled. She pulled the crumpled note from her pocket. Smoothed it.

«Now everything’s clear,» she said. «He’s not just a fraud. He’s also a coward.

He put my sister at risk to save his own skin.» «They deserve each other,» Michael said grimly. «But this changes things.

Now we know what drives them. Not greed. But fear.

He fears Raven more than the police, than court, than us. And this fear makes him go all the way.» They sat in the kitchen, and dawn already filtered through the blinds.

The last dawn in this apartment. It seemed all paths were cut off. Going to Raven and telling him about the deceit was suicide.

Going to the police—useless and long. Pressing David—pointless, he was just a pawn, cornered. «What to do?» Emily whispered, clutching her head.

«No way out.» Michael was silent, looking at the photo of his late wife, Anna, which hung in his apartment and now stood before his mind’s eye. He thought of her.

How she stopped him 30 years ago. She didn’t scream, didn’t threaten. She just showed him she knew.

And that was enough. She was quiet but very strong. And meticulous.

To pedantry. «Anna,» he said suddenly aloud. «Your mother-in-law.»

She was a very methodical person. She wrote down everything. All accounts, all expenses.

She had her own notebooks for everything. She threw nothing away. Emily didn’t understand where he was going…