“I’ve had enough of all of you! Your father, you… the entire clan!”
With the gust of a stormy wind, Roman burst into the apartment. The scent of alcohol and shallow rebellion clung to him as he stomped across the light parquet, leaving streaks of dirt in his wake. Without removing his boots, he paced the living room in restless circles, like a caged animal. His hands moved wildly—sometimes pointing toward the ceiling, other times slicing through the air—all accentuating his every word.
“I can’t live like this! I am not some errand boy! Your father keeps meddling again. He called three times today! Three! He asked why I hadn’t approved the estimate for contractor Ivanov. Because I’m the one thinking, not him! This is my business, damn it! Mine!”
Daria watched quietly from the depths of an imposing armchair, her body motionless except for a slow rotation of the water glass in her hand. The crystal refracted dancing glimmers against her calm, impenetrable face. Her gaze was analytical, almost clinical, as if monitoring a familiar but exhausting episode. She allowed him to vent, to unleash the bitterness accumulated during an evening at the bar. Arguing now would be like pouring gasoline on a fire. She waited patiently for his storm to subside.
“I’m a man! I want to make decisions myself! I want freedom! Do you understand? Free-doooom! I’m tired of reporting every step, every ruble spent! This golden cage of yours is suffocating me!”
Stopping in the center of the room, Roman panted heavily and challenged his wife, expecting tears, pleas, or shouts that would affirm his importance and entitlement to this drama.
Daria set her glass on a small table with controlled, precise movements, devoid of any haste. Rising silently, her collected demeanor hit his drunken rage like a bucket of icy water.
“Freedom?” Her voice sounded even and neutral, utterly free of emotion. “Fine.”
Approaching a chest holding a heavy ceramic trinket bowl, she lifted it with both hands, returned to the coffee table, then flipped it over with a crisp snap, scattering its contents on the polished surface. Two sets of keys spilled out: one for the logistics company’s office, the other a bulky Audi car keychain—both gifts from his father.
Roman froze, staring at the small heap of metal that symbolized his success just yesterday.
“Don’t like the business my father gave you?” Daria continued calmly, deliberately pointing at the first set. “Does the car he gifted you, so you wouldn’t disgrace yourself arriving at meetings by taxi, bother you?” Her finger shifted to the second set. “Does the apartment you live in—where you say you feel stifled—annoy you? No problem.”
She scanned the room, then fixed her eyes on him. They were cold but crystal clear.
“Here,” she gestured lightly toward the table, “are the keys to your freedom. Leave the apartment keys here and walk out. Right now. Go live with your good relatives—your mother, who demands nothing and always admires you. Enjoy your life. I’m waiting.”
“If I and my parents who gifted you the business and car are bad for you, then leave it all and go live with those who are good! I’m sure your mother will only be glad.”
The drunken pride, self-righteous anger, and his feigned masculinity vanished instantly. They drained away like filthy water, leaving a confused, ashamed man caught by his own words. The drunken flush faded from his cheeks, revealing an unhealthy pallor. Standing amid the foreign-furnished living room, in an apartment purchased by someone else’s intellect, he silently regarded the keys that no longer belonged to him, now transformed into an ultimatum.
An oppressive silence filled the room, heavier than any shout. It didn’t ring out; it pressed down, squeezing the last traces of intoxicating air from Roman’s lungs. The keys scattered on the dark wood table appeared like shards of a shattered world—his world—which he had just, in a drunken fit of wounded pride, destroyed himself. The word “freedom,” so intoxicating and heroic in his tirade, now sounded like a sentence: freedom from money, status, and comfort. Freedom to sleep on his mother’s couch in her two-room apartment, freedom to find work away from the shadow of Stepan Gennadievich’s son-in-law.
“Are you… serious?” he whispered, his voice pitiful, not a question but a plea—hoping this was just a cruel joke, another dramatic scene that could be smoothed over.
Daria said nothing. She simply stood, her gaze neither angry nor resentful—only a cold, tired acknowledgment of fact. This look was more frightening than any hysteria. It told him the point of no return had been crossed, the line where no retreat remained. Slowly, like an old man, he sank onto the sofa edge, avoiding her eyes, the keys, and the room suddenly foreign to him.
Time passed—not flying or dragging, just counting moments of his humiliation. Daria took her glass to the kitchen; he heard water flowing steadily from the tap. She made no fuss, no slammed drawers, no displays of superiority. She lived as if he, restless and crushed, no longer existed in this apartment. Returning to the living room, she sat back in her chair, picked up a book from the shelf, placing it on her lap without opening it. Her fingers rested calmly on the stiff cover—a calculated, almost sadistic composure.
Roman realized she would not back down. This was no game. This was the end. And in that end, he was defeated on every front. He could jump up, snatch the apartment keys, fling them on the table, and depart with pride—but where could he go? Pride wouldn’t pay a hotel bill or feed him dinner. He sat, sinking into the sofa, feeling miserable and worthless.
Then Daria made her next move. Without looking at him, she reached for her phone, dialing a number calmly.
“Dad, good evening. Is this a good time?” Her tone was businesslike, flat, as if discussing a quarterly report. “Briefly—I just wanted to inform you that Roman no longer wishes to be involved in our family project. Yes, exactly that. He claims he wants freedom and independence. He feels your oversight hinders his growth.”
Roman raised his head, drained of blood. He gazed at his wife in horror, like a rabbit facing a boa constrictor. She methodically destroyed the last bridges between them, right before his eyes.
“No, nothing happened. Just someone made a decision,” Daria continued, staring at the wall ahead. “He thinks we and our demands are bad, but his relatives, who demand nothing, are good. I guess he wants to return to them. No, I don’t need anything from you. Just keeping you informed about the assets. Yes, I understand. Okay. We’ll wait.”
She ended the call. The soft click of the phone’s lock echoed like a gunshot in the room. Placing it beside the keys—the symbols of his former life—now the polished table held the full set: business, car, and phone, all delivering a final verdict.
“What have you done?” Roman whispered, voice stripped of anger, only raw fear remaining.
For the first time in a long while, Daria looked directly at him.
“Me? Nothing. I simply fulfilled your request, Roma. You asked for freedom. My father is coming to grant it formally.”
The thirty minutes between the call and the key turning in the lock became a torturous ordeal for Roman. He no longer tried to speak to Daria; she was part of the furniture—a beautiful but cold statue sitting in her chair with a book. All his drunken bravado melted into a sticky, nauseating fear. Imagining apologies, dropping to his knees, blaming alcohol—it all seemed useless facing her detached profile. She had already passed judgment; now the executioner would arrive.
The key in the lock didn’t click but turned smoothly and authoritatively—the sound of a master entering his domain.
Stepan Gennadievich did not merely enter the hallway; he commanded it. A large, silver-haired man wearing an expensive cashmere coat he didn’t even remove. His scent was not of perfume but certainty and money—the very substance Roman adored spending and loathed earning. His gaze immediately sought his daughter.
“Dasha,” he greeted with a nod that held no question or concern—only affirmation of their silent alliance.
His heavy, scrutinizing eyes shifted to Roman, who instinctively shrank into the sofa. Stepan Gennadievich surveyed him from head to toe as one inspects a cheap imitation. No muscle twitched on his lips. He did not greet or acknowledge him.
“Stepan Gennadievich, Dasha misunderstood… I just… We had a little quarrel; it happens,” Roman stammered, jumping up, voice shaky as he sought an escape.
“Sit down, Roman,” the father-in-law ordered calmly, leaving no room for protest. “No need to waste time on your pitiful excuses. Let’s talk facts. You wanted freedom. Let’s discuss what you’ll do with it.”
He approached the coffee table, his disgust evident as he glanced at the scattered keys like they were rubbish.
“Starting with the business. You yelled at my daughter today that this was ‘your’ business. Not true. It’s my business where I generously allowed you to play director,” Stepan Gennadievich spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “In the past three months of your ‘independent’ management, the company lost two key clients. Know why? Because you ignored their calls. You were busy enjoying life. You blew the ‘Logist-Trans’ contract I’d been preparing for half a year in one meeting because you showed up hungover and mixed up numbers.”
Roman tried to argue, blame the clients, but Stepan Gennadievich raised a hand, halting any protest.
“Quiet and listen. Your representation expenses last month exceeded those of the entire sales department. You called it ‘networking’. I checked the receipts: three-quarters of those contacts were dinners with your buddies at the most expensive restaurants in the city. You weren’t networking, Roman—you were devouring my money.”
Each word from his father-in-law struck like a hammer blow. No yelling or blaming, just facts. This cold, emotionless verdict was a thousand times more humiliating than any scandal. Roman felt as if his skin was being stripped off, leaving him naked and defenseless before two pairs of icy eyes.
“I thought something could be molded from you,” Stepan Gennadievich continued, looking through Roman now. “That with opportunity, a man would seize it. I was wrong. You are not a creator. You’re a consumer. A parasite. My worst investment. I invested money, time, and family reputation into you. In return, I got drunken rebellion and demands for freedom.”
He paused, letting his words sink into the air, walls, and overwhelmed son-in-law’s consciousness. Then turning toward Daria, his face softened for the first time—not with paternal warmth but business partner solidarity.
“Well, daughter? Shall we close this losing project?”
His question hung in the empty living room like an executioner’s axe. Addressed to Daria but hitting Roman sharply. At that moment, something inside Roman snapped. His last instinct to survive mixed with primal fear made him lash out—meaningless and pathetic. Turning, his gaze full of despair and rage fixed on his wife.
“It’s you! You and your dad!” he shouted, pointing. The hysteria he never received from her spilled from him instead. “You drove me to this! Both of you! Always demanding, never satisfied! I tried, I struggled to meet your standards, but it was never enough! Do you think it was easy living under this pressure? I loved you… yet you made me your trained lapdog!”
Daria rose slowly from the armchair. Her composure cracked, but from that crack poured not hysteria’s heat but an arctic chill of contempt. She stepped toward him, and Roman instinctively recoiled. Her face, previously unreadable, morphed into a mask of such cold fury it felt capable of freezing with just a glance.
“We drove you?” she whispered, slicing through the air louder than his shouts. “We? My father, who pulled you from your hole where you sat jobless and hopeless? Who set up a company in your name because you whined about wanting to ‘be someone’? I covered up your drinking in front of partners, your skips, your ‘creative crises’ when you disappeared from the office for weeks. We gave you a life you could only dream of: the car, so you wouldn’t be ashamed of your reflection; the business, so you felt like a man. We gave you everything, Roman. And you turned out to be an empty shell. A black hole just consuming.”
She came close, looking up at him with eyes burning dark, merciless flames. The humiliation he felt from his father-in-law’s words paled compared to this.
Key Insight: Family gifts can sometimes feel like burdens, especially when expectations clash with personal desires.
“If I and my parents, who gifted you business and car, are bad to you, then leave everything and go live with those you deem good! I’m sure your mother will be glad!”
That phrase, uttered with icy disdain, hammered the last nail into his coffin. She did not yell; she pronounced the final verdict.
Stepan Gennadievich, who had silently observed as if waiting for these words, took it as the signal that the amputation was complete. He stepped forward, positioning himself between Roman and his daughter.
“So, Roman,” his voice measured and official, “the emotional phase is done. Now for the procedure. From this moment, you have no connection with the company ‘Logist-Prime.’ Access to all accounts, personal and corporate, is blocked. Leave the car in the parking lot downstairs. Hand over keys and documents to the concierge—I’ve already informed him.”
Roman, stunned, shifted his gaze between father-in-law and wife. His mind struggled to process the rapid developments.
“You have ten minutes,” Stepan Gennadievich continued, glancing at his expensive Swiss watch. “Gather your personal belongings. Only what you brought into this home yourself: clothes, razor, laptop. Everything bought with my money stays here.”
“But… where will I go?” Roman croaked, a final pitiful question.
Stepan looked at him without a trace of sympathy.
“Taxi is waiting below. I called it on the way here. It will take you to your mother’s. I think she will be happy to welcome her free and independent son.”
It was a complete, calculated, and cold-blooded defeat. Roman stood in a room no longer his home, beside a woman no longer his wife. He felt hollowed out. Slowly, as if dreaming, he walked to the table with his apartment keys. His hand trembled but took them anyway. Without looking at anyone, he tossed them on the table with the others. The dry clink of metal against wood sounded the final chord of their family life. Silently turning, he headed to the bedroom, two icy gazes burning his back. He didn’t pack; just grabbed a backpack filled with old papers and left.
Passing them, he never raised his head. Completely and utterly crushed. The door quietly closed behind him.
Stepan Gennadievich looked to his daughter.
“Tea?” he asked as if nothing had happened.
“Yes,” Daria answered softly, eyes on the lonely keys on the table. “Strong. Without sugar…”
Conclusion
This powerful narrative illustrates a profound family conflict where gifts of wealth and opportunity become sources of tension. Roman’s yearning for independence clashes with the support his in-laws provided, revealing a bitter struggle between freedom and responsibility. Ultimately, the story depicts how expectations tied to inherited privileges can lead to painful reckonings, challenging the meaning of success and personal identity within a family context.