Chapter 4 - The House of Glass Cracks
The air inside the exhibition hall felt heavy, charged with the kind of electric dread that precedes a structural collapse. Vitaly stood motionless, his mouth half-open, looking down at the small gold pen rolling toward the base of a high-pressure valve display.
“Pick it up,” someone in the crowd whispered, though no one moved.
Vitaly lunged for his smartphone, nearly dropping the glass device onto the concrete floor. His thumbs scrambled over the screen with violent, uncoordinated jabs. He brought the phone to his ear, his chest rising and falling in ragged, shallow gasps.
“Karina!” he roared into the receiver the second the line connected, not caring that fifty people were watching him unravel in real time. “Karina, pick up the goddamn phone! Where are you? Get to the office right now!”
The voice on the other end was muffled, but the ambient sounds of clinking glassware, laughter, and high-end boutique lounge music leaked through the speaker into the hushed pavilion.
“Vitaly? Honey, why are you screaming?” Karina’s airy, melodic voice sounded distinctly detached from reality. “I’m at the spa in the Grand Hotel. You told me to pick out jewelry for tonight’s anniversary banquet, remember? Did you see the sapphire earrings I sent you on WhatsApp?”
“Shut up about the damn earrings!” Vitaly shrieked, his voice cracking into an embarrassing falsetto that caused several engineers nearby to suppress smirks. “The mail! The registered mail from the Department of Transportation! Did you sign for three registered letters from an entity called NorthStar Rail Terminal?”
There was a brief, agonizing pause on the other end.
“Uh... NorthStar?” Karina’s tone turned defensive, a petulant whine creeping into her words. “Vitaly, that was just spam! Some legal firm sending threats about an easement. You always told me not to bother you with junk mail while you were negotiating the Gazprom tenders! I put them in the bottom drawer with the old tax receipts!”
Vitaly looked as though he had been struck across the face with a lead pipe. His knees visibly buckled.
“You put them in the drawer?” he croaked, his voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated panic. “You stupid, incompetent little girl... Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Those were statutory notices of easement revocation! They’re shutting down the main access road tomorrow morning!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” Karina snapped back, her voice turning sharp and venomous. “I’m your executive assistant, not your corporate lawyer! You told me my only job was to look good at dinners and sign whatever the couriers brought! Don’t you dare scream at me in public, Vitaly! If you’re having business problems, deal with your ex-wife yourself! Everyone knows she’s just trying to rob you because she’s bitter!”
The line went dead with a harsh, electronic beep.
Vitaly lowered the phone. A bead of sweat fell directly onto the screen, blurring the display. He turned his head slowly, looking at Lilia as if seeing her for the very first time.
She stood completely still, her hands resting calmly in the pockets of her emerald blazer. There was no triumph in her expression; there was only the cold, unyielding precision of an accountant closing an open ledger.
“She’s right, you know,” Lilia said quietly. “You didn’t hire her for her mind. You hired her because you wanted an ornament to make you feel like a conqueror. You wanted someone who would nod at your grand speeches and never question your financial recklessness.”
“Lilia... please,” Vitaly whispered, his voice cracking. He stepped closer, reaching out an arm as if to touch her shoulder, but the absolute, freezing detachment in her eyes made his hand drop uselessly to his side. “We can settle this. We were married for twelve years! We built this company from dirt! You can’t just slaughter me like this! Think of the workers! Think of Gavrilych!”
At the sound of his name, Gavrilych stepped forward from behind the table. His expression was stern, his jaw set like an old anvil.
“Leave me out of your excuses, Vitalya,” the old foreman said, his voice deep and gravelly. “When the company hit rough waters last winter, you cut the shop floor’s health benefits and delayed the pension contributions by four months so you could buy that Italian yacht down at the marina. You didn't care about our families then. Don’t start hiding behind our overalls now.”
Vitaly looked around wildly. He caught the eyes of his head of sales, his logistics coordinator, his junior engineers. Every single one of them looked away. Some turned their backs completely, pretending to adjust digital pressure gauges; others simply stared at him with cold, clinical indifference.
The empire he thought he ruled through fear and charismatic noise was made of nothing more than thin, brittle glass. And Lilia had just thrown an iron bolt straight through the center of it.
“You have until midnight to clear your private vehicles from the northern access sector,” Lilia said, turning smoothly on her heel. “After that, any equipment remaining on NorthStar property will be impounded under commercial lien.”
“Lilia, wait!” Vitaly shouted, stumbling forward a step. “Wait! Let’s talk in the VIP lounge! Just five minutes! I’ll give you twenty percent of the company! Thirty percent!”
Lilia didn't even turn around.
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“I don’t want thirty percent of a bankrupt shell, Vitaly,” she said over her shoulder, her voice carrying through the pavilion. “I already own the ground you’re standing on.”
***
