Chapter 8 - Karina’s Exit Strategy
By three o’clock on Saturday morning, the storm had begun to subside, leaving a thick, clinging mist that hung over the elite suburban enclave of Oak Ridge.
In the master bedroom of Vitaly’s sprawling Mediterranean-style villa, the scene resembled a ransacked department store. Designer suitcases of monogrammed leather lay open across the king-sized bed, overflowing with silk dresses, cashmere coats, and velvet jewelry boxes.
Karina was working with frantic, mechanical speed.
She wore a black turtleneck and designer leggings, her hair pulled back into a tight, severe ponytail. Her eyes were sharp, calculating, and completely devoid of the wide-eyed innocence she had displayed at trade shows and corporate dinners.
She was not a fool; she was a professional survivor.
The moment Vitaly had called her from the expo floor screaming about easement revocations, Karina had accessed the corporate online banking portal. She knew all the secondary passwords; Vitaly had been too lazy to manage his own accounts, often tossing his authentication tokens onto her desk so she could execute personal wire transfers for him.
What she saw had sent a spike of pure ice through her veins.
The primary operational accounts were already frozen under a preliminary protective order issued by Commercial Industrial Bank. The secondary credit reserves were locked. The empire was not merely wobbling; it was in freefall.
She had exactly six hours before the court bailiffs and the bank’s forensic accountants moved to freeze the personal liquid assets.
“Hurry up!” she hissed to her younger brother, a lean young man who was carrying two heavy lockboxes down the marble spiral staircase. “The gold bullion from the safe in the study! Did you get the bearer bonds from the safety deposit box in the basement?”
“Got them!” her brother called back from the foyer. “The car is packed! Karina, we need to leave. If he comes back from that logistics office—”
The heavy double doors of the villa slammed open with a sound like a gunshot.
Vitaly stumbled into the entrance hall. He was still drenched, covered in mud from where he had slipped on the terminal gravel, his shirt torn, looking like an escaped lunatic. He froze at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the suitcases, the open safes, and the piles of luxury goods stacked near the door.
“What is this?” he croaked, his voice raw from hours of screaming. “What are you doing?”
Karina appeared at the top of the landing, holding a small alligator-skin Birkin bag stuffed with international currency bundles. She looked down at him without a shred of warmth, her face as cold and hard as polished marble.
“I’m leaving, Vitaly,” she said flatly.
Vitaly blinked, trying to process the scene through his alcohol-and-trauma-fogged brain. “Leaving? But... we have the anniversary dinner tonight! We have to fight this! The lawyers said—”
“The lawyers told you what you wanted to hear so they could bill you ten thousand dollars for an emergency consultation,” Karina interrupted, walking down the stairs with slow, deliberate steps. “The company is dead, Vitaly. The bank is calling the loans on Monday. The road is closed. By Tuesday afternoon, the bailiffs will be putting seizure seals on the front doors of this house.”
“You... you took the money from the private safe?” Vitaly’s voice rose into a shrill, hysterical shriek. He lunged toward her, his muddy hands outstretched. “That’s my cash! That’s four hundred thousand dollars in emergency reserves! Put it back!”
Before he could reach the bottom step, Karina’s brother stepped between them. He was twenty years younger, six inches taller, and entirely sober. With a single, brutal shove to the chest, he sent Vitaly sprawling backward onto the polished marble floor.
Vitaly crashed heavily onto his back, the breath driven from his lungs in a loud wheeze.
Karina stepped over his outstretched arm, her designer boots clicking sharply against the stone. She didn't even look down at him.
“You’re pathetic, Vitaly,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “You spent three years strutting around like a king, pretending you built an empire, when everyone in this city knew you were just living off the momentum your ex-wife created. The moment she stopped doing your homework for you, you drove the entire business off a cliff.”
“I gave you everything!” Vitaly sobbed from the floor, clutching his bruised ribs. “The cars! The jewelry! The penthouse!”
“And I gave you three years of pretending you were an attractive, powerful man,” Karina replied, opening the heavy front door. The cool night air rushed into the foyer. “Consider our accounts settled.”
She walked out into the mist, followed by her brother carrying the lockboxes. The heavy front door clicked shut.
May you like
A moment later, the deep roar of an engine rumbled outside, the headlights flashing through the frosted glass transom as the luxury SUV sped away down the driveway, leaving Vitaly lying completely alone on the cold, empty marble of his mortgaged mansion.
***
