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Revenge – served cold
Лидия Антонова
What could be worse than the betrayal of a loved one? Only the news that you have been cynically used for several years. And there are only two ways out of this situation: to cower in a corner and weep, or to mobilize all your strength and take revenge!
English (US). Уровень: Intermediate
Обложка сгенерирована с помощью нейросети маджорни мной!
Лидия Антонова
Revenge – served cold
Prologue
A quiet evening suddenly turned into a nightmare that turned my whole life upside down. And all thanks to social media, or rather, my classmates. A letter sent by a strange woman made me forget how to breathe. No, she didn't write anything horrible. She didn't even threaten or insult me, she just threw down some wedding photos. But what pictures! My Dimitri in a light suit hugged a girl in a wedding dress and was completely happy.
My head was buzzing, my heart was beating and freezing. I can't believe his betrayal. We had called yesterday morning to discuss the future renovation of our apartment in Moscow. The house had just been recently completed, and the mortgage was really hard on our pockets. But it's our little nest!
And now it has another mistress!
Shaken and angry, she angrily stammered into the message:
"What's the joke? Go have fun with other fools!"
I was about to send the interlocutor to the ban, as she sent me an upside-down laughing emoticon and a link to VK.
Instead of blocking the messages, I clicked on the link and found myself on the page of a certain Diana Serebryakova (!!!) in maiden name Akhmadulina.
Feeling as if I was made of absorbent cotton, I clicked a few times with my naughty hands and looked through a dozen photos. Here is my Dimitri posing with relatives at the registry office, here he puts a ring on the finger of another, and here he is with her by the pool with a cocktail in his hands.
I couldn't believe it! I wanted to get the message that it was a joke and Photoshopped. But the further I leafed through the album, the more my hopes melted. Dimitri and Diana had been in a relationship for several years, as evidenced by the photo report. Yes, they even had joint photo shoots!
There was only one thought in my head: "How could he?!" He and I have been together for almost five years now. We bought an apartment, paid the mortgage together. For the last year we haven't even had money for tickets to see each other!
A new message from my classmates coincided with the doorbell. I didn't pay attention to the last one, but I went to the messages.
"Don't interfere with the lives of young people's lives. You haven't left them alone for two years. "You lost! Leave the guy alone!"
I swayed in my chair and, unable to hold on, fell to the floor. So all this has been going on for two years? That's when Dimitri started talking about the mortgage. He even managed to convince me to sell the three-room apartment, inherited from my grandmother. Instead of a luxury apartment in a “Stalinka”, I moved into a one-room “Khrushchevka”, and the difference was put down as a deposit.
“Rina, open up!!!” came Ramila's voice.
The best friend pounded her feet on the door. Slowly I stood up, opened the door and, turning around silently, wandered into the room. My friend followed me like a hurricane. She threw a cake on the table and a jingling bag on the sofa and announced:
"The fortress has fallen!”
“А?” I asked indifferently.
“ I say…” she stammered: “What is it with you?”
I didn't have the strength to answer. Instead, she waved toward the computer and, wrapping her arms around herself, swayed from side to side.
“ Here…! …!” Ramilya swore figuratively and lucidly.
I sobbed and cried in response. My brain was feverishly trying to find an explanation for his behavior. We loved each other, we wanted children....
“ Don't cry!”
Ramila shoved a glass of wine under my nose and made me drink it in one gulp. I almost choked a couple of times, but at least I came to my senses.
“ Good!” The torturer was pleased when she caught my angry look.”The cat's tears will be poured back to the cat, the mouse's tears!”
I immediately cried again. The girl in the photo was well-groomed, with a precise figure. But I was really a mouse. Last year I couldn't afford a hairdresser. My hair was still hanging in ugly bundles. Blondes need to touch up the roots almost every three weeks.
“ Don't cry Rina! You've got no one to cry for. Let him cry.”
“ The apartment,” I sobbed.
“ Great loss. My father has a good lawyer. He'll sue him for half of his living space. Let's go right now! Where are your documents?”
Ramila's words and deeds were never at odds, and she burrowed into the drawer where I kept everything important.
“ What documents?” I howled.
“ For an apartment in Moscow. You took a mortgage, and you transferred the down payment to the bank.”
I clapped my eyes, only now realizing that I had never actually seen them. Or rather, Dimitri had sent me a picture of the contract on WhatsApp. I quickly pulled out my phone and, finding the saved pictures, showed them to my friend.
Ramila flipped through the photos in a daze and, sitting down next to me, drained her glass.
“ What a bitch! “she exhaled.
For the next hour we drank wine in silence. Ramila frowned and bit her lips. I wiped the tears running down my cheeks.
“ That's what! We'll get revenge on him! “ said her friend, putting a new bottle on the table.
“With the help of a lawyer?”
“ Eh, Rina, you are not in the contract. Dimitri only took a two-bedroom on himself.”
“ It's more profitable, the interest is lower.”
“ You have less brains, as well as any other fool in love, “ she categorically cut off:
“You must have transferred the money to his card?”
I nodded, causing my friend to groan.
“ You didn't transfer money to the mortgage account. You didn't sign the contract.”
You didn't get him a loan through a lawyer. You could go to the police, but they'd probably tell you to fuck off. The man got married, and the ex-girl showed up to file a complaint.
I gurgled in agreement. Indeed, I'd have to convince the investigator to accept the application first. And then I'd have to go through the circles of hell to get the case prosecuted. All that would require money, and I didn't have any.
I slowly and inevitably began to realize the truth. My beloved man not only abandoned me, but used and robbed me.
“ What to do now?” I was horrified.
I imagined how I would tell my parents about it. Selling my grandmother's apartment, I had to endure a whole war. But my mom told me, warned me…
“ I finally got it! Do you remember my great-uncle on my mother's side? He went to the country with his relatives, and gave my father a house in the Moscow region as a debt. It's no big deal. Just an old building. Not a cottage, of course. I've been hitting on my father for a long time talking about "they'll sell it off", "you have to look after the house". And he kept saying, "How will you be alone there? And I told him I wouldn't move alone, but with you. And then there's Dimitri. So the three of us will live there.”
I sobbed again. If she had told me that a couple of hours ago, I would have jumped from the ceiling with happiness.
“ The plan has changed, of course. But! We're moving to Moscow!”
“What am I going to do there?” I asked dejectedly.
“Oh, please! With your education you won't find a job? Rina, after a language course, you can get a job anywhere. I'll go to a salon to file my nails. And then, in a year, I'll ask my father for mine.”
“ Maybe I should start filing my nails too?” I asked.
“ Don't be silly. You have your own purpose. You're going to take revenge! I've already thought of everything… I'll tell you what! Let's get tickets right now!”
Ramila rushed to the computer and tapped on the keyboard.
“ There are tickets for tomorrow night. But they're coach and side seats, but that's okay. Pack your clothes!”
Chapter 1
A week later, I stood at the bus stop and stared in horror at the business center building. Ramilya made one revenge plan after another, and even managed to infect me with her enthusiasm at one point.
The plan changed every time, but they all started the same way: I had to get a job at the same company as Dimitri.
"Media Help is a pretty big company. They were in the investment business. But I didn't understand where. However, there was only one position in the firm – a secretary. And he doesn't need to know how to invest money correctly, the main thing is to serve coffee on time and not to let unnecessary visitors to the boss. However, I was afraid to go in there, fully confident of rejection.
A phone call brought me out of my thoughts. I shuddered and almost dropped it. But I had to pick it up. Ramila was very persistent and could call for hours without stopping. So it was easier to answer right away.
" Let me guess, you're standing a few meters away from the business center and you want to escape? " Ramila said confidently.
" No, I… Okay. They won't hire me! And what will I gain by it? I'll only wear out my nerves!”
" Don't be silly. Go. Or do you want that bastard to live and enjoy himself? How many times has he called you this week? How many letters? And in the middle of the month, nothing! Payday's coming and you haven't dropped the money.”
My friend knew me better than anyone and hit me at the most painful point, causing a healthy anger.
Ramila's right. Dimitri wrote, as usual, about love and our plans. Only now I was paying attention to something else, in between he reminded me about paying the mortgage. He made a fool of me and used me as he wanted. I wrote a hundred term papers for him in college. I even wrote his thesis. Without me, he'd have been expelled in his third year!
I shook myself up and walked towards the entrance, cheering myself up. At the institute I studied English and French. But after Dimitri's departure, I studied Chinese to have some fun. And since excellent command of languages was the main condition, though they didn't specify which ones, I had every chance.
Having gone up to the fourth floor and having clarified the number of the office from the guard, I joined the queue of those who wanted to get this place. The girls were just like a selection, as if they came off the cover of a magazine. I nervously pulled up the sleeves of my jacket. Though it was already too big for me. Ramila was taller than me and a little bigger in important strategic places, but she wouldn't let me wear hers. I didn't have any new or unwashed clothes. Unless you count jeans and sweatshirts.
" Go, get outta here!”
The blonde girl jumped out of the office and, snorting, ran down the hall. She was followed by a tall, overweight middle-aged woman with a short haircut.
" Who's language level is based on: "I can hardly read and don't understand", you are free to go! " she said.
No one moved. I got discouraged. If such beauties want to get a place, it means the salary is decent. Besides, bosses prefer legs to brains.
" And knowledge of what language is required? " I ventured to ask.
Indeed, if they need Spanish or some Portuguese. And I do not know them. Then it turns out I'm standing here for nothing.
" Come in," the recruiter told me.
" I'm the last one in.”
" If you keep mumbling like that, you'll be the last one in. Come on in.”
I ducked inside the office, to the angry stares of the crowd. And handed over the folder with diplomas.
" Ms.Clarke. And Ms. Adams . Well, very good. Here, read it.”
Ms. Adams handed me a sheet of English text. I exhaled with relief and read it. It was about launching an application on a smartphone. Then there was a description of what it did.
" Ms. Adams! Did you find it? He's already asking! And tell me what to do with it!?!”
A pleasant young woman flew into the office. She stumbled with excessive emotion, catching her heels on the threshold.
" There's the applicant.”
" And this?”
The girl shook the papers.
" Julia, calm down and show me.”
The blonde, nervously waving the crumpled sheets, collapsed on the chair next to me and put them on the table. I glimpsed it, noting the familiar hieroglyphics.
" The partners sent it. He asked: "What's this?" What should I say? Why start a business without knowing the language? I don't even understand what they want!”
" They don't want to, they announce their arrival in a month," I intervened.
" Do you know Chinese? " Ms.Adams was surprised.
" Just a little bit. I am self-taught.”
" You are accepted! " Julia blurted out. " Translate the letter to the end!”
