His eyes searched desperately for Yevgenia, but she was already several steps ahead, carrying one of the boys and leading the others behind her, their little faces confused and tired. ‘Yevgenia… wait…’
His eyes searched desperately for Evgenia, but she was already several steps ahead, carrying one of the boys and leading the others behind her, their little faces confused and tired. ‘Evgenia… wait…’
His voice broke. She didn’t stop. Instead, she paused halfway, deliberately turned around and looked at the sea of cameras.
Her voice was calm. Steady. Unwavering.
‘I am Evgenia Morozova,’ she said quietly, but the silence was so thick that her words were clearly audible. “
And these are Viktor’s forgotten children.”
The phrase exploded. For the press. For strangers. For Viktor himself.
Sighs. Endless clicks of camera shutters.
Even the airport’s automatic announcements seemed to freeze, as if the building itself had tensed up to listen. Victor’s heart pounded against his ribs. ‘Evgenia… don’t…’
He tried to step forward, but the security guards, alarmed by the growing crowd, stood between them. Victor’s hand reached out to her. Begging. Desperately. But all he caught was empty air.
His wife looked him straight in the eye, then shifted her gaze to the bodyguards standing next to her.
‘Please take me and my children away from here.’
She didn’t shout. She didn’t beg. She commanded.
The guards hesitated only for a moment before obeying, recognising not the billionaire, but the woman whose pain commanded respect.
‘Evgenia… let me explain…’ His voice was hoarse and hollow.
She approached him again, stopping within reach. The children clung to her dress. Victor could barely breathe. Then she leaned in, her lips close to his ear, her voice barely audible above the roar of the camera shutters.
‘They will remember the man who never picked them up, not the one who carried her bag,’ she whispered.
And then she stepped back. Victor staggered. ‘Evgenia…’
But she was already gone. Security surrounded her, protecting her from the chaos as they pushed through the crowd. The small figures of the children disappeared.
They dissolved into the crowd, swallowed up by flashes of light and raised phones. Victor’s mind was screaming. But his body stood paralysed. Questions continued to rain down around him, louder and more insistent.
‘Mr Morozov, do you deny paternity? Is your company in jeopardy? Is this your mistress?’
The last question snapped him out of his stupor. He spun around abruptly. Hope. He searched for her frantically. But the spot where she had been standing just a few minutes ago was empty.
No cream-coloured dress. No trembling hands. No one.
She was gone. She had disappeared into the chaos she had left him in.
Victor looked down, disoriented. Her designer handbag lay forgotten at his feet.
The absurdity of it all stirred something deep inside him.
Cameras. Noise. Betrayal, now public, irreversible.
And at that moment, he realised that he now saw the world. A billionaire, alone in the airport terminal. Surrounded by questions.
Without a wife. Without children. Only with the burden of a bag he should never have had to carry.
Upstairs, the terminal announcement sounded harsh: ‘Flight 274, boarding has begun.’
Viktor Morozov stood motionless as the world watched his collapse live on television.
Nadezhda locked the toilet door and slid down the cold tiled wall, her knees trembling. The noise of the terminal outside was muffled, but her heartbeat roared louder than any sound. She looked at her reflection in the small, cracked mirror above the sink.
Her mascara was smudged. Her cheeks were red. But now it wasn’t fatigue or fear that frightened her. It was realisation.
Who am I to him?
Her breathing was short and ragged. A few minutes ago, she had been standing next to Victor Morozov, the billionaire she once considered her future.
Now she sat alone, hugging herself and shivering despite the warmth. Somewhere in that terminal, his wife was holding his children, children whose existence Nadezhda didn’t even know about.
Her mind replayed everything over and over, fragment by fragment. Victor carrying her bag. Camera flashes. And then Yevgenia’s face. Calm. Authoritative.
The woman Nadezhda had once envied. Now she feared her.
She covered her face with her hands. But the memories came flooding back, relentless. Memory: Victor’s penthouse. The first night she stayed with him. The city lights sparkled behind the glass walls. He poured her wine, looking at her with eyes she mistook for tenderness.
‘She doesn’t understand me, Nadia,’ he whispered. ‘But you do.’
Nadezhda, twenty-four years old and hopelessly in love, believed him. He touched her cheek, slowly, deliberately.
‘I’m trapped in this marriage. With you, I can breathe.’
She remembered the exact words. How he said them. How they seemed true. Now she heard them differently.