Another memory: her first modelling job cancelled after Victor saw the photos.
‘You don’t need this anymore,’ he told her. ‘Let me take care of you.’
She smiled. She believed it was love. In the bathroom, Nadezhda closed her eyes tightly, hating herself for this memory.
How long had she been a substitute? An empty space? Was she his rebellion against Yevgenia? Or his insurance policy?
The most terrible thought crept up on her, cold and slow.
Maybe I was never anything.
Tears blurred her vision, her fingers dug into her skin. She remembered Victor’s promises. How he talked about Evgenia as if she were ice. Domineering. Distant. But the woman she saw today was not cold. She was strong. And Victor? He looked smaller than ever.
A knock on the toilet door made Nadezhda jump. Her whole body shuddered.
‘Miss? Are you okay?’ — the cleaner’s voice.
Nadezhda’s voice trembled as she replied, ‘I need a minute.’
The footsteps receded. She began to breathe again. But her pulse was racing.
What now? She had no answer. Victor would not protect her. Not anymore. He didn’t even look for her in the chaos. Not after Evgenia appeared. Because the moment his wife arrived, she ceased to exist.
Her gaze fell on her phone. Dozens of messages. Friends. Strangers. Reporters.
Her name was trending. Her photos had leaked online. The headlines screamed: ‘The identity of Victor Morozov’s mistress has been revealed.’
She was no longer a secret. She was a scandal.
Suddenly, the walls began to close in on her. She staggered to her feet. She made her way to the sink. She splashed cold water on her face. Hoping it would drown out the burning shame.
But the water couldn’t wash away what she felt. A tool. That’s what she had always been. A tool in Victor Morozov’s war against a woman she didn’t really know. A war she had never agreed to participate in.
Her phone vibrated again. Another notification. Another headline.
She dropped it. Let it fall to the floor with a crash.
When she finally looked in the mirror again, she saw it. The end of the illusion.
No glamour. No future. Nothing.
Only Hope. And her mistake.
One thought echoed in her head. I have to get out.
Not just out of this toilet. Out of the city. Out of this story. Out of him.
With trembling hands, she reached for her phone. She opened her latest app for calling a taxi. One destination came to mind.
Somewhere he would never look for her.
She left the toilet, pushing her way through the crowd of waiting passengers. And she realised something darker. She wasn’t running from Evgenia. She was running from herself.
The refuge was modest. Bare walls. Thick curtains. Two bedrooms. CCTV cameras covered every corner outside. For Evgenia Morozova, it was a bigger house than the mansion she once shared with Victor.
She sat on the edge of a simple leather sofa. Her back was straight. The twins were sleeping in the next room.
Her lawyer, Raisa Lvovna, sat opposite her. Silent. Waiting.
Evgenia did not speak immediately. She watched the steam rise from her untouched tea. Finally, without looking up, she asked, ‘Do you think I’m weak, Raisa?’
Raisa hesitated. ‘No.’
Evgenia’s lips tightened. ‘Victor thinks so.’
Pause. Then Evgenia began.
‘At first, it wasn’t obvious. He made me feel lucky. Special, even. I believed him when he said that no one else understood his world. One evening he would bring me roses, and the next he would give me silence.’
Raisa listened, her tablet lying idle on her lap.
‘When I got pregnant, everything changed. He said it was too soon. He said it would damage his image. I wasn’t allowed to attend events. No baby showers. No public photos. I carried our children in silence while he built his empire.’
Her voice did not waver. It was too numb for that.
“I found out about his first mistress when I was six months pregnant. Not about Nadezhda. About someone before her. When I asked him about it, he said I had misunderstood. He made me think I was paranoid. That it was my hormones.
After that argument, he blocked my accounts.”
Raisa’s jaw clenched. She had heard stories like this before. But Evgenia’s restraint bothered her more than her tears.
‘The twins were born prematurely. Emergency caesarean section. I was unconscious. When I woke up, Victor was gone.’
Evgenia’s hands clenched into fists on her knees.
‘I asked the nurse why he wasn’t holding them. She told me. He didn’t come.’
A long silence. Raisa’s throat tightened.
‘Not once?’
Evgenia slowly shook her head. ‘Not once.’
She looked up at Raisa for the first time.
‘The world thinks he’s just an absent father. Cold, maybe. But they don’t know the truth.’
Raisa’s voice softened. ‘Tell me.’
Evgenia took a cautious breath.
‘He didn’t hold his children. Because he didn’t care whether they survived or not.’
Raisa blinked.
Evgenia continued. ‘I once heard him talking to the doctor. He said that if they didn’t survive, there would be fewer complications.’