The Budgetary Inquisition

“And what is this supposed to be?”

Alexey’s voice—measured, steady, and chillingly cold as a scalpel—sliced through the cozy evening quiet of the apartment. Larisa, absorbed in her novel, didn't look up right away. He stood rigidly in the living-room doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on a small paper bag bearing a bookstore logo lying on the coffee table. The tension in his posture, the precise way his thin lips tightened, conveyed an accusatory verdict that required neither jury nor defense.

“It’s a book,” Larisa replied calmly, deliberately returning her eyes to the page she wasn't actually reading. She knew the draining, methodical interrogation was about to begin, and the predictability of the routine stirred a dull, deep-seated irritation in her soul.

“I can clearly see it’s not a sack of potatoes. I’m asking why. You’ve already got an entire cupboard full of those dust collectors—you never reread them anyway. How much did it cost? Five hundred rubles? A thousand?”

He took a slow step closer, his shadow falling over the armchair, completely covering her and the book. He didn’t touch the bag; he didn’t even look inside. He stared at it as if it were the crucial piece of evidence in a major case of embezzling public funds. Alexey worked as a systems administrator at a modest firm and earned an unremarkable salary, yet when it came to the family budget, he consistently behaved like a financial inquisitor. Or, more accurately, when it came to Larisa’s budget. Her income was nearly twice his, but it was her personal spending that was subjected to the most humiliating, relentless audits.

“It’s my money, Lyosha, and I genuinely don’t see why I should have to report back to you over a single book,” she said, her voice still even and controlled, though inside, the familiar cauldron of thick, hot tar had already begun to bubble dangerously.

“Your money?” He sneered, and that quiet, condescending smile was far worse than any physical slap. “In a family unit, Larisa, there is no such thing as ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ There is only a common budget. And I, as the designated head of this family, am obligated to ensure that budget isn’t squandered on nonsensical frivolities. Today, a book, tomorrow, an expensive handbag, and the day after—what? A resort trip with your flighty girlfriends? I reviewed the breakdown of your personal expenses last month. Manicure—two thousand. Meeting with Olya at a café—fifteen hundred. Don’t you think you’re living beyond your practical means?”

He employed his signature lecturing tone, speaking as if he were explaining the very basics of survival to a wayward, overly spoiled child. His primary weapon wasn't a raised, angry voice but a methodical, icy pressure, forcing her to feel like a guilty spendthrift, an ungrateful fool throwing money to the wind—money he supposedly safeguarded for their ultimate "common good." But something finally snapped today. Perhaps the final, breaking point was this tiny book—the one small thing she allowed herself, for her soul, for herself.

Larisa slowly closed the novel. The distinct snap of the cover sounded deafeningly loud in the room's sudden silence. She set the book on the table beside the damned bag and slowly stood up. She looked him straight in the eye, and in her steady gaze there was no longer a trace of apology, no weary submission. Only a cold, powerful rage, accumulated and solidified over years of slow erosion.

“Fine. Let’s talk about the budget then. Show me your breakdown. Right now. Where exactly do you spend your own salary? I don’t see a thing from you contributing to this house beyond a pack of cheap dumplings once a week and your endless moralizing. Where does your money go, Lyosha? You don’t buy yourself clothes, you don’t pay the rent or utility bills. What are you spending it on?”

He was utterly blindsided. This was a low, unprecedented blow, a strategic move he could never have predicted. She had never gone on the offensive before. He was entirely accustomed to her pouting, making lame excuses, and ultimately, giving in to his control.

“That’s absolutely none of your business!” he snapped, but for the first time in many years a visible note of panic slipped into his voice. “A man shouldn’t have to account to his wife for every single penny!”

“Oh, is that so?” Larisa laughed bitterly, and the laugh grated like metal scraped on glass. “So I must, and you don’t? How utterly convenient. Very, very convenient. You know what, I’m exhausted by your games. I’ll just take a look myself.”

She turned sharply and headed toward the bedroom, where her laptop lay open on the nightstand. He rushed frantically after her, his face twisted with poorly concealed dread.

“What are you doing? Don’t you dare! Larisa!”

But she had already lifted the lid. Her fingers flew by habit to her online banking site. She didn’t need his password. She simply switched accounts; his password was already saved in her browser. She had never done this before, blindly trusting his alleged honesty. Her fingers danced swiftly over the trackpad, scrolling through the long, incriminating list of transactions from recent months. And there they were. Small, almost invisible transfers of two, three, five thousand rubles. Every few days. Recipient—Alexey Viktorovich K. Memo—“for household needs.” He had been skimming money from her bit by bit like a back-alley rat. And there were much larger sums, too. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand. Every single month, on the exact same day—the day after his salary came in. Recipient—Margarita Alexeyevna K. His sister. The entire horrifying picture snapped into focus with blinding, cold clarity.

“So you’re actively supporting your sister while living entirely at my expense? And you have the spectacular nerve to demand reports on every small purchase I make? Haven’t you got a hell of a nerve, my dear? You won’t see another kopeck of my money!”

Alexey looked at the streaming numbers, the bold names, the precise dates, and his face turned as stark white as a hospital sheet. His carefully constructed world of total control and elaborate lies collapsed in a single, devastating second. The game was irreversibly over.

---

The Execution of the Parasite

For the first few seconds after her sharp, furious outburst, the room was a thick, viscous vacuum. Alexey stared, hypnotized, at the laptop screen, at the cold, streaming lines of figures that mercilessly dissected his double life. He felt absolutely no remorse or regret. He felt only the animal, icy fear of a professional thief who has been unmasked. His face, initially pale from the shock, began to flush with an unhealthy, dark red.

Larisa didn’t wait for pathetic explanations or flimsy excuses. She sat firmly in the chair before the laptop, her back perfectly straight, like a steel rod. Her movements were swift, precise, and utterly, surgically merciless. Click after click, she methodically changed every password. Online banking, the mobile app, personal accounts, investment accounts. Each distinct keystroke was the sound of another nail being driven into the lid of his coffin. He stood there staring at the back of her head, at the focused way her fingers fluttered across the keyboard, and understood with chilling certainty that he was losing not merely access to her money. He was losing power—the sweet, intoxicating power of a petty tyrant he had so long and painstakingly constructed.

“What are you doing?!” he croaked out when at last the full scale of the catastrophe hit him. “You’re destroying the family!”

“The family?” She didn’t turn around. Her voice was cold, detached, and emotionless, as if she were commenting on the completely insignificant weather forecast. “You destroyed the family when you decided you could live off me while simultaneously sponsoring your overgrown sister. You no longer have to worry about a ‘common budget’ anymore. It’s gone. Now there’s simply your budget and mine. Let’s see how you manage to survive on your forty thousand.”

She snapped the laptop shut with a dry, final sound. She stood up, walked around him the way one navigates an unpleasant, foul-smelling obstacle, and left the bedroom. He remained standing alone in a room that suddenly felt alien and hostile. He felt utterly naked, exposed, and thoroughly gutted. His scheme—so simple and "brilliant," having worked without fail for years—had crumbled to dust because of one stupid, insignificant book.

The rest of the evening passed in a silence denser and heavier than any shout or argument. Larisa ate her dinner alone, absorbed in reading her new novel. She no longer looked in his direction. He was nothing to her now, merely a cumbersome piece of furniture soon to be hauled to the dump. Alexey drifted aimlessly around the apartment, unable to settle anywhere. His phone vibrated urgently in his pocket. “Rita” flashed on the screen. His heart plummeted into his stomach. She was expecting the monthly transfer. Today was the day.

He walked into the kitchen, tightly closing the door behind him, and pressed “answer.”

“Yeah, Rit.”

“Hi, Lyoshenka!” Her voice, as always, was coy, cajoling, and utterly entitled—the voice of a woman perpetually used to getting exactly what she wants. “I’ve been texting and texting—why aren’t you answering me? Did you send it? I finally found a pair of expensive boots, and there’s a massive sale right now.”

Alexey pressed his forehead painfully against the cold windowpane. It was dark outside; comforting lights burned in the windows across the way—somewhere out there, normal, predictable life flowed on.

“Rit, there are… some minor financial difficulties right now,” he forced out, desperately trying to keep his voice steady and even.

The pause on the other end was short but instantly ringing with hostility.

“What do you mean, ‘difficulties’?” The artificial sweetness instantly vanished from her voice, leaving only cold, demanding metal. “You got your paycheck yesterday. What difficulties can there possibly be?”

“Larisa… she found out,” he blurted out, frantically shifting the blame onto the only person he could. “About the transfers. About everything. She changed all the passwords, I can’t access anything.”

“So what?!” Rita shrieked so loudly he had to pull the phone away from his ear. “Are you a man or not?! You can’t even put your own wife in her place? What do you mean ‘found out’? You’re my brother! You promised you’d help me! Mom’s pension is peanuts—do you want me to be forced to go to work? As a cashier at the Pyaterochka?!”

Her words slapped his face one after another. There was zero sympathy for his predicament. She cared only about her boots and her personal comfort, which he was utterly obligated to provide.

“Rit, I can’t right now! I barely have any money myself! She’s cut me off from everything!” His voice broke into a pitiful, helpless whisper.

“So you’re just ditching me? Because of that shrew of yours? You let her do this to you? I’m deeply disappointed in you, Lyosha. I thought you were the only real man in our entire family. Turns out you’re just another henpecked weakling. Sort it out with your harpy. But I want the money. I’m waiting for the transfer.”

Short, angry beeps. He slowly lowered the phone. He hadn’t just sacrificed his sister’s happiness. He had sacrificed the last pitiful scraps of her respect for the sake of his own survival. And now he was completely trapped in a crushing vise. On one side—a wife who despised him. On the other—a sister who saw him not as a brother but as a broken, dispensable ATM. And he no longer possessed the money to buy even a brief reprieve from this nightmare.

---

The Verdict and the Freedom

For two agonizing days, the apartment existed in a state of frozen war. They didn’t speak a single word, only occasionally passing in the hallway like two miserable ghosts condemned to share the same physical space. Larisa was pointedly calm and preoccupied with her own affairs. She worked, she read, she cooked dinner meticulously for one, and this deliberate, complete ignoring ate at Alexey worse than any loud scandal. He, on the contrary, rapidly deflated. Deprived of access to her income, he also completely lost his arrogant swagger. He crept around the house meek as a mouse, his shoulders slumping, with the hunted, panicked look of a man driven irretrievably into a corner. He feverishly tallied the remnants of his meager salary, realizing that after paying the phone loan and a couple of small debts, he would barely have enough left for bus fare and the cheapest pasta.

On Saturday afternoon, as Larisa, back from the gym, was unpacking her bag in the entryway, the doorbell rang sharply. The ring was impatient, almost hysterical—a short, angry trill, repeated twice. Without turning around, Larisa tossed over her shoulder to Alexey, who was sitting miserably in the living room:

“Open it. It’s surely for you.”

He rose nervously from the sofa but didn’t manage a step. Larisa herself turned and yanked the handle. Rita stood on the threshold. She was in full battle dress: bright makeup that in daylight looked like cheap war paint, gaudy but low-quality jewelry, and an expression of extreme, righteous indignation. She had clearly come for a final, decisive war.

“I’m here to see my brother,” she threw out, instantly attempting to push past Larisa into the apartment.

“And his wife doesn’t mind the intrusion?” Larisa didn’t budge an inch; her body had become an insurmountable, immovable barrier. She gave Rita a cold, utterly appraising once-over from head to toe, letting her gaze deliberately linger on the chipped nail polish and cheap fabric.

Alexey appeared from the living room. Seeing his sister, he paled even further.

“Rita? What are you doing here? I told you…”

“Told me what?” Rita screeched, ignoring him and addressing only Larisa, the chief enemy. “To wait patiently while you sort things out with your shrew? This is all your fault! You turned him against me, against his own sister!”

She made another forceful attempt to push into the entryway, but Larisa merely angled her shoulder a fraction, and Rita violently collided with it like a concrete wall.

“First of all, it’s ‘you,’ not ‘thou,’” Larisa said in a glacial tone, correcting her grammar. “We haven’t drunk bruderschaft. Second, I didn’t turn anyone against anyone. I simply stopped paying to maintain a grown, perfectly able-bodied woman. Your brother decided he could buy himself a pet that needs constant food, water, and pampering. Only he, for some inexplicable reason, paid for this expensive show entirely out of my pocket. The show is now over.”

Alexey, standing miserably between them, looked utterly pathetic. He tried to bleat out something, but couldn’t get a single word in edgewise amid the sharp, stinging exchange.

“Girls, let’s please just calm down…” he pleaded weakly.

“Shut up!” both women barked at him in perfect unison.

Realizing she couldn’t physically force her way in, Rita switched to direct, cold demands.

“This is his apartment too! I have a right to be here! Lyosha, tell her! You promised you’d help me! I’ve got an important interview coming up—I need money for new clothes, for transportation! You can’t just abandon me like this!”

She looked at her brother with a plea heavily laced with an unshakeable command. She still clearly believed her tame, obedient brother would now stomp his foot and put “that bitch” in her rightful place. But Alexey only shifted his gaze helplessly from his sister to his wife.

Larisa smirked. It was a cruel, contemptuous smirk.

“An interview? Where would they take someone without experience or education? Although I hear the Pyaterochka across the street urgently needs a cashier. They issue the uniform for free, so you won’t even have to spend money on clothes.”

It was a precise, devastating punch to the gut. Rita gasped with immediate outrage, color flooding her face. The very thing she had shrieked at her brother over the phone in a moment of hysteria, this woman now flung back in her face as a calculated fait accompli, a permanent brand.

“Lyosha! Are you going to let her talk to me like that?!” she pleaded, turning to him one final, desperate time.

Alexey stood with his head bowed low. He couldn’t meet either his sister’s furious eyes or his wife’s cold gaze. His utter silence spoke louder than any words. It was an admission of complete and final defeat to both women.

Rita understood everything in that instant. The pleading vanished from her eyes, leaving only pure, concentrated hatred. She measured them both—the traitor brother and his triumphant wife—with a long, venomous look.

“May you both drop dead,” she hissed.

She pivoted abruptly and clattered loudly down the stairs. Larisa watched her go in silence, then closed the door calmly, without a slam. The lock clicked with the finality of a guillotine. She turned to her husband, who stood frozen in the entryway like a pillar of salt.

“You can pack your things and go to her. I’m not feeding the two of you any longer.”

He flinched as if physically struck. He had expected anything—shouting, bitter reproaches, gloating laughter. But this calm, methodical relegation of him to the category of domestic trash was the most terrifying thing of all.

“We were a family, Lara. We loved each other. What happened to you? Where did all this bile come from? All this malice? Is some book, some insignificant money, really worth destroying everything we built?”

He tried to desperately appeal to the past, to those feelings he hoped still smoldered within her. It was his last, weakest card.

Larisa looked him straight in the eyes, her gaze hard and brilliant as a diamond.

“Family? Love? Lyosha, wake up. Family is when you look in the same direction, not directly into someone else’s wallet. Love is when you care and protect, not when you constantly use. You didn’t love me. You loved my income, my comfortable apartment, my financial security that you appropriated. You built yourself a convenient world where you’re the benefactor generously spending my money on your sister, and the stern master meticulously counting my pennies. That isn’t love. It’s financial parasitism. And I no longer intend to be a donor.”

He stepped closer, his hands clenching into feeble fists. A final, pathetic spark of anger flickered in his eyes.

“And what now? You’ll just throw me out on the street? You think I’ll just leave? You’ll be all alone. With your money, with your stupid books. And you’ll die here alone, because no one needs a cold woman like you!”

It was his last shot. The ancient threat of loneliness. The only thing he could still try to scare her with.

But Larisa only smiled. Quietly, almost tenderly—and that surprising tenderness sent a final, deep chill racing down Alexey’s back.

“Loneliness is living with someone who doesn’t respect you, actively robs you, and fundamentally despises you. So I’ve been alone for many, many years, Lyosha. It’s just that you were always inconveniently there beside me. Now you won’t be. And that isn't loneliness. It’s freedom. You’re no man. You’re no husband—you’re nothing more than an appendage to your sister! Her sponsor! Only now, no one from your clan, including you, will get another kopeck out of me. And as for you—I’m divorcing you.”

She said it as simply as if she were talking about uninstalling an unnecessary program from a computer. And in that terrifying simplicity lay the final, crushing cruelty. She wasn’t just throwing him out. She was annulling him, erasing him from her life, denying him even the right to call himself a person. She had reduced him to the level of a mistake that needed to be corrected.

Alexey stared at her, and his face slowly hardened into a mask of defeat. He finally understood it was over. There were no words, no threats, no manipulations left that could possibly affect her steel resolve. He had lost everything. Not just the battle over money. He had lost himself.

Silently, without looking at her, he turned and walked heavily to the bedroom. Larisa heard him open the wardrobe, heard the heavy thud of clothes being shoved roughly into a sports bag. The sound of the zipper closing rang loud and final in the quiet room. A few minutes later he emerged, already dressed, bag in hand. He didn’t look at her. He walked past her like a stranger. In the entryway, he stopped, pulled a spare key from his pocket, and set it gently on the console. Then he opened the door and left.

Larisa was alone in an absolutely silent apartment. She sat back in her armchair, staring out the window, where the cold, indifferent evening was gathering. There was no joy, no relief, and no sorrow on her face. Only emptiness. A huge, clean, sterile emptiness where a life had been scorched to ash. The war was finally over. Everyone was dead. And she was the only one left alive to go on living upon this vast, clean wasteland.