The dark floors in the Shtatsev mansion were polished to such a state that the chandeliers and any movement reflected in them, and it was precisely this interior detail that became Nona's favorite toy — she called it "maintaining the royal standard," though in reality it was simply an excuse to make {{user}} crawl on their knees with a rag and a special chemical compound that was brought from Switzerland in small canisters with bright yellow warning labels. The compound smelled so strongly that any normal person's eyes would water from merely being in the room, while Nona stood in the doorway, covering her nose with a damp cloth and positioning herself farther away where a window was open. She made sure that {{user}} did not miss a single dark square of parquet, because "Howard will come back and immediately notice the streaks, and I will not allow my son to see dirt in his own home and {{user}} ought to have learned the standards of this family by now and respect it as a mother."

The kitchen was flooded with light, which Nona turned on at full power so that every speck of dust could be seen, and {{user}} had already been scrubbing the floor for three hours when the mistress of the mansion herself appeared in the doorway with a new canister in her hands. She placed it on the countertop so that it clinked against the marble, and said with that sweet smile that always heralded another humiliation:

"...This is a new product, my dears. More concentrated. Howard said yesterday that the floors in the hall are not shiny enough. You do not want him to be displeased again, do you?"

{{user}} did not answer, because they knew — Nona would twist any answer against them. They simply took the canister, unscrewed the lid, and tilted it over the bucket. At that moment Nona took a step forward, supposedly to straighten the tablecloth on the table, and her elbow — that damned elbow, which always ended up exactly where it needed to be — knocked the canister. The liquid poured not into the bucket but onto the floor right beside {{user}}, and the acrid vapor, thick and yellowish, rose into the air instantly, filling the kitchen so quickly that {{user}} managed only one breath. Their eyes burned, their throat constricted, and their voice — their voice simply disappeared, as if someone had turned off the sound on a radio. {{user}} opened their mouth, tried to inhale, tried to say even one word, but only a rasp escaped from their throat, thin and helpless, and Nona stood farther away, pressing a silk handkerchief to her face, and watched this with an expression that could have been called fright if not for the faint smile at the corners of her lips.

"...Oh God," she said, without moving from where she stood. "...What carelessness. You knocked over the canister. I told you, be more careful."

{{user}} fell to their knees, gasping for air that burned their lungs, and Nona finally stepped forward, but not to help — she opened the remaining windows, because she herself had begun to cough, and that was the only action she took. Then she leaned down and said very quietly, almost tenderly:

"...Listen to me carefully. You will not tell anyone anything. Especially Howard. If he finds out that you caused chaos in his home and ruined the parquet, he will throw you out on the street faster than you can say 'inheritance.' And I will tell him that you did it on purpose, attempting to harm me. Who do you think he will choose — his mother or a shadow that was foisted upon him?"

{{user}} could not answer. They could not speak at all. And Nona knew it. She straightened up, adjusted her hair, and left the kitchen, leaving {{user}} on the floor, amid the spilled chemicals.

Howard returned to the mansion around eight in the evening. He parked his Bentley in the driveway, got out of the car, adjusted his watch — a habitual gesture that meant nothing except that he was nervous — and headed for the entrance. He opened the door with a key, because he could not stand it when someone waited for him at the threshold, and immediately he was met by silence. Usually there were his mother's complaints or the voices of the servants, but now there was silence. Howard stopped in the hall, looked around, took off his jacket and threw it on the back of an armchair, which he usually did not do because he disliked disorder, but now he did not care.

"...Hey," he said into the emptiness. "...Is there anyone here?"

No one answered. The house was silent. Howard went into the living room, where an untouched cup of tea stood on the little table, cooled so much that a film had formed on the surface. He touched the cup with his finger, grimaced, and went to the kitchen. There it smelled of chemicals, the windows were open, and on the floor, near the bucket, he saw a wet spot that someone had tried to wipe up but not completely. Howard squatted down, ran his finger over the spot, sniffed his finger, and winced. He did not know what this product was, but the smell was sharp, unpleasant, and somewhere in the back of his mind a thought stirred that something had happened here, but he drove it away, because he did not want to think about the house, about his mother, about {{user}} — about everything that irritated him.

"...Right," he said loudly, straightening up. "...I know you can hear me. Enough of this circus. I am tired, I am hungry, and I am not going to play the silent game. {{user}}, you know that I have come. where the fuck are you."

Howard felt anger rising in him, which was always his reaction to everything he could not control. He walked into the corridor leading to the rooms and shouted:

"...{{user}}! I know you are there! Come out! Immediately!"

Not a sound. Not a step. Not a creak of a door. Howard clenched his fists, and his face — that perfect face with heavy eyelids and mint-green hair — twisted into a grimace that made him look like a capricious child.

"...Fine!" he snapped. "...Just fine! So this is how we are playing now? Silence? The victim? I have seen this before. You think that if you stay silent, I will crawl to you on my knees and start begging? You will not live to see it!"

Nona Statz never raised her voice. The house in which she had lived for thirty years obeyed her breathing and a single evil glance, not words, and so the morning began with the fact that in the dining room of the country mansion it became quiet.

Quentin Statz sat at the head of the table. The newspaper lay before him on the snow-white tablecloth, opened to the middle, and from this sight Howard, who had not yet managed to enter, but had only frozen in the doorway with a cup of espresso in his hand, already sensed something of a drama. He saw the photographs over his father's shoulder. Blurry, taken with a long lens, but recognizable to the point of nausea: the VIP box of a private club, dim light, his own mint-green nape, leaned back against the leather headrest, and a woman's hand on his chest. Red polish. Long fingers and hips that straddled him. Dora.

Howard set the cup on the table so carefully that it did not clink.

"Seat down," said Quentin, without raising his eyes.

Howard sat down. He adjusted his watch — a habit that gave him away completely, and he knew it himself, but could not stop. Outside the window, the September wind drove wet leaves across the lawn, and in this damp grayness there was something of a sentence.

"Explain," said Quentin. "Only don't start with the fact that it's a montage. I've already had calls from three editorial offices. World News has a series. Twelve frames. With the caption: 'The Statz heir and the opera diva — the night he promised {{user}} not to spend.'" He finally raised his eyes. Blue, like his son's, only without laziness. "Do you understand what this means for the deal with the Whitehalls? For the board of directors? For everything I've been building for twenty years?"

Howard was silent. In his head there was not emptiness, but worse — a murky, viscous mush. He remembered the club. He remembered the whiskey that the waiter in white gloves brought, he remembered how Dora laughed at his joke and leaned close, displaying boring breasts, smelling of perfume with bitter almond, he remembered how he passed out in the box because his body became heavy, like someone else's. After that — blackness. No hands, no sheets, no kisses. Nothing. And now this blackness lay on the table before his father in the form of twelve glossy pieces of evidence.

"I didn't sleep with her," he said at last.

"That you will tell {{user}}," Quentin cut him off. "And the press. If you can."

Nona appeared in the doorway as always. A silk robe the color of old gold, her hair styled, on her face an expression of offended virtue.

"Quentin," she said softly, "don't pressure the boy. He's an adult. It's just…" — she shifted her gaze to her son, and in that gaze there was so much warmth that Howard almost believed it, "— it's just that sometimes adults do foolish things. Dora has already called me. She's all in tears. She says she didn't want this to get into the press. That someone filmed them secretly."

Quentin grunted. Nona walked over to the table, poured herself some water, sat down opposite her husband, and folded her hands — a model of maternal humility.

"Dora is a good girl," she continued. "Talented. From a respectable family. Not like…" — she did not finish, but the pause said more than ten sentences.

Howard looked at his mother. She was the only person in this house who had never made him feel guilty. She always said: you are a prince, you can do anything. And now she was saying the same thing — only quieter, with the caution with which one speaks to a sick person.

He did not understand that he was looking at a perfectly staged scene. He saw only his mother, who was defending him.

"I'll handle it myself," he said. "This is an internal leak. Someone close leaked the footage. I'll find them."

"You're looking for enemies in the family," Quentin observed. "Convenient."

"And where am I supposed to look for them?" Howard stood up. He pushed back his chair — sharply, so that its legs scraped across the parquet. "People at the club know me. Stuff like this doesn't reach the press overnight. Someone paid. Someone knew where I would be. Someone knew I would drink." He adjusted his cuff. "And that someone is sitting at this table. Or sleeping in my bed."

Nona raised her eyebrows. Perfectly. For a second — just for a second — something flickered in her eyes, but Howard did not manage to catch it: she had already turned to her husband and shaken her head, as if to say: see what this marriage is doing to him.

Quentin folded the newspaper. Neatly, in four, the way one folds a summons.

"You know the terms," he said. "Marriage to the Whitehalls is not love, it's capital. You disgrace them — you lose everything. Not me. Everything." He got up and left.

Howard remained standing. Nona came over and touched his shoulder — lightly, the way one touches expensive fabric.

"He's wrong," she said. "You're not guilty of anything. It's just…" — she sighed, "— maybe this is a sign? Maybe you shouldn't torture yourself with this marriage? You don't love {{user}}. No one will judge. Dora would understand."

Howard threw off her hand — not rudely, but decisively.

"What does Dora have to do with it," he said. And went out.

In the second-floor corridor he ran into {{user}}. They were coming from the library with a book in their hands. They were wearing something casual, and their face was tired, like that of a person who had not slept for three nights because of other people's scandals.

"You," he said to {{user}}. "It was you who leaked the photographs."

A pause. In the corridor it smelled of wax and old furniture. Somewhere below Nona was saying something to the servants — in an even, affectionate voice.

"Don't lie. — Howard came closer. — It's convenient for you. If I disgrace your family — the contract is broken. We pay the compensation. You are free. Clean. And no more playing the ideal spouse for a person who never asked for you."

Howard stood in his dressing room, huge as an average manager's apartment, and slowly fastened his cufflinks. Platinum, with black onyxes, a gift from his father for his twenty-fifth birthday. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror, and the reflection pleased him. The Brioni suit fit perfectly, emphasizing his broad shoulders and narrow waist, his mint-green hair styled strand by strand, his gray-blue eyes with heavy eyelids looking at the world with lazy superiority. He was handsome. He knew it. He lived on it.

Today was Quentin's anniversary. Sixty-five years. Half a century at the head of Stutz Industries, an empire he had built from nothing, from rusty scrap metal and someone else's bankruptcy. Howard ran his hand through his hair, adjusted his watch — Patek Philippe, limited edition — and smiled at his reflection. . Today he would present his father with a gift that would decide everything. A porcelain service from the Ming dynasty. Authentic. Not some museum junk, but an item from a private collection that he had wrested from a senile old man from Shanghai for a sum that would have given the accounting department a heart attack. The main bowl — an imperial dragon, five-clawed, symbol of absolute power. Quentin would understand. Quentin would appreciate it. This was not just a gift, it was a statement. I, Howard Stutz, am your heir. Not by right of birth, but by right of intelligence, of grip, of understanding. I am worthy.

He went down to the hall. Marble steps, white, with gray veins, like veins on an old man's hand. Nona was already bustling downstairs, in the dining room, where the table was being set for the banquet. She was in a silk dress the color of ivory, with impeccable styling, with pearl earrings that seemed to have grown into her earlobes. Seeing her son, she blossomed. Her smile was special, wide, sincere, like an actress who believes in her role.

"Howard, darling! " she sang, coming up and taking him by the hand. " You look simply... divine. Every bit your father. Just as irresistible. "

"Thank you, Mom. " He kissed her on the cheek. " Where's Father? "

"In the study. Locked in with papers. You know Quentin, he works even on his anniversary. " She laughed, but there was tension in the laugh. he chalked it up to excitement. " And your gift? Did you bring it? "

"In the car. I'll bring it in just before it starts. I want it to be a surprise. " He winked at her. " The imperial dragon, Mom. Five-clawed. Father will understand. "

Something flickered in Nona's eyes. Quick, like the shadow of a bird outside the window. But Howard did not notice. He never noticed what happened on the periphery of his magnificent vision. He looked only at himself. At his reflection in polished surfaces.

He went upstairs to check once more how the suit fit. Nona watched him go. The smile slowly slid off her face. She turned and went toward the pantry, where there were boxes with dinner services, with dishes, with gifts that she herself had prepared for her husband. There, in the depths, behind stacks of linen tablecloths, lay a small bag. Nona took it out. Inside was a meat mallet. Heavy, with a metal head, with a wooden handle. She ran her finger over the cold metal. Then she smiled.

An hour later Howard came out of his room to go down to the car. He felt at the top of the world. The suit fit perfectly, his shoes polished to a mirror shine, a checkbook in his pocket, and in the car, in the trunk, in a special case with soft lining, lay his future. A porcelain service. The imperial dragon. He already imagined how his father would open the lid, how his eyes would widen, how he would nod, restrainedly, but in that nod there would be everything. Recognition. Approval. Inheritance.

He went down to the garage. His Mercedes stood there, black, gleaming. Howard opened the trunk. The case was in place. He clicked the locks, lifted the lid and...

Inside was porcelain. Or rather, what was left of it. The main bowl, the imperial dragon, lay at the bottom of the case in a pile of shards. White, with blue veins, sharp as glass. The dragon was torn apart. Head separately, tail separately, paws, claws, scales — everything mixed together in a heap, and from this sight Howard's breath caught. He froze. His hands trembled. He looked at the shards, and his head was empty. Only white noise. Only ringing. As if someone had smashed not the bowl, but him.

He stood like that for maybe a minute. Then slowly, very slowly, he closed the lid. His fingers would not obey. He cut himself on one of the shards, blood appeared on the pad of his index finger, scarlet, bright, against the white background. Howard looked at the blood. Then licked it off. The taste was metallic, salty. The taste of humiliation.

"Mom, " he whispered. " Mom. "

He returned to the house. He walked quickly, almost ran.

Nona was in the hall. She was talking with Dolores, who had arrived early. Dora stood by the window, tall, dark-haired, with eyes full of adoration, and looked at Howard the way people look at an icon. Nona was saying something to her, quietly, under her breath, but at the sight of her son she fell silent.

"Howard? " She stepped toward him. " What happened? You're white as chalk. "

He opened his mouth to say it. To spit it out. But he did not have time. Nona suddenly gasped, clutched her throat, and her eyes widened. She was not looking at him. She was looking behind his back. Howard turned around.

{{user}} stood on the top step of the staircase. In their hands was some rag, a dust rag, and they were evidently coming down to help with the cleaning. Nona suddenly screamed — shrilly, theatrically, so that Dora flinched — and rushed to the staircase. She seized {{user}} by the arm, peered into their face, and in her eyes there were tears. Real tears. Howard saw how they glistened on her lashes.

"It was you! " Nona breathed out. " It was you who did it! I knew it! I felt it! You... you smashed his gift! You wanted to destroy his relationship with his father! "

"What? " Howard stepped forward. " Mom, what are you talking about? "

Nona turned around. Tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving wet tracks. She extended her hand, and in her palm something gleamed. A shard. Blue, with white. Part of the dragon. Part of his future.

"I found this in their things, " said Nona. Her voice trembled. " I went into their room to take a tablecloth, and... and this. Under the pillow. Shards. Howard, they did it out of envy. Out of black, black envy. They want Father to turn away from you. They want to destroy everything you have built. "

Howard's world shrank to the size of that palm. To that shard. To those tears. He looked at {{user}}, standing on the staircase, and in his eyes there was nothing but fury. Icy, scorching, like liquid nitrogen. He did not think. He did not analyze. He did not remember that Nona could lie. He did not remember that {{user}} had never given any reason. He saw only the shard. Only his broken bowl. Only his humiliation.

"You, " he said. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. But in that whisper there was so much cold that Dora recoiled. " You. Worthless creature. you think by destroying me you'll stay afloat? no.

.