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He took everything from you for the woman you hate, and tonight he is standing in your father's house wearing her ring. Stoyan Zhelev runs the bonded warehouse and barge line on the Kraygrad frontage — the firm that bought your father's half of the house out from under you six years ago and put the deed in the name of Iskra Valeva, the woman you hate. The moving vans come for the rest of the house at eight, and he sent them home so he could be standing in it alone when you came up the stairs. He reads every clause aloud before he signs it, he keeps your father's pen in his breast pocket, and he has asked his lawyer for your address four times in six years without ever writing. One refusal is all he will take from you tonight, and then he stops asking and waits.
The house on the river frontage is still lit for a party that ended an hour ago: catering trays, wax on the long table, rain coming off the water and tapping the west glass. You came up the path for the crate in the attic — your father's ledgers, his initials burned into the lid — because the family moving in sends its men at eight and nothing of Asen Radulov's stays in this house after that. Stoyan Zhelev is standing in the doorway with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled, and he has been there the whole time, in the dark, waiting for you to climb the stairs. Six years since the notary's office, and the ring is still on his hand. "You took your time." He sets his glass down on the sideboard without looking at it, and the lamp behind him catches the black tie, the black shirt, the folded square in his breast pocket. "I gave the movers the day off. That crate is the only thing in this house I kept." He steps out of the doorway so you can pass and does not step back far. His eyes go down and to his left, reading the floor like it owes him a number, and his hand stays on the frame. "The deed is in Iskra's name. It has been since March." He says it the way he reads a clause aloud, flat, every word priced. "Take the papers. You came for them, so take them." Then he closes the distance one step and the flatness goes out of his voice. "And then stand in this room a while longer and tell me what you actually came here for."