Chapter Five - Janice
Marissa calls me into her office the next day.
I know before she says a word. Can read it in the careful neutrality of her expression, the way she gestures to the chair across from her desk like she’s bracing for impact.
“Janice, I’m sorry to tell you this, but we’re going to have to end your internship early.”
The words land with the force of a physical blow, even though I’ve been expecting them. Dreading them.
“Why?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
“There have been some concerns raised about your performance. Professionalism issues.” Marissa won’t meet my eyes. “It’s not personal. Sometimes placements just don’t work out.”
“What professionalism issues? I’ve completed every assignment on time. I haven’t missed a single day. My work has been excellent.”
“The decision has already been made.” Her tone firms. “I’m sorry, but it’s effective immediately. You’ll need to clear out your desk today.”
The room tilts slightly. “Immediately?”
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and this time I hear the truth underneath. She doesn’t believe it either. She knows exactly what this is.
“This is about Dimitri Rudenko.”
Marissa’s expression shutters. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You warned me to stay away from him. I didn’t listen, and now everything’s gone to hell.” My throat tightens. “He did this, didn’t he? He got me fired.”
“Janice—”
“Didn’t he?”
She exhales slowly. “Even if that were true, what difference would it make? Men like Rudenko don’t face consequences for decisions like this. They make one phone call, and careers end. That’s the world we live in.”
“That’s the world you accept.” I stand, chair scraping against tile. “I don’t.”
“Then you’re going to have a very difficult time in this city.”
Maybe. Probably. I don’t care.
I pack my desk in silence: the notebooks I’d filled with observations, the cheap coffee mug I’d bought my second week, the folder of zoning maps I’d been studying.
Everything fits in one small box. Weeks of work, of hoping I’d finally found a place where I mattered, reduced to objects I can carry in both hands.
My best friend Diana meets me outside the building, summoned by a text I sent somewhere between Marissa’s office and the elevator.
“What happened?” she asks, taking the box from my arms.
“I got fired.”
“What, why?”
“I was stupid enough to think a man like Dimitri Rudenko saw me as anything more than a distraction he could dispose of when convenient.”
Diana’s expression hardens. “He got you fired?”
“Not directly. He just made a phone call and let other people do the actual work of erasing me.” I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. “Very efficient. Very clean. No fingerprints.”
“Oh, Janice.”
“I need to go home.”
She doesn’t argue. Diana hails a cab and rides with me back to my apartment in silence, her presence the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart.
***
The heartbreak lasts approximately forty-eight hours.
Then it calcifies into something harder. Sharper.
Anger.
I replay every moment—the way he’d touched me like I mattered, the careful attention he’d paid to my pleasure, the promises implicit in every kiss. The note he’d left that reduced all of it to nothing. The phone call where he’d dismissed me like I was a problem he’d finally solved.
You were a distraction. Entertaining for a while, but ultimately inconsequential.
The words loop through my mind on repeat, stoking fury that burns hotter with each repetition.
He doesn’t get to do this. Doesn’t get to rearrange my life to suit his convenience and walk away without consequences.
If he can change the course of my life, I can change his too.
I start digging.
Not out of curiosity this time. I dig because I want ammunition. I want leverage. I want to hurt him the way he hurt me.
The research starts with public records—property transfers, LLC filings, development permits.
Dimitri’s name appears on dozens of projects across Brooklyn and Manhattan, each one following the same pattern: acquire property in gentrifying neighborhoods, push out existing tenants through renovations or sudden rent increases, demolish and rebuild luxury housing that sells for triple the original market value.
It’s not enough. I need more.
I expand the search, cross-referencing shell companies and ownership structures. The more I dig, the stranger things get. Properties bought and sold through LLCs that exist only on paper.
Money moving through accounts that disappear after single transactions. Names that never appear in public filings despite clearly having decision-making power.
A pattern emerges. Dimitri isn’t just a developer; he’s a front. I already knew it, but now I’ve got proof.
Someone—or something—is using his legitimate business empire to launder money, hide assets, move resources without attracting attention. The deeper I dig, the uglier the picture becomes.
Real estate transactions that coincide with arrests of rival developers. Projects that proceed despite community opposition so fierce it should have triggered government intervention. Permits approved in record time despite missing required environmental assessments.
This is corruption so systemic it has to be protected by something bigger than one man’s influence.
I find the first reference to the Bratva buried in a three-year-old police report about a warehouse fire in Red Hook. The report mentions suspected organized crime involvement, but no charges were filed. The property was later acquired by one of Dimitri’s shell companies.
My hands are shaking when I search for more.
The Bratva. Russian organized crime. Protection rackets, money laundering, human trafficking, extortion. Everything operates in shadows, protected by violence and strategic corruption of law enforcement and city officials.
Dimitri Rudenko is connected to all of it.
The realization hits like ice water. The man I’d been falling for, the man who’d touched me like I was precious, who’d stopped before taking everything because he claimed I deserved better—that man doesn’t exist.
He never did.
What exists is a criminal. A man who destroys communities for profit, who uses legitimate business as cover for illegal operations, who probably has blood on his hands in ways I can’t even imagine.
The man who erased me from his life wasn’t protecting me from his world.
He was protecting his world from me.
***
I spend two weeks compiling everything.
Property records. Financial transactions. Timelines that connect Dimitri’s acquisitions to displaced families and shuttered small businesses. Photographs of buildings before and after his projects touch them. Testimonials from former tenants describing intimidation tactics and sudden evictions.
I can’t prove the Bratva connection—don’t have the access or resources for that level of investigation. What I have is a comprehensive map of gentrification as systematic violence, with Dimitri Rudenko’s fingerprints all over it.
It’s not enough to destroy him. Men like him don’t get destroyed by exposés written by twenty-year-old former interns.
It’s enough to make him bleed.
Diana finds me surrounded by printed documents at three in the morning, laptop screen casting blue light across my face.
“You’re obsessing,” she says, leaning against the doorframe.
“I’m working.”
“You’re trying to hurt him.”
“Yes.”
“Will it make you feel better?”
I don’t answer immediately. Look at the evidence spread across my floor—proof of everything I’d suspected about him, everything he’d hidden behind expensive suits and careful control.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “Doing nothing feels worse.”
Diana crosses to sit beside me, scanning the nearest documents. “This is serious, Janice. If even half of this is true, he could hurt you.”
“It’s all true. I’ve verified everything three times.”
“Then publishing it could be dangerous for you.”
“He already took my internship. My references are ruined. What else can he do?”
Diana’s expression suggests she can imagine quite a lot, but she doesn’t voice it. “What’s your plan?”
“Anonymous submission to investigative journalism outlets. They can do the deeper digging, verify sources I don’t have access to, add legal protection I can’t afford. I just need to give them enough to care.”
“Then what?”
“Then I move on with my life. Finish my degree or find another internship somewhere he can’t reach. Pretend the last three months never happened.”
“Can you do that?”
No. The answer is immediate and certain. I’ll never forget the way he touched me, the way he made me feel seen and wanted and significant. I’ll never forget the betrayal that followed, the casual cruelty of his dismissal.
I’ll carry all of it forever.
“I have to try,” I say instead.
***
The exposé goes live on a Monday morning.
I’m not the one who publishes it—I sent everything to ProPublica two weeks ago, anonymously, through encrypted channels Diana helped me set up. They spent the time since verifying sources, conducting their own investigations, adding depth I couldn’t access.
The final piece is devastating.
It names names, connects Dimitri’s empire to displaced families, shuttered businesses, communities torn apart by development that serves everyone except the people who lived there first. It stops short of directly accusing him of criminal ties—legal probably wouldn’t allow it without harder proof—but the implications are clear enough.
I read it three times, coffee going cold beside me, watching the comment count climb.
There’s no taking it back.
My phone buzzes. I look down and see a message from Diana.
Holy shit. It’s everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, local news picking it up. You did it.
I should feel victorious. Triumphant. This is exactly what I wanted—consequences for Dimitri Rudenko, proof that he can’t just erase people who inconvenience him without anyone noticing.
Instead, I feel hollow.
I close my laptop and walk to the window, staring out at the city that’s chewed me up exactly the way Dimitri predicted it would. Somewhere out there, he’s probably learning about the exposé. Probably already making calls, managing fallout, calculating damage.
Does he know it was me? Will he care if he does?
I press my forehead against cool glass and let myself remember, just for a moment, the way his hands felt on my skin. The way he’d called me beautiful and meant it. The way he’d stopped before taking everything because he claimed I deserved better.
Maybe some part of that man had been real.
Or maybe I’m still just stupid enough to want to believe it.
Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore. I made my choice. Published my truth. Drew a line between who I was before him and who I have to become after.
Whatever we had—if we ever had anything real at all—ends here.
The city glitters below me, indifferent and eternal. In three months, I’ll finish my exchange program and go home. Return to a life that doesn’t include overpriced coffee and men who move through the world like they own it.
I’ll forget him eventually.
I’m lying to myself, and I know it.
My phone buzzes again. It’s an unknown number. My heart stops for a second before I force myself to check.
Flight booked for tomorrow. Come home early. We miss you. - Mom
Not him. Of course it’s not him.
I text my mom back, confirming I’ll be there, and start packing.
Three months in New York. Three months that changed everything and nothing. Three months of learning exactly how far curiosity can take you before it breaks you.