Page 124 of Violent Possession

The man who survived everything, who challenges me at every turn, who just made a joke about us being married, is now fumbling with a gun because he forgot he only has one arm. And I feel a wave of something I refuse to name.

In fact, I don’t laugh. Instead, I take his hand and position the gun as the missing support hand.

“I know you do,” I say, low. “Just remember to aim.”

I release his hand, but the electric sensation remains, running up my arm even after I move away.

He watches me collect the gun with the still-hot coffee in the cup left behind. He expects me to say something else, to explain myself. But I don’t.

I leave behind the smell of coffee and the unanswered provocations, turning towards the door.

“Alexei,” he calls.

I stop. I look at him over my shoulder.

He’s there, with my gun in his hand, my coffee on the counter, in the middle of my sanctuary. Evenso differentfrom everything, he seems... part of the place.

“Be careful, okay?” he says.

I nod and leave.

Angélica awaitsme on the threshold of my father’s private wing like a sphinx, adorned with blue silk and a lipstick that seems too expensive for this time of day. The corridor is saturated with her scent, a heavy perfume of flowers and spices, made to stifle the hospital decay leaking from the half-open door. She holds a champagne flute, as if the morning never happened, sparkling with a kind of morbid rejoicing.

The queen of the castle of ruins, ready to watch the auction of the last relics.

“Alyosha,” she calls me with an empty smile. “So punctual. He hates waiting, you know.”

“How is he?” I ask, because it’s what is expected of a son, but I already recognize the code: no one asks about the patriarch without admitting weakness.

Angélica swirls the flute in her hand with a rehearsed elegance. “Dramatic, as always. Vasily put on a beautiful scene. He even brought a photo album.” She studies me from head to toe, searching for traces of the two-headed traitor she heard about. She whispers, “Do us both a favor and get this over with quickly. Stress affects my skin.”

She grants me passage with a tilt of her head.

I cross the corridor, feeling the electricity of the confrontation building up. The objective is simple: survive, leave with the minimum amount of damage, prevent Vasily from raising another point on the scoreboard. The rest is cosmetic.

I enter the room. Curtains drawn, dark furniture, a thick rug swallowing the sound of my footsteps. My father is not in bed, but sitting in a leather armchair, contemplating the gardensthrough the closed window. He wears a grey cashmere robe, his legs covered by a heavy shawl. An oxygen tube hangs from his face to the steel cylinder beside him, hissing low with each breath. His face is hollow, his eyes invisible at first. For an instant, he just looks like an old man—but the smell of authority, of unrenounced power, fills the room like toxic gas.

On the small silver table beside him rests a dossier. Personalized stationery, red seal. Griffin’s name is stamped on the cover.

“Alexei,” he pronounces without turning around.

“Father.”

“Come closer,” he orders, pointing to a spot two steps from the armchair.

I obey, feeling Angélica behind me, on watch. I stop where he wants me to, and only then does he turn his head slightly to face me. His eyes are sunken in his skull, but alive. His mouth is contorted in something between contempt and analysis. He dissects me, cell by cell, looking for the gene of failure.

“Your brother brought me this gift,” he says, tapping the dossier lightly. “He says you have becomeweak. That you hired a rat, a traitor, and now you protect him here, right in our financial center.”

I don’t respond. The art is never to speak first.

“You yourself, Alexei,” he spits, “you make him your right-hand man. While accusing your own brother of treason in Odessa.”

“Vasilyisthe traitor in Odessa,” I state.

My father smiles with a cruelty so pure I admire it. A cough comes, deep, which seems to rip his sternum out of place. Angélica steps forward, already with a glass of water, but he waves her away with a minimal gesture.

“Every treason needs proof,” he says when he catches his breath. “Your logic is impeccable, Alexei. Your numbers neverlie. Except when your paranoia about your brother poisons it. Like in Istanbul.”