Page 132 of Violent Possession

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, soft as velvet, but firm as steel. “I apologize for the interruption. To compensate for the inconvenience, everyone’s dinner tonight is on us. However, we will need your cell phones. It is just a formality to ensure the privacy of our associates.”

His men, who until now had been standing like statues, begin to move. They don’t point guns, but the threat is there, implicit in every step. They go from table to table, collecting the devices, and one man tries to protest, saying something about his lawyer, but Alexei’s security guard simply leans in and whisperssomething in his ear. The man turns pale, hands over his cell phone, and says no more.

Only then, after order begins to be restored in the midst of my mess, does Alexei finally turn to me.

He walks around the wreckage of my car, his expensive shoes stepping on shards of glass without even looking away. He stops inches from me. I smell his perfume, expensive and clean, in violent contrast to my smell of blood, sweat, and street.

“Do you have any idea,” he whispers, “of the price of Italian marble?”

I stand there, bleeding, exhausted, my whole body screaming in pain, and the first thing he asks me is about the fucking floor.

I can’t help it. A crooked, bloody smile cracks my face.

“Don’t worry, boss,” I say. “I think the car insurance will cover it.”

I don’t think he liked the joke. He says, “You drove through the facade of a restaurant and terrified a dozen high-society witnesses that I will now have to buy or bury.” He leans closer, speaking low in something that sounds like a growl. “This was a stupid, expensive, and noisy fireworks show in the middle of my territory. What the hell were you thinking?”

I hold on, feeling the blood run down my chin. He’s right, of course. I could have waited. But I’m not like that.

The pain makes me stagger a little, and I lean on the dented body of the car to steady myself. With my free hand, I take Seraphim’s folded paper from the back pocket of my pants.

Alexei raises an eyebrow, watching my movement with a predatory suspicion.

“Finding your rat was deliberate,” I say, unfolding the note. It’s stained with a little blood. “I had help.”

He doesn’t take the paper immediately. His eyes narrow, analyzing my face, then the note, maybe expecting a trap. Finally, he takes it from my hand.

I see the moment he connects the dots.

“This,” Alexei says, “was Seraphim?”

“Through an intermediary. But it was,” I say, still panting. “Seraphim acted behind Vasily’s back. A sign that he’s not loyal to your brother now—he’s not against you.”

Alexei reads the note in silence, and you can see, even from a distance, the microscopic movement of his jaw clenching. It changes everything. The chaos, the blood, the car crashed between the tables—suddenly it’s just scenery for what really matters: the transaction of information. I think the price of a secret was always more expensive than any glass facade, no matter how Italian the marble was.

His shoulders relax only a millimeter. His gaze lifts from the paper and pierces me, and there is no anger there. There is no theater of the outraged mobster, no direct threat, just an absolute calm of someone who is seeing an entire board instead of the pieces.

And it is in this calm that I feel the first wave of true panic. Because if there is one thing I learned from street fights, it is that what kills the most is who feels nothing. Alexei just waits for the moment to attack.

But the moment is not now. Because from outside comes, clear and inevitable, the sound that makes any one of our kind cringe: a siren.

First a small dot, shattering the night, then growing in echo. Everyone is looking the same—security, waiter, even the rich extras, all standing still waiting to see who bleeds first.

“Police,” I say, and the word comes out raspy. “Alexei, we have to get out. Now.”

There is no panic in any muscle of his face. He folds the paper carefully and puts it in his jacket pocket. Then he looks at me, and at the car, and at the bloody man on the table, and weighs it all on an invisible scale.

And then he justsighs. Subtle, paternal, like an adult tired of explaining to a stupid child why you don’t play with knives.

The siren gets closer, and now everyone in the restaurant starts to move. One of Alexei’s security guards pulls something from inside his suit, and for a second I think it’s going to be a shootout—but no. The man brings a cell phone, and Alexei takes it without even looking at him and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

I try to move, but my body hurts in a way it never has before. The blood running down my shirt starts to get cold, sticking to the fabric to my skin.

“Alexei, for fuck’s sake,” I insist.

Blue and red lights create a disco on the sidewalk. Two police cars stop abruptly in front of the restaurant: an old, departmental sedan, and an armored SUV, the kind they only use when they know there’s going to be trouble. Four police officers get out of the first car, looking confused, and only two from the second, but those two look like they’ve already killed someone. The older of the police officers puts his hand on his holster and advances, but doesn’t enter. He’s waiting for something.

I do a quick calculation of the escape route. I can get out through the back if I can stand to run to the kitchen. But knowing Alexei, the place must already be locked from the inside, and any attempt to escape would just be an invitation to become a sieve of ammunition. The other option would be to surrender now and hope that, in the middle of the confusion, someone forgets to handcuff me. But the pain in my ribs tells me that if I lie on the floor, I won’t get up again.