Page 140 of Violent Possession

“I was acquiring a weapon. Not a natural disaster.”

“Too bad for you. You ended up with both.”

I feel the area with less hard fingers, feeling the heat rising between us. Griffin grinds his teeth and doesn’t complain.

“You gave me what I needed,” I admit. “The information about Seraphim... it was crucial.”

His silence is an answer in itself.

I could ask if he’s okay, but Griffin would hate that. Instead, I give his shoulder an affectionate pat when I’m done.

He turns on the stool and looks at me from below, challenging authority with every cell in his body.

“Happy now?” he says.

“No,” I reply. “But less angry, maybe.”

He smiles, tired. He already expected that answer.

I don’t know what to do with this. I guess I never did.

The silence Griffin leaves in the air is like a line stretched to the breaking point—and I, who have always prided myself on being the man who never trembles, feel my fingers waver when I close the zipper of the first aid kit.

He watches me with a quiet disdain, but his eyes—clear, never passive—betray an expectation that verges on the absurd. There is no longer any neutral ground between us, and that terrifies me in a way I would never admit out loud.

I still hear, like an echo, the sound of his voice pleading between moans, the way “sir” escaped him as a necessity. That should give me pleasure, or at least the dry comfort of restored dominance. Yet, the feeling is a deep, nauseating discomfort.

I look at him, at his destroyed body, at the thin, cheap chain that swings on his chest and the St. Michael medallion—ridiculous, meaningless. It doesn’t fit Griffin, who is made of exposed nerves and primary aggression, but there it is: a reminder of a life that doesn’t belong to me, a weakness impossible to accept.

The object irritates me, perhaps because it’s the only thing on his body that I didn’t put there.

“That’s his,” I say.

He takes a moment; the words are slow to come. Instinctively, he covers the medallion with his left hand, the only one that really works. The link of the cord seems too fragile for his neck. “It’smine. It was a gift.”

Seraphim, before me, thought Griffin was worth something. That he deserved an amulet, protection, anything other than use.

For some reason, that makes me want to smash the rest of the apartment.

“I know,” I say, and my voice comes out low, suffocated, but I don’t give him space to explore the weakness. “But it’s not you.”

He bites his lip, trying to hide the impact. It doesn’t work. He swallows hard, his eyes betraying a shadow of insecurity.

The impulse is born there: the urgency to rewrite his story with my own hands. Nothing remains but the desire to mark, to replace the past with something that is irrevocably mine.

I don’t even think: I go straight to the base of my nape, where the clasp of my chain rests. It is a thin line of gold, delicate, but each link was forged in the promises of my lineage. My father put it on me when I turned sixteen, a kind of family seal, an ornamental armor. I’ve worn it every day since.

The chain slides warm through my fingers; the metal carries the astringent smell of vodka, and, perhaps, a little of the shame that now suffocates me. I hold the necklace in the palm of my hand and look at Griffin.

I hold out my hand to him, the golden links wrapped between my fingers.

“This,” I say, “is mine. Now, it will be yours.”

His eyes widen, a childish reflection. Griffin is pure instinct, but he hates to show himself vulnerable, and yet he can’t hide his perplexity at the gesture.

He alternates his gaze between my face and the gold in my hand, trying to gauge the extent of the trap.

“What?” He disguises it with a cheap taunt, “Are you going to give me a gold collar now?”