Page 142 of Violent Possession

“Want company?”

I want to accept.

“No,” I cut in. “You’re staying here.” I take my wallet out of my pocket, take out a black credit card, and slide it across the table. “Don’t use the same card as last time. Use this one. Order whatever you want.”

I glance at him, just to make sure the instructions were received.

“Keep your gun close. Don’t leave the apartment for any reason.”

Griffin looks at the card, the new gold around his neck, his own blurred reflection on the marbled surface. I realize that I never learned to be responsible for anything other than myself, and Griffin realizes that, too.

“Understood,” he replies, simply, without sarcasm.

And his silent acceptance is, somehow, more intimate than anything that happened before.

CHAPTER 9

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON

GRIFFIN

The mattress I wake up on is hard enough to remind my back of every punch I took yesterday, but the sheets are so soft they’re irritating. It makes me want to rip them, to spoil a little of all this perfection. The weight on my chest is light, from a solid gold chain.

I open my eyes. The room is so large it creates an echo; the ceiling, white, with no chandelier or expensive decoration, just a monolithic slab. Dawn’s light drips through the glass windows, revealing a city choked with smoke, grease, and false promises.

I’m in Alexei Malakov’s bed.

Last night was a blur of pain, vodka, and his absence. After Alexei left, the apartment, once a prison, became a strange refuge. I followed his orders. I took a hot shower and ate the most expensive Thai food I’ve ever seen, straight from the container, sitting on the floor of a living room worth more than everything I’ve ever owned. And I waited.

The hours dragged on. The adrenaline dissipated, leaving behind an exhaustion that weighed on my bones. I took the gun he gave me and brought it to bed with me, leaving it on thenightstand, and waited for him to come back and kick me out onto the sofa.

Instead, he was gone for hours.

I passed out at some point. I only woke up hours later, in the pitch-black room, to the soft sound of the door closing. I felt the other side of the bed sink under a new weight. Alexei. He lay far from me, inches away, smelling of cold night air and something metallic—blood, probably not his—clinging to him.

I should have pretended to be asleep. Standard tactic. But the night had broken all the rules, and the silence between us now felt wrong.

I turned on my side, moving closer. I draped my arm over his chest—a suicidal gesture, maybe. At least it was honest. His body tensed instantly. He wasn’t used to being touched without warning, I realized. That was fine. Neither was I.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I felt the muscles in his back relax. He stayed, allowing the contact.

“Did the rat sing?” I whispered against the skin of his shoulder.

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. “Rats always sing,” he said, low and tired. “Vasily has been more careless than I thought. He’s using my cousin’s recklessness as cover for his own moves.”

“And Seraphim?”

Alexei took a deep breath. “Your friend… seems to be playing his own game. He’s not with Vasily, but he’s not with us either.”

I held him tighter. I knew what that was. Survival at any cost. The three of us were products of the same furnace.

“I’ll handle it,” I said, more to myself than to him. “I’ll find Seraphim.”

Alexei covered my hand on his chest with his own, his long fingers lacing with mine. It was the closest thing to comfort he had ever given me. And in the silence that followed, with theweight of his hand on mine and the warmth of his body against me, I finally fell into a real sleep.

Now, I follow the smell of coffee through the silent vastness of the apartment. Everything hurts, but it’s a warm, throbbing pain, the good kind.

Alexei has his back to me, standing in front of the coffee machine. He’s dressed in a way I’ve never seen him: dark, soft-fabric pants and a gray linen shirt, the sleeves lazily rolled up to his elbows, exposing his forearms. Without the business suits, he looks less like a mob boss and more like… a man. A dangerous and ridiculously hot man.