Page 152 of Violent Possession

“And where is my cousin now, Boris?”

“He managed to locate the fighter… said something about a jukebox. He left a few minutes ago. With two others, sir.”

I end the call before Boris can contaminate my direct line.

Immediately, I pull up the screen that monitors Griffin’s vitals and location. He’s motionless in a rundown bar in the port district, near the old train station—smells of mold, sawdust, and zero cameras, exactly the kind of hole where Griffin feels at home. His vitals fill the screen. His heart rate is dangerously high, a peak of pure adrenaline. 180 beats per minute. A fight.

The risk. The impact on the chain of command. The loss of my most chaotic asset, and what that means for the cold war that’s approaching. And, on top of that, the unbearable feeling that Ivan has made a fool of me. The recklessness. The direct disobedience. And the fury that rises in my chest is so cold and sharp it surprises me.

Fuck.

I stand up. The chair slides back. I open my desk drawer, pull the Sig Sauer P229 from its black case, and an extra magazine of ammunition. I put the gun in the holster on my lower back and adjust my jacket.

As I cross the polished hallway, my secretary stares at me with discreet panic. I nod, and she doesn’t dare ask anything. No one dares.

In the elevator, I enter the private code that blocks all other floors and go straight down to the underground garage. My carawaits me: custom armor, immaculate white interior, the smell of new leather, and imminent violence.

I floor the accelerator. The roar of the engine drowns out even my thoughts. Every second is an eternity.

I pull up Griffin’s vitals on the car’s dashboard. High heart rate. I leave it in the background, accelerate, and try to call him.

He doesn’t answer. The number starts to climb erratically. From 180 to 190. 195. 200.

A sign of massive hemorrhage. If the total blood volume in the body plummets, the heart works at its limit to send the remaining blood to the brain and vital organs.

At any moment, Ivan will finish the job and send me a grotesque package just to show off his victory.

I think of Griffin, on a floor covered in shit and blood, facing death with the same crooked smile as always. I think of Ivan, the idiot who never understood the new world, so predictable and animalistic, it makes me ashamed to carry the same blood.

I turn the corner hard enough to lift the Mercedes’ front axle. The tires scream, the black asphalt gleams under the cracked streetlights.

I see the place. It’s worse than I imagined. A corner bar with a failing neon sign, the very picture of decay. It’s the kind of ruin I would turn into a bonded warehouse or a drone station.

I stop the car a few meters from the door.

I don’t wait for my men, who are minutes away. This is personal.

I get out of the car, and the night air hits me, cold and damp. The “music” leaking from the bar is a generic, loud rock song. I notice the damp chill of the pier coming from the dead docks. I hear the unmistakable sound of violence. I feel the eyes of the neighborhood zombies following me, drawn by the car, the cut of my suit, the walk of someone who doesn’t fear bullets. I adjustmy jacket and walk toward the door with a calm I don’t feel inside.

The wooden door is already cracked and marked with shoe prints. I kick it. A single blow. The hinge gives; the door slams against the inside wall. Twenty pairs of eyes study me in panic or euphoria, and the entire bar freezes.

But the sound of flesh being pummeled doesn’t stop.

I see the scene. It’s grotesque even by Malakov standards: two of Vania’s goons leaning against the wall like trash. One of them has a destroyed face, just cartilage and blood. The other holds his arm at a right angle, as if it had been dislocated by a hydraulic press.

In the center of the room, Ivan is on top of Griffin—half of his face already unrecognizable, propped against the remains of a shattered pool table—punching him relentlessly. Griffin tries to lift an arm to defend himself, trembling, trying uselessly to hold Ivan’s fist. He’s already out of strength.

The sound of the punches is deafening. The audience barely breathes.

A strangely pure hatred takes hold of me.

“Vania,” I say. “Stop.”

It’s an order. And everyone in the room knows it. The customers, drunk or sober, try to shrink until they disappear. Even the goon with the crooked nose widens his eyes.

Ivan doesn’t even look at me.

“Get out of here, Alexei,” he spits. “I’m cleaning up your trash.”