Page 168 of Violent Possession

“I received news that one of my best men was attacked. Inpublic. By Alexei’s new toy.” He spits the words. “A mutt he pulled from the gutter. A snitch. A dog that served the Volkovs in the past. And what was I supposed to do? Let it slide? Allow a renegade, a traitor, to spit on our name and get away with it? I went after him, yes. I went to collect the debt. And then, when I was just defending myself, defending our honor, Alexei shows up. And who does he defend? The mutt. He points a gun at his own cousin’s head… to protect a rat who attacked one ofmymen inmyterritory!”

He leans back in his chair. The shadows of aunts, cousins, goons, and wives all lean forward, fascinated by the verbal violence. Vasily shifts in his chair, with a small smile that I can decode: an encouragement for Ivan to continue, to dig himself deeper, because the more mud Ivan throws, the easier it will be for Vasily to capitalize.

I feel the expectation of the bodies behind me, the hunger for the next speech. The old man glares at me.

I wait just long enough for everyone to feel the dread of not knowing which side I’ll jump to.

“It’s true.”

The Malakov universe stops. The silence is so absolute I can hear the noise of the oxygen cylinder next to the patriarch, hissing.

“What was that?” the old man roars, and the sound is the opposite of his physical frailty. He leans forward, intending to stand, but his body doesn’t obey.

“I said it’s true.”

Angélica, behind me, drops the glass she was holding. The glass is cushioned by the Persian rug, and the champagne spreads over it. She extends her hand toward me. “Alexei—“ she whispers.

I raise my own hand, a minimal but absolute gesture.Stop. And she stops. The silence returns, heavier than before.

“My cousin, in his… usualeloquence,” I begin, prodding the wound, “is not lying.” I pause. It’s a cruel pleasure.

Vasily now leans forward, his fingers intertwined, his face that of someone sniffing out the next opportunity. Ivan is lost for a second; the expectation of a defense evaporated. He didn’t expect me to agree.

“The man has a past. He attacked one of Ivan’s men. And I defended him by pointing a gun at my cousin.” I pause. “That is the surface of the facts. What Ivan didn’t tell you, because he didn’t bother to ask, was why.”

Vasily throws a disdainful look. I can see the restlessness. He sees the trick; he knows I’m not finished. Ivan, a born fool, still thinks he’s in charge.

“Ivan’s man, the one the so-called rat attacked… was a traitor. He was selling my transport routes, my operations, directly to Vasily, using Ivan’s name and his network as a front to cover his tracks.”

Vasily’s smile doesn’t waver. I see something in his eyes. A flash. The amusement has given way to calculation.

“I didn’t defend any traitor. I protected the only man who had the loyalty and courage to bring me the proof,” I say.

Vasily can’t completely hide it. A muscle in his jaw twitches. He already knows the next line is his, but he waits, because he suspects I still have more to pull.

I continue, “Ivan, before you blame me for protecting a dog, you should ask why your men are so easily bought.”

I wait for the explosion, and I get it.

Ivan slams his hand on the table. “Lies! None of my men would do that.”

It was what I was waiting for. From the side of my jacket, I pull out a small, thin tablet. I turn on the screen, handing it to my father. “Here are the messages, the account numbers, the traced routes. And here are the transfers, the access to the cargo terminals, all done under the password registered in Ivan’s name. But the money ends up, curiously, in an account linked to Vasily.”

The old man takes the tablet and scans the evidence. He doesn’t speak.

Ivan, now, doesn’t know whether to explode or collapse. He looks at Vasily, waiting for a denial.

Vasily just smiles in that way that makes me sick. “Good, Alexei. Very creative.”

“Do you want to call me a liar?” I ask. “Or do you want to admit that, if someone is rotting the family from the inside, it’s not me?”

Vasily raises his eyebrows. “If this were a courtroom, I’d say the evidence iscircumstantial. Unlike you, I don’t bring in mutts to solve my problems.”

The old man raises his hand, ordering absolute silence. He looks at me, then at Vasily, and finally at Ivan, who is sweating like a cornered animal.

“All of you are a disappointment,” he murmurs. “And that’s why someone like me can never die in peace.”

Vasily doesn’t hesitate. He immediately begins to mold himself to the new narrative, his best mask. “Father,” he says, “what Alexei claims has a grain of truth. I was receiving information about him, yes. But not for the reasons he wants to suggest.”