Page 170 of Violent Possession

“No, you didn’t,” I confirm. “But your name is on it. An account opened at Vasily’s request, which received funds from one of his companies.” I touch the screen, opening the detailed transaction page. Ivan Malakov’s name is highlighted. “An account that, conveniently, made regular payments to a certain Kirill Denisov… the so-called witness from Odessa.”

Ivan turns so pale he looks like he’s about to faint.

“That’s a lie!” Vasily slams his hand on the table, his whole body projecting the will to explode. “It’s a setup! You’re trying to turn Ivan against me!”

“I don’t have to,” I reply coldly. “You did that yourself. You always wanted Ivan to do the dirty work, so you could later pose as the savior, the responsible brother. And in the end, the glory would be yours. Never his.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Even Angélica, behind me, seems to have stopped breathing. Ivan’s right arm is visibly shaking under the table. The hatred sprouts, primitive, but it has yet to find a definite target. His gaze goes from me to Vasily, then back to the tablet, to the card, to me again. I see the moment the pieces click into place. He understands.

“Vasily…” Ivan whispers. “Tell me it’s a lie.”

Vasily opens his mouth, but no words come out. Vasily can’t find a ready-made phrase, nor a plausible way out. He looks into his father’s eyes for some lifeline, but receives only stone. I could continue, crush him completely, but there’s no need. The castle has already crumbled: all that remains is the historical record of failure, and no one in the family will forget Vasily’s face at this moment.

At the head of the table, the old man’s expression doesn’t change. But the anger that fueled his eyes is now of a different kind: no longer fury, but the absolute sadness of disappointment.

“You were always careless, Vasily,” I say, like a memory.

It is at this moment that the old man speaks. His voice is weak, but it carries the weight of decades of power.

“Enough.”

The word echoes in the room, final.

He turns to Vasily, and I see there, for the first and last time, all the disappointment in the world. It’s clear that nothing Vasily says will change his fate. My brother turns to his father, his arrogance undone, replaced by a childish fear.

“Father—“

“I gave you a name. I gave you power. And you used it all to rot this family from the inside.” The old man speaks with a clarity that rips through the silence. He rises in his chair, his trembling hands gripping the oak carvings. The effort makes him shake. “Let everyone here be a witness. The Malakov nameno longer belongs to you. You will have no bodyguards, no business, no roof. Whoever wants your head, let them take it. To me, you died tonight.”

The verdict is irrevocable, stripped of any warmth. There is no mercy, no room for another plea for clemency. The old man doesn’t even look at me: the sentence has already been given, the fate already written, and all that’s left is the fulfillment of the ritual.

One of the security guards in black, planted near the door since the beginning of the evening, moves forward in an automatic sequence. He prepares to grab Vasily—to remove him by force, dragging the symbolic corpse into exile.

The patriarch’s hand rises, trembling in the air, and the gesture is also final.

“No. He leaves on his own.”

Silence.

Vasily doesn’t look at anyone. He doesn’t seek help in the shadows of the hall, nor in the depths of his own soul. He just stands up, carefully, fearing that one false move would make his entire body crumble. He smooths his jacket, rebuilding the armor of dignity for the last time, and walks to the door.

The cousins and uncles take a half-step back. The corridor opens for him, a gauntlet of contempt and fear.

When the door closes, what remains is silence. A heavy vacuum where my brother’s future used to be. Across the room, the scattered flock of my relatives is frozen, processing the verdict. My father seems to have aged ten years in ten minutes, sunken into his throne of leather and oak.

I have won. The word is hollow, tasteless.

On an impulse I don’t fully understand, my hand moves discreetly to the inner pocket of my jacket. The burner phone. The link to the apartment.

I slide it out below the level of the table. There is a single, unread notification.

Come back home.

Three words. An order wrapped in a plea, from the only asset who would dare give one to me.

Griffin, likely bruised and impatient, is in my apartment, waiting.

A strange, subtle warmth spreads through my chest, a counterpoint to the glacial chill of the room. My expression doesn’t change for the vultures watching me, yet something inside of me settles.