Page 171 of Violent Possession

The victory suddenly has a purpose.

I blank the screen and slip the phone back into my pocket. I look at Ivan, who is still standing, trembling with an anger that has nowhere else to go. Then, I look at the old man, who now withers back into his chair, the weight of the decision already bending him.

Power has changed hands. The family name, and everything that entails, no longer belongs to the exile.

I retrieve the tablet from the table, and Vasily’s too—a merciful gesture, a final kindness to my destitute brother. All the evidence was sent to my father the moment this meeting began.

I turn to leave, because the confrontation is actually already over.

On my way out, Ivan grabs my arm. The touch is hesitant—he’s struggling not to apologize, not to cry, not to scream. “Alexei,” he begins, but I don’t let the sentence form.

“I know,” I cut him off.

I release Ivan and let him deal with his own demons. I cross the room, the eyes of the relatives fixed on me, each one trying tocalculate the new balance of power. Behind me, I still hear Ivan sniffling, like an animal that has lost its pack.

Angélica looks at me. Her eyes shine with an admiration mixed with fascination and terror. She says nothing; she doesn’t need to. The gesture of respect is more eloquent than any congratulations. I walk past her, without a word, and head for the hall.

There, the remaining Malakovs watch me in absolute silence. The echo of the night, of the decision, has already taken over everything.

I think of Vasily—of the cold loneliness that awaits him outside, of the void that will devour him without witnesses. On the other hand, I think of myself: of what I have become, of what I will still need to become, of the sacrifices I will make to justify power. I remember the rooftop, Seraphim’s card, the taste of blood and smoke in my mouth. Victory is not clean, it never was. But it is mine.

It’s easy to interpret these nights as the end of an era. I know, by instinct, that everything that was cut today will grow back, in even stranger forms.

In the end, that’s all Vasily ever was: a scared child, breaking his own toys in the hope that someone, finally, would look at him.

The family limousineis parked right beside, its black body reflecting a distorted image of the mansion and all its past. The driver doesn’t dare open the door, doesn’t even blink. Smart enough not to get involved in the scene of disgrace. But I don’t get in.

He’s there.

I step away from the entrance, giving enough time for anyone who wanted to follow me to give up the idea.

Vasily is on the sidewalk, a few meters ahead, his shoulders outlined under the fabric of his jacket, rigid as if waiting to be shot in the back. There’s no one around—no security guards accompany him anymore, no car waits for him.

He is alone, exiled the moment the sentence fell.

I walk toward him slowly, letting the gravel announce my arrival. I stop beside him, careful to keep enough distance so it doesn’t seem like clemency. He doesn’t turn, nor does he show surprise. Maybe he was expecting this meeting, maybe he doesn’t know how to deal with a world that doesn’t revolve around our domestic wars.

“Where are you going now?” I say without raising my voice. There is no joy in his defeat, only an absolute weariness.

He hesitates, and only after a few seconds does he answer, corroded, low, but firm in a new way. “As far away from you as possible.”

We stand in silence. A man saying he has nowhere left to go, and so he will run as far as his instinct allows.

We stay like that, side by side. I wait. Not to pressure him, but because I know that if there is any truth, any remnant of sincerity in this story, it will sprout now or never. He has been trained his whole life to manipulate, to survive, to never show weakness. But absolute defeat has the power to strip even the most astute of men.

“Why?” I ask. “Why destroy everything, Vasily?”

He finally turns to me. The movement is slow, painful, and his face, framed by the crooked light of the lamppost, looks younger than ever—the same boy who, thirty years ago, pushed me down the stairs just to see if I would cry. The same boy who hid behind his father’s office door, afraid of being beaten.

“He always pitted us against each other, didn’t he?” he says, in a whisper. “Since we were children. One had to be the smart one, the other the charming one. One the brain, the other the facade. He never let us just be brothers.” He looks down at the ground. His posture, once so rehearsed, crumbles. “I wanted to humiliate you, notcrippleyou. I never wanted you to be mutilated, Alexei. It was never about that. I wanted, just once, for you to look at me and see an equal—a brother, not an obstacle.”

There, deep in his eyes, I see that it’s real: the fear, the repression, the absolute lack of self-worth.

What he wanted, in the end, was always a little respect, a little recognition.

And now, when there’s nothing left, he can only confess it.

He puts his hand in his jacket pocket, and by reflex, I prepare my body for an attack, some gesture of self-defense. But all he pulls out is a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He offers it to me—the old, automatic gesture of cousins and brothers who grew up together at parties, funerals, baptisms—and then retracts his arm, remembering that we are no longer on the same side of the world.