Page 174 of Violent Possession

The east is his: the ports, the warehouses, the docks, the monopoly on direct violence. The west is for me: the offices, the offshore holdings, the invisible lawyers, and above all, the Circuit, the only part of the machine that still excites me.

The old man turns and, with slow steps, disappears into the gloom of the hall. Ivan follows him with his eyes, and when we are alone under the dripping awning, he looks at me, full of that childhood malice, but also something deeper, a resentment that only ferments inside those who have always been relegated to second place.

I realize, with a touch of vertigo, that now there is no longer a judge.

“It’ll be fun to see how long you last,” Ivan says. Behind the bravado, there’s someone who has finally been given a blank check to crush his prodigy cousin. “The Circuit is a pretty toy, a shame it won’t even last until Christmas.”

He spits on the ground, adjusts his jacket, and leaves, disappearing among the damp lights of the parking lot.

There is no real victory. That is the only true tradition of the Malakov family. But, for now, I will allow myself to wear the label—victory.

I’m sure my part in the story will be no less cruel than the others’.

The limousine is waiting for me, with the driver in a black suit standing outside, holding the door open. I get in with an automatic gesture, feeling the cold leather on my lower back. The cabin glass is opaque, and the insulation is total.

The asphalt streams past the window, and I type orders on the tablet, firing off messages to my men, to Karpov, and to every pawn and bishop who hasn’t yet realized the board has been flipped.

For a second, I can hear Vasily’s laugh, dissolving in the rain.

You won, Alexei. But you’re going to lose everything just the same.

Maybe.

But tonight, I won. And tomorrow, the work continues.

GRIFFIN

The sun set hours ago and only absolute night remains. The city lights blinked on one after another through the panoramic windows, turning the glass into a private planetarium; millions of tiny lamps stretching to the black sea. This should help distract, but it doesn’t.

I’m alone, and the emptiness of the room only highlights the obsessive rhythm of my steps on the Persian rug—a trail of static that will soon wear out the pattern, from how much I’ve been walking in circles.

His words to me echo in my head in an infinite loop.

If I don’t come back by dawn, take the money, the passport, and disappear.

Just like that, simple. As if he were teaching me how to use a fire extinguisher or program the washing machine. At the same time, it was an instruction so sincere and direct that it hurt more than any romantically elaborate goodbye. It didn’t need drama, a will, a handwritten letter; I just had to obey.

Except he knew—we both knew—that I wouldn’t. No matter how risky it was: if Alexei didn’t come back, not only would I not disappear, I would do the opposite. I would tear the world apartuntil I found his bones. I wasn’t the type to wait for the end of the play to applaud or leave at intermission; I would stay until the final act, even if it meant dying on stage.

I look at the bottle of Veuve Clicquot chilling in the silver bucket. It was supposed to be a celebration. A silent commemoration of our small victory against his world. Now, the bottle mocks me.

Plan B: drink the entire bottle of champagne by myself, cry a little on the very expensive Persian rug, and then burn the whole world down until there’s nothing left.

It’s the waiting that kills me. Not the prospect of failure, torture, or death, but the suspended moment, the absence of information, the terror of imagining that the next news will come over a security guard’s radio, or through a notification on that burner phone. Is he okay? Did his family devour him alive, like a pack of elegant, well-dressed wolves?

My one arm trembles, itching to break something—a glass, a neck, anything solid to prove I’m still here.

I get so distracted by my own suffering that I almost don’t notice when the sound infiltrates the room. First, a click. Then, a muffled noise of a magnetic card scratching the electronic lock.

The apartment’s security sensors register the movement but don’t go off—a sign that the biometrics match. A sign that it’s him. Or someone who stole his finger.

The doorknob turns. The door swings open just enough to reveal a sliver of the outside hallway.

The smell of wet concrete mixes with expensive cologne and a trace of smoke. It’s him. There’s no mistaking the silhouette: the tailored jacket, the hair slicked back with gel.

But his eyes… his eyes give everything away.

Alexei enters the apartment like a ghost returning to its own body. He moves slowly, without his previous imperial impetus. The first thing he does is close the door behind him, with agesture so precise that the click is engraved in my mind. Then, he drops the keys on the silver tray—a gesture I’ve never seen, because Alexei never left anything to chance.