Page 24 of Violent Possession

He pushes up on his one organic hand, and his forearm muscles move almost imperceptively in an attempted twist. He speaks again, spitting each syllable, “FIX ME UP JUST TO SEND SOMEONE TO KILL ME? WHAT KIND OF FUCKED-UP LOGIC IS THAT?”

The blood drips and mixes with the already-red threads of the rug. For some reason, this irritates me more than the violence itself. Griffin’s blood is beginning to form a thin line among the blue flowers.

I raise a hand to my men. They understand. Before closing the door, one of them looks back, perhaps expecting me to ask him to tie up the wild animal. I shake my head, no. I want to see what happens without a safety net.

Griffin’s gaze shifts between me and the office walls, measuring escape routes, possible weapons, maybe evencalculating how long an average human takes to scream for help if their jugular is torn out at the right angle.

The impression he gives is one of an absolute absence of a future. For Griffin, there is only the now, and the now is: me, him, a room decorated with books no one reads, and a rug ruined by blood.

“First,” I say. “I am not Karpov’s man.Karpovis the one who works for me. Second…” Another drop of blood falls. “Please, don’t bleed any more on the rug. It’s a Tabriz original.”

For an instant, he’s just waiting to see if I’ll react. Just curious to see if the hand holding the trigger is steady or frail. If it trembles.

I don’t tremble.

Griffin lowers his eyes. I know it isn’t an admission of defeat. He’s actually focusing on something smaller—the drop of blood escaping from his eyebrow and landing on the ancient rug. His blood. My rug.

He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he brings a hand below his own chest, where the skin was split open by a blow from Vladimir’s blade. He presses, and I can smell the oxidized iron. Then, unhurriedly, he pulls his bloodied hand away.

Griffin drags it purposefully across my rug.

He draws a line, a deliberate stroke, a signature.

I see something in his face I’ve never seen in another man. A mixture of pride and desperation. He doesn’t know if he’ll leave this room alive, but he’s made sure to leave his mark before becoming a corpse.

Primitive. And yet, eloquent.

My blood instinct is to show him the scale of his mistake. I remember Vasily, years ago, rehearsing a speech about the difference between men and animals. He used to say that man is the only creature capable of transforming brutality into a symbol—of making violence a language. It’s poetic, futile poetry.

His provocation forces me to recalibrate everything. There’s no point in threatening or trying to buy someone who has already destroyed their own existential currency.

“You really do commit to your image, don’t you?” I say, and the calm in my voice seems to surprise him. “You leave your mark. Fortunately, I have people who clean. We can now proceed with the important part of this conversation.”

He rises, wavering but defiant. He assesses me.

“Now your rug is worth more. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece.”

Only then does he stand up completely.

“So the killer was yours,” he states. “The cameras. The doctor. All of it was you.”

“Almost,” I say.

Griffin smirks, a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“So what the fuck is your problem? Was this a test? Or just somefunfor you?”

The smirk widens, and I realize he’s about to cross a new line.

“Do you get hard watching others through a fucking camera, is that it?”

He’s trying to drag me into the mud with him. His vulgarity doesn’t offend me; itamusesme.

“Your curiosity about my habits is revealing,” I say. “But you’re clinging to the wrong premise.”

I rise from my chair, slowly. He flinches back instinctively, a minimal movement, but one I register. He doesn’t break eye contact.

“I didn’t send that man. I merely created the ideal circumstances for my cousin, in his panic, to think that sending him was the solution. Vladimir was… an obstacle. Loyal to the wrong person. You…Iron Arm,” I taste his stage name on my tongue, “were the solution totwoof my problems tonight.”