Page 27 of Violent Possession

“I think... I know the name, yes.”

He doesn’t need to explain. The name Malakov is more than a surname; it’s anecosystem, a constellation of stories about loyalty and massacre, about war deals and alliances that last no longer than a pregnancy. I am one of the few who managed to survive my own bloodline, and if Griffin thought he was facing some random operator, he now knows I am very far from it.

I pick up the tablet from the corner of the desk and light up the screen, opening a file with the most recent fight list from the Circuit.

I slide it within his reach. “Your victory over Ryan impressed the Circuit. There are already five offers for your next fight. Two sponsors are willing to double the previous purse.”

He looks at the tablet and then at me, perplexed.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he asks, and there’s a resigned, reverent respect in his voice.

The doctor covers Griffin’s stump with a clean bandage and prepares an antibiotic injection. He administers the shot in Griffin’s arm and, without a word, gathers his materials, packs everything into his case, and empties the room without a sideways glance.

Griffin remains motionless, except for the slight tremor in his left—and only—arm. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move.

His jaw is tight, eyes fixed on the door, but it’s obvious the doctor isn’t what haunts him. The name Malakov is still reverberating in his head.

I don’t press him. I take a glass from the silver tray, fill it with whiskey again, and let it rest before me, not offering it this time.

“The Sacramento circuit,” I say finally, “will soon be dependent on you. The fight purses will only increase, and you’ll have enough money to disappear, if you so choose. But you won’t. Because money was never the main point for you, was it?”

He remains silent, but his neck shortens, his shoulders hunch forward. Griffin has already realized I offer nothing for free.

“You will keep fighting,” I continue. “The challenges will become greater and greater. The audience will feed on your suffering, and you will give them the show they want.”

A humorless, crooked smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Weren’t we talking about killing your cousin?”

“We have many things to discuss, it seems.”

“Uh-huh,” he clears his throat, forcing a naturalness that isn’t there. “And what do you get from the fights, besides a private show? You have plenty of money.”

“Influence,” I admit. “Perhaps one day I can explain it better to you,” I lie. I don’t let anyone know anything. It’s a rule—a security measure. “For now, you maintain the facade. You have an agent—keep him. He’s a useful cover.”

He nods slowly, absorbing it. Griffin wasn’t trained for politics, but he senses the dangers in every conversation. “And if I lose?”

“Losing is not in your repertoire,” I say with conviction. “That’s why I bet on you. Just don’t kill anyone—not in the ring. You’re already a regular feature at the police stations, and I don’t need federal investigations in my way,Myrddin Griffin,” I test, for the first time, how the name sounds.

The reaction is immediate and visceral. Griffin’s body stiffens in the armchair. A muscle jumps in his jaw, and his gaze, previously just wary, is now a firing line. He hates the name.

“It’s justGriffin,” he warns, his voice low.

There it is. The given name was shredded in juvenile halls, on police reports, in the failed attempts of some social worker to reconstruct a family of junkies, and who knows what else. What’s left now is just the surname, and even that is already half-corroded.

The research I did while the doctor was treating him at the hotel was frustrating—nothing on the father, a health record for the mother who disappeared before he turned eight, no fixed address after twelve. The surnameGriffinappears as a scribble on his birth certificate, then as a code on rehab files, then as a synonym for disorderly conduct, brawling, or attempted murder. The rest is dust. Whatever he was, it was ripped from him with methods so primitive that no one ever bothered to document them properly.

I allow myself a minimal smile of respect. “Griffin, then,” I repeat, confirming the code between us.

Perhaps that’s why I like him. There’s no nostalgia to appeal to, no emotional debt to manipulate.

“Outside the ring, I have a role for you,” I continue, and I try out his preferred name, “Griffin. There’s a loose end from an old family business that went terribly wrong. This loose end was also the target of the man who tried to kill you. He received ananonymous tipand fled before the killer arrived…”

It may not seem like it, but Griffin is good at reading people. He narrows his eyes at me, and my poorly disguised lie becomes obvious.

“An anonymous tip fromyou?” he says, without hesitation.

I smile. Dealing with a presence that isn’t already entangled with the roots of Ivan and Vasily gives me the peculiar freedom to not lie about my own lies.

I couldn’t let Vladimir kill the witness before I questioned him, not now that I had found him. And, at the same time, I needed to create concrete evidence that Griffin was close to him. Saving his life—or acting as if I did—with a tip and escape assistance was a bonus; it would build trust that would be useful to me, just as giving Ivan the false information that Griffin works for the Volkovs would. I only kept myloose endin the roomnext to Griffin’s long enough to convince Ivan. Before Vladimir arrived, he was already in another neighborhood.