Page 31 of Violent Possession

Vasily arches an eyebrow, curving a fake smile. “Whatever you have to say, Vania, you can say it in front of me.”

Ivan grinds his teeth. He wants to speak, but he can’t. Not while Vasily is here, turning every sentence into ammunition for the next round of internal politics.

I take advantage of the theater. I close my tablet and place it on the table with all the calm in the world. “Vasily,” I say simply. The message is an eviction notice.

For a moment, Vasily doesn’t move—he weighs responses, calculates repercussions, imagines how this gesture will be interpreted. When he finally stands, he adjusts his suit with a sharp tug and gives Ivan one last look. Thisaffrontwill be remembered.

He leaves in silence. Ivan waits only the minimum necessary time before advancing to my desk, his hands clenched into fists and sweat gathering at his hairline. He’s on the edge between fear and fury.

“Vladimir’s gone,” he says.

I feign surprise. “What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t reported since last night. He went to check that lead on the Volkovs’ agent. The fighter.”

“The one with the mechanical arm,” I feign interest.

“Yes! I went to the hotel myself today. The room was clean. Spotless. As if no one had ever been there.” He pauses, and his eyes move quickly, trying to catch a reaction from me. “No trace. Nothing. No blood, no sign of a struggle. Even the bed was made, Alexei.”

I remain silent long enough to let him digest the helplessness of his own account. It’s not just Vladimir who has disappeared, butKirilltoo, though Ivan doesn’t yet know thatIknow who he is. His panic must be escalating: acting behind Vasily’s backalready sounded bad, let alone losing his best soldierandlosing sight of a man who knew too much.

“This isn’t good, Vania,” I say. “This sounds like professional work.”

Ivan swallows hard. The anger on his face begins to fade, replaced by that primal fear, the certainty that he is dealing with a threat that surpasses him on every level. He realizes he wasn’t defeated by some random guy.

“We have to strike back,” he says, but the sentence comes out dead, without a pulse. “We have to find Karpov and find out where he found that fighter in the first place, and if Karpov is also?—“

“No,” I interrupt. “It was recklessness that put you in this situation—and now,that’swhat they’re betting on.”

I rise, pushing my chair back with rehearsed precision.

“Let me handle this. I’ll use Karpov to get to the fighter without raising suspicion. Until then, you do nothing that could expose us. Understood?”

Ivan hesitates. He has always hated taking orders—especiallyfrom me—but he knows he has no alternatives. Finally, he nods with a short, poisoned gesture.

This worked better than expected: Vasily is out of the picture, Ivan is terrified, and instead of being a risk, he has become a hostage of his own inefficiency. I just need to make sure to keep them isolated, feeding them different suspicions that all revolve around the same axis:me.

And I will make sure of it.Griffinwill be my confirmation piece.

It’s a good move: turning the enemy’s knight into your own queen without anyone even noticing the difference.

GRIFFIN

Malakov. Mala-fucking-kov. The name echoes behind the scenes of every important piece of shit in this city.

When I started in this business, I already knew: everything real comes with its own legend. Boogeyman stories for cowards, horror tales for those who’ve never looked the beast in the eye. The Malakovs are the monster you run into in the alley when there are no cops left on the map. Some say one of them tore out a man’s windpipe in broad daylight, pulling out bronchi, blood, and life in a ritualistic spectacle, just because the poor bastard dared to answer his phone during a business lunch. Another story: they encased a traitor in reinforced concrete, then doused him completely in diesel oil, just to watch the son of a bitch catch fire under the noon sun, since suffocating to death wasn’t enough. Everyone who tells these stories makes a point to twist their face, like they’re talking about an urban legend. But every legend is born from a few real teeth.

And in the end, the city revolves around this: horror sold with a premium ticket. I grew up in this shit and was never that impressed. The difference with the Malakovs is that, for them,Tuesday is just Tuesday. There is no “special moment”—any time is the right time to feed the monster.

The truth is, I was expecting the animal. I expected to meet the Malakovs like everyone else: sweating like pigs, spitting bones, drooling blood from their teeth. I didn’t expectAlexei.

The first time I heard about the investor, I imagined an old gangster, saturated with money and boredom, looking for fun in other people’s violence. The kind of scumbag who tries to extract sexual adrenaline from the smell of iron and fear, eating caviar while watching a couple of morons tear each other apart. Those guys are everywhere—all you need is cash and a poorly healed childhood disappointment. Alexei seemed to be just another one of them. Maybe with a better haircut, an extra dose of refined arrogance, but still part of that zoo of rich guys who treat an underground fighting circuit like a toy.

I should have realized it sooner. A man who smells of cedar, wears Italian shoes, and has a perfectly measured Russian accent doesn’t just wander through the world by accident. Most importantly: there are no fucking idiots in the Malakov bloodline. They don’t replicate mediocre DNA.

The story goes that the Malakovs control most of the decks, judges, port inspectors, and politicians from San Francisco to Sacramento. Everyone in the circuit knows this fact better than they know their own mother. There are organizers who panic just from hearing the name Malakov whispered, even three rounds into a bender. The rule is: don’t mess with what doesn’t belong to you. Or you end up becoming part of the legend, and not as the hero.

Honestly, I’m not one to be impressed or lose sleep over a veiled threat. But now, after running into Alexei Malakov in the flesh, I know there’s no “staying out of it.”