Page 72 of Violent Possession

“Areyou seeing the old man today?”

A reminder flashes red on the car’s digital dashboard:Monthly visit.

Ivan sighs on the other end of the line. “I’ll go later. Aunt… uh, Angela called. She wants to discuss the costs of the new nursing team. As if I understand a fucking spreadsheet.”

He says the name with little certainty. Ivan is the only one who refers to her as arealrelative, albeit with reservations. Perhaps that’s why she only calls him. My stepmother. I wonder how long it will take until she starts hitting on one of the heirs when the source dries up.

“Leave the costs to me,” I cut him off. “Just be there at four. Has Vasily shown any signs of life?”

“I don’t know,” Ivan replies, too quickly. “I haven’t spoken to him.”

A lie. Or an omission. It’s the same thing. His tone changed. There’s something he’s not telling me.

I grip the steering wheel. The dashboard glows, projecting an animated weather avatar: cloudy, risk of storm. My mood syncs with the meteorology.What the hell are you not telling me, Ivan?The truth is, I don’t know who found Griffin in that blind spot. I don’t even know who is manipulating the variables now.The feeling, for me, is like losing control of the chessboard for a few seconds—and the mere possibilityrepulsesme.

“Really?” I press.

Ivan stutters. “Really. Uh, by the way, your new fighter,”he begins. As subtle as a fucking mastodon. “The kid’s good. Brutal as hell. I liked him.”

Brutal.

He is. In more ways than one. I remember the smell of dried blood in his blond hair, the dry look at the beginning of each confrontation, and then the softness of his face when he broke down in front of me. His voice, hoarse and breathless in this car. His weight on my lap. The ridiculous sound of the horn. His laugh against my mouth. The stain on my twenty-thousand-dollar suit, the way he looked at me after everything.Alex.

A disaster. A complete deviation from the plan. And, for one fucked-up moment, the only thing that mattered.

“Lyosha?”

I force the memory to the back of my mind. Focus.

I clear my throat. “He’s efficient,” I say.

What would break a man like Griffin?

The silence stretches. Sacramento drags in the background like a third-rate diorama, all cracked concrete, lawyer billboards, sick trees. Behind me, in the rearview mirror, I see the escort: two dark cars, tinted windows, men paid to die before me.

“…I really didn’t talk to him,” Ivan says. “To Vasily.”

The denial comes out of nowhere, answering a question I didn’t ask. It’s the clearest confession he could give me. Not only did he talk to Vasily; the conversation made him nervous enough that he felt the need to lie about it so awkwardly.

I don’t confront him. Not now.

“Good,” I say, pretending to believe every word. “Keep it that way.”

“Right,” he replies, almost relieved, almost fearful. “I’ll meet you inside.”

He hangs up. I put the phone on the console, and I’m as tense as if I’d just come out of a fight, not a conversation. Sweaty hands, jaw clenched. I hate that Ivan can affect me so much. I hate even more thatVasily, even absent, is still capable of manipulating the lines of force in my days.

I turn into the mansion’s driveway. The security cameras flash at regular intervals, the facial recognition system activates before I even think of getting out of the car. The gate opens.

The mansion was built with the sole purpose of impressing. The architect hand-picked by my father scoured Russian Baroque references, mixed them with post-war Italian concrete, injected marble columns and bulletproof glass panels. It’s ugly, but impressive. Like everything our family built.

I park the car in the usual spot, under the covered porch. Wet earth, lawnmower gasoline, flowers that only bloom under the ultraviolet lamp installed in the garden. The guards open my door, one hands me a new surgical mask, another already has the metal scanner ready. I roll my eyes. The same thing every time.

I leave two pistols at the entrance. My father insists. He wants his approach to become a ritual, for the visit to inspire fear, respect, and, above all, the feeling that everything can be ended at the next meeting. Even for relatives.Especiallyfor relatives.

I enter the mansion. Every surface shines. Cleanliness is a matter of life or death—my father is terrified of stains, fingerprints, anything that betrays the passage of time. The horror of knowing that objects, too, decay.

The floor is slippery from being so waxed. The first thing I see is the maid Anna, small and bony, operating an industrialpolisher. She sees me and freezes: her shoulders rise, her face melts red, and the polisher almost rips off her arm.