Page 43 of Violent Possession
I close the laptop.
I remain still, staring at the black, lifeless surface. His image still burns in my retina; the sound of my own breathing is heavy, irregular.
None of this should affect me this way. I’m used to dealing with extreme stimuli, with situations ranging from the absolute aesthetic of mathematical control to the visceral anarchy of the physical world. I know, from experience and theory, that every desire is predictable, modellable, reducible to electrical impulse and chemical discharge. With Griffin, it’s just…stronger.
I force myself to get up from the chair. I walk to the bar and pick up the crystal decanter. The sound of whiskey fallinginto the glass is part of a familiar ritual. An antidote, a way to extinguish unwanted heat.
I drink a shot in one go. The liquid numbs the surface of thought, but Griffin’s image only gains more clarity. He pursues me with his gaze, with his gesture.
I hate losing control. The body demands contact, shock, perhaps a fight or a fuck, anything that transforms abstraction into flesh. I force the alcohol to wash it away. I have other things to worry about.
Vasily, the Volkovs, the expansion to the south. The number of a phantom account, an angel’s name. Actions that demand my full attention.
I sit back down at my desk. Numbers, routes, bank statements. My world. Concrete, predictable.
I rub my temples, forcing my focus back to the screen, when the door is opened just enough for Ivan to pass through.
He slides into the room, closing the door softly behind him. I’ve never seen him do that in his life.
His posture is wrong. His shoulders are hunched, his hands are shoved into his pockets instead of crossed over his chest. He’s quiet.
The sight is bizarre. There is no fury in the way he looks at me.
I lean back in my chair. He approaches the table.
“Vania,” I say. “You look worried.”
He finally moves, rubbing his damp palms on his thighs, unable to look me in the eye. It’s a pose so out of character that I barely recognize the cousin who grew up crushing chicken necks with his bare hands.
“It’s Vasily,” he begins, softly. “He’s acting strange.Verystrange.”
I keep my expression neutral, though inside I feel a pang of satisfaction. Ivan is fragile, and the crack has widened. “Strange how?”
“He doesn’t talk to me like before. He only calls to ask about routine things—how many men are at the pier, who made the last deposit, when the next shipment arrives, that kind of crap. He doesn’t even look me in the eye. He asked about Vladimir three times in five minutes, and I even caught him intimidating one of my guys, grilling him with questions. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Vasily was already counting me as dead.”
He stops, then. Swallows hard. At the mention of Vladimir’s name, his eyes fill with a strange shadow, a childlike guilt.
“Lyosha...”
The diminutive, coming from him, forces me to look beyond the muscular, hypertrophied subject I’ve had to endure for decades.
“...I need to tell you something.”
He comes closer. Pulls up the chair in front of my desk and sits down, his shoulders slumped. Vania, who used to destroy toys in anger and then apologize without knowing how. Things like that don’t change, do they?
“Odessa,” he says. “Vasily’s contact... was a federal agent. You know that, right?”
That’s what they’ve been trying to force me to swallow. Vasily with his ready answer—local traitor, gratification from some bribed henchman. Everyone conformed, except me. Now, Ivan pronounces the name as if swallowing glass.
“I know.”
He nods. “So. We didn’t eliminate all the loose ends.”
There’s nothing that scares Ivan more than admitting a mistake.
“There was a guy. Port manager. Kirill. Vasily said it was better to keep him alive, that he’d serve as a scapegoat if thepolice got too close. He ordered him to be paid to disappear. But… that Volkov agent? The one with the metal arm. He went to the same hotel as Kirill, so I just…”
The silence lengthens, and I realize he expects an interjection from me, a reprimand that returns the script to familiar territory. I refuse, offering only the vacuum. He hates silence more than anything.
