Page 172 of Violent Possession
He lights the cigarette, taking a deep drag. Sunken eyes, trembling lips.
“You know what’s funniest, Alexei?” he says, exhaling the smoke. “In Istanbul… I never wanted the men to die. That wasn’t the plan.”
I remain silent, watching him.
“I didn’t betray you,” he says, now looking me in the eye. And the worst part is, I believe him.Istanbul…“You never spoke to me as an equal again. You never looked at me without pity or contempt. In Odessa… I just wanted to create a problem that would force you to come to me. To ask for my help.”
He laughs, without joy.
“Pathetic, isn’t it? Seraphim had already told me you would figure it out. That, in the end, I wouldn’t be able to hide my objective. He was always right about us both.”
That was it. Seraphimwasright after all. The motivation behind the betrayal, the sabotage, the risk.
I really believed that Vasily was a traitor in Istanbul.
The wind blows the leaves across the garden, and I smell the cigarette mixed with the smell of wet earth. It’s a night for a funeral. The deceased is alive, and deep down, he has never been more alive than now.
I take a deep breath and look at him, at the failure he has accepted himself to be. “You wanted a rival who would take you seriously,” I say. “Congratulations. You got one.”
He looks at me, his eyes welling up, but he doesn’t cry.
“Your mistake,” I continue, “was thinking that everything was a game of feelings. Attention. Recognition. It never was. It was always about competence. You just weren’t good enough to play with me.”
I turn to leave, because the conversation is over, because there is no possible redemption for anyone.
“You won, Alexei.” He speaks without raising his voice. “But you’re going to lose everything just the same.”
I stop, my back to him, and think about responding, but there’s no point. What I needed to say has already been said.
I leave him there, alone with his cigarette and the wreckage of a life, a ghost at the gate of the house that rejected him.
I turn and walk back to the car, with weariness weighing down my every step. There is no euphoria in victory.
When I’m halfway there, the heavy sound of the mansion doors opening echoes behind me.
First, a silent stream of relatives. Uncles, cousins, their wives. They emerge as isolated individuals, hurried shadows who avoid eye contact. When they pass me, some just murmurmy name, almost inaudible, “Alexei,” as if the new title of power already weighs too heavily on their tongues. Others avoid even that, looking at the ground, at the sky, at their hands, anything but me. I see in their eyes the panic disguised as prudence, the urgency to build new alliances before Vasily’s corpse gets cold. They are judging me, weighing my authority on their personal scales, trying to guess how many days they will last under the new regime.
Most of them flee to their anonymous Mercedes or armored SUVs, the doors slamming in sync, engines starting at the same time. I imagine how they will tell this night’s story to their children, their mistresses, their lawyers: “Alexei got rid of the crazy one,” they will say, or perhaps, “one of the heirs doesn’t even forgive his own brother.” Each one draws their own narrative of survival.
Only then do I realize that someone has been left behind on the illuminated portico of the entrance.
Angélica.
She doesn’t hurry, doesn’t hide, and doesn’t try to compete with the funereal parade of relatives. She stops at the top of the stairs, the entrance light framing her silhouette. She is the only one who looks me straight in the eye. I play along: I stop in my path, wait for her to come to me. She descends the steps with the precision of an auditor. When she gets close, she maintains the exact distance to feel safe, not submissive.
“They have a new czar,” she says.
I laugh a short, dry laugh. “Not yet. Ivan is still a Malakov.”
She folds her arms, and a crooked smile appears at the corner of her mouth. “Yes, but the old man’s speech was… like awill. You should have stayed to listen. It sounded like he was already reading his own epitaph.”
“Today, maybe. Tomorrow, the conspiracies begin.” I look around, at the gate, at the garden, at the windows of the house. Iknow that somewhere, someone is already on the phone, writing the next chapter of the coup. “No one survives here without preparing their own antidote.”
Angélica nods. “Want some advice?”
“You always have some.”
“Don’t wait too long.” She looks back at the mansion, then returns her eyes to me. “They’ll test you before the weekend is over. If you have plans, move your pieces before they do.”
