Griffin
The mattress I wake up on is hard enough to remind my back of every punch I took yesterday, but the sheets are so soft they’re irritating. It makes me want to rip them, to spoil a little of all this perfection. The weight on my chest is light, from a solid gold chain.
I open my eyes. The room is so large it creates an echo; the ceiling, white, with no chandelier or expensive decoration, just a monolithic slab. Dawn’s light drips through the glass windows, revealing a city choked with smoke, grease, and false promises.
I’m in Alexei Malakov’s bed.
Last night was a blur of pain, vodka, and his absence.
After Alexei left, the apartment, once a prison, became a strange refuge.
I followed his orders. I took a hot shower and ate the most expensive Thai food I’ve ever seen, straight from the container, sitting on the floor of a living room worth more than everything I’ve ever owned. And I waited.
The hours dragged on. The adrenaline dissipated, leaving behind an exhaustion that weighed on my bones. I took the gun he gave me and brought it to bed with me, leaving it on the nightstand, and waited for him to come back and kick me out onto the sofa.
Instead, he was gone for hours.
I passed out at some point. I only woke up hours later, in the pitch-black room, to the soft sound of the door closing.
I felt the other side of the bed sink under a new weight.
Alexei. He lay far from me, inches away, smelling of cold night air and something metallic—blood, probably not his—clinging to him.
I should have pretended to be asleep. Standard tactic. But the night had broken all the rules, and the silence between us now felt wrong.
I turned on my side, moving closer. I draped my arm over his chest—a suicidal gesture, maybe. At least it was honest. His body tensed instantly. He wasn’t used to being touched without warning, I realized. That was fine. Neither was I.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I felt the muscles in his back relax. He stayed, allowing the contact.
“Did the rat sing?” I whispered against the skin of his shoulder.
He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. “Rats always sing,” he said, low and tired. “Vasily has been more careless than I thought. He’s using my cousin’s recklessness as cover for his own moves.”
“And Seraphim?”
Alexei took a deep breath. “Your friend… seems to be playing his own game. He’s not with Vasily, but he’s not with us either.”
I held him tighter. I knew what that was. Survival at any cost. The three of us were products of the same furnace.
“I’ll handle it,” I said, more to myself than to him. “I’ll find Seraphim.”
Alexei covered my hand on his chest with his own, his long fingers lacing with mine. It was the closest thing to comfort he had ever given me. And in the silence that followed, with the weight of his hand on mine and the warmth of his body against me, I finally fell into a real sleep.
Now, I follow the smell of coffee through the silent vastness of the apartment. Everything hurts, but it’s a warm, throbbing pain, the good kind.
Alexei has his back to me, standing in front of the coffee machine.
He’s dressed in a way I’ve never seen him: dark, soft-fabric pants and a gray linen shirt, the sleeves lazily rolled up to his elbows, exposing his forearms. Without the business suits, he looks less like a mob boss and more like…
a man. A dangerous and ridiculously hot man.
His voice, when he speaks without turning, is deeper, dragged out by the morning.
“Painkillers in the cabinet above the sink. Black bottle. Take two.”
I follow his orders. The cabinet is locked with a biometric scanner; he’s already cleared it for me. I swallow the pills dry. Only then do I realize he’s studying me in the reflection of the glass. He turns, leaning against the counter, a white porcelain cup in his hand, and looks me up and down.
“Your little show at the restaurant is going to cost me over a million in hush money,” he says. “Not to mention the marble.”
I thought he’d care more about the money, but his tone is amused. That gives me courage.
I get closer, resting my hip against the counter, invading his space just to see what happens.
The morning light traces the line of his jaw and the contours of the veins on his exposed arms. The idea of causing a loss for a man like him, who probably wipes his mouth with hundred-dollar bills, makes me want to laugh.
“A million?” I repeat, teasing. I slowly raise my hand, lightly touching a bluish vein on his forearm, feeling the skin prickle under my finger. “Damn. I’m a very expensive whore, aren’t I?”
His eyes darken, but he doesn’t pull away from my touch. “The most expensive I’ve ever had.”
“And you don’t even seem angry about paying,” I continue, sliding my finger down his arm until my hand rests on his. “In fact, you look quite pleased.”
He pulls his hand from mine, cutting my exploration short. “Don’t test your luck. Your approach was still reckless.”
I let out a low laugh, half mockery, half challenge. “My approach got you what you wanted.” I lean in a little closer. “Seraphim doesn’t trust you, and you don’t trust him, but he must trust me. I’ll still find him.”
His reply is dry, only the slightest lift at the corner of his mouth betraying the effect. “He trusts the man who ratted him out?”
The logic cuts right through my optimism. I take a step back. “He wouldn’t have warned me about Vasily if he didn’t trust me… I think. He knows I’m not an idiot. He knows I play to survive, just like him.”
Alexei remains silent, studying my face, weighing my words. He’s deciding if my instinct is worth the risk. If I am worth the risk.
Finally, he sighs. “Be careful, Griffin.”
It’s an order, but it’s also a concession. He’s giving me rope, trusting I won’t hang myself with it.
I smile and move forward again, invading his space. I feel the wall of muscle under his shirt, his pulse racing despite that Russian statue pose.
“Don’t worry, boss,” I whisper. “I can handle myself.”
And before he can react, I kiss his mouth. It lasts only a second.
“You won’t be a widower anytime soon,” I say.
I pull back with the same impulse, smiling like someone who just witnessed a beautiful shootout.
I don’t look back to see his reaction. I don’t need to. I know exactly what expression he’s wearing now: intense eyes, a half-smile on his face, relaxed shoulders.
I put on my prosthesis—just to impress him by fitting it myself, something I practiced when I had nothing else to do—pull on the black coat, and, before I leave, I hear his voice. “Don’t come back dead.”
That one is definitely an order.
Instead of drawing attention in Alexei’s new Audi, I take a regular taxi, a beat-up Uno with a faded roof. I give the address I memorized for the church where I met Cain, but I get out a block early—paranoia is a survivor’s tool.
The trip is short. I replay the scene in my head: the soup, the bread, the long tables. And the priest. The man with the tired face and gentle hands who served everyone without judgment.
I recognize the church from a distance: neo-gothic facade, stained-glass windows smudged with pollution, the kind of place where the devil can walk in wearing a hat and no one would notice.
I’m sore to my soul. Every step makes the prosthesis creak and the bruises throb, but I don’t slow down. I walk in through the front door.
The inside of the church is dark and damp.
Worn-out pews, an altar covered with a crochet tablecloth.
At this hour, there’s only an old woman and a beggar praying.
I see the priest at a side table, stacking pamphlets and pretending not to notice me.
But he does, of course, he does. The recognition in his eyes is immediate. He remembers me with Cain.
“Do you need help, my son?” he says with that voice only priests and psychologists know how to use: low, soft, but there’s a caution in it that wasn’t there before.
I stop two meters from him.
“Not today, Father,” I say. “I need a favor. I need to deliver a message.”
He drops the pamphlet he was holding. “The doors of God’s house are always open.”
“It’s for the man who was with my friend. Cain. The angel who protects this place.”
The priest’s face shuts down. He turns to me completely. “The man you speak of carries a heavy burden. He doesn’t need more trouble.”
“I didn’t come to cause trouble,” I say. I pull the Saint Michael chain from my pocket. The cold metal feels heavier now that I’ve swapped it for Alexei’s gold chain. I place it on the polished wood of the altar, pushing it toward him. “He’ll recognize this.”
The priest looks at the chain and doesn’t touch it. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do. I know him better than anyone. He’s the one who gave me this chain. I just want to help him.”
Time stretches; behind me, the old man in the pew starts muttering a rosary, and I imagine Seraphim listening to this conversation from some hole in the wall, laughing at the theatrics.
“What makes you think your help is the kind of help he needs? Or that he wants it?”
My head aches. His calmness, that trained tranquility, makes me want to make him swallow the chain. I grew up surrounded by religion—nuns at the orphanage and street-corner priests. I recognize the techniques and, worse, I recognize the genuine fear of someone protecting a dangerous person.
“Look, Father, I don’t have time for a sermon.” My blood boils, and my voice comes out threatening without me meaning it to. “His life is at stake. Just give him the fucking chain and tell him Myrddin needs to talk to him now.”
The priest takes a step back. Behind me, the old man in the pew raises his head, his eyes glazed, and returns to his prayerful trance.
I retreat, give the priest room to breathe, but I don’t let up.
He looks at my metal arm, my posture, and decides it’s not worth arguing.
He stops me with a raised hand, a sign to pause.