GRIFFIN #2
I stare at him, trying to decipher if it’s just paranoia or a twisted demonstration of affection. The meticulous way he lists the options makes me realize that, of all possible contingencies, I am the one variable he refuses to lose in the process.
“No,” I say, breaking the moment with the most sincere of my promises.
He frowns. “It’s not a suggestion.”
“I’m not running,” I continue, and I grab his wrist. “If you don’t come back, I will burn the whole fucking world down.” I lean closer. This promise is the only one that has ever mattered in my life. “And then, I’ll come find you.”
I see the surprise in his eyes. It’s not theatrical; it’s real, as if no one has ever promised him something so dirty and absurd before.
“You’re crazy,” he says, with reverence.
I can’t resist. “For you, maybe.”
He shakes his head, a small gesture, with a real half-smile, proud and at the same time exhausted.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this shitty life, it’s that no one survives without having something stupid to protect.
He releases me slowly, straightens his dark jacket, adjusts his tie, and becomes the general again. He walks to the door, and before leaving, he pulls a small, disposable phone from his coat lapel and leaves it on the table.
“This one is new. The number is saved,” he says. “Call if you need anything. If something seems wrong, if you hear a noise you shouldn’t.” He looks at me. “Call.”
“Is this all going to end tonight?” I ask, and now my voice trembles, with anger, with fear, with something I don’t want to name.
“It’s not an ending. Just… a change,” he replies, and his eyes are already far away. “If I come back, we can leave this apartment. You choose the destination.”
I just stare at him, frozen, wanting to memorize every detail, because part of me doubts I’ll ever see him whole again.
He opens the door, and the light from the hallway floods the office. Before he leaves, he turns his head over his shoulder and says, softly, what he would never say out loud, “Don’t forget the safe.”
The door closes, and I’m left alone, surrounded by the weight of a hope I never asked to carry.
When I wake up, the first thing I see is the corpse-white ceiling of the room, motionless and immune to time, mocking any human attempt to change fate.
The city outside leaves no doubt: it’s being swallowed by a deluge. Every drop of rain drums against the bulletproof glass in a slow, irritating rhythm. I count thirty-seven beats before realizing that if I don’t move soon, I’ll sink back into that kind of sleep that only leaves me more tired.
I try to roll over. The thousand-thread-count sheets scrape like industrial sandpaper where my skin was broken. And it was broken in many places. My face, in the mirrored closet door, looks like a collage of colors: purple, yellow, a slightly psychedelic muddy green.
Alexei has been gone for hours. This physical absence irritates me more than any pain. Because now it’s not just the body that’s taking the hit, it’s the mind too—stripped of distractions, forced to face its own vulnerability, like a sick animal sniffing out its own end.
I close my eyes and last night projects automatically onto the back of my eyelids. A frozen frame of Alexei looking at me through the blood—Vania’s, mine, it hardly matters. What matters is the expression: the cold fury on his face when he saw his own blood. And then the fight. The fucking fight.
I had this fantasy. I so wanted to see Alexei lose control, to lower himself to the animalism of other men, to get into a brawl like a normal animal.
It was my secret obsession, my private entertainment.
And when it finally happened, the universe made sure I was drooling blood on the carpet, with a front-row seat to the show and unable to enjoy it. It’s the kind of joke I’d love to tell.
I get out of bed with the delicacy of an old man.
The grace is short-lived. I soon remember: Alexei left alone, went to meet the conclave of hyenas in Armani—a tribunal, a summary judgment, and if he’s lucky, a quick execution.
I have no idea where he is, if he still exists in the flesh or has already become just a rumor.
Even if I knew, what would I do? Invade the Malakov fortress like this, thinking that with just charisma and cruelty, I could rescue someone who has never needed anyone but his own nose for danger?
My mind starts to spiral: Alexei sitting at a table with his father, his cousin to the left, his brother to the right, each one articulating passive-aggressive arguments, measuring their own breath, waiting for the slightest sign of weakness.
Alexei is good at that. He was born for it.
But even a trained animal loses sometimes.
I wake from this daydream with a spasm in my leg. My body makes a point of reminding me of my function: not to think, only to survive.
I drag my weight to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror, trying to identify which part of me still belongs to the original and which is now pure reconstruction. I smile at myself, just to see if I still remember how. The result is grotesque, but it’s what I’ve got.
I grab a tube of numbing cream—a gift from Alexei, along with a box of painkillers worthy of an addict—and apply it to the recent cuts.
The smell reminds me of hospitals, and for a moment I think of my mother, who died in one.
Not because of any mafia, but simply because her body decided it was time.
I think about how little control we have over anything, and how, in the end, it all comes down to who is holding your hand when the lights go out.
For my mother, there was no one. For me, maybe there is. That’s what scares me.
I leave the bathroom dressed in the first sweatshirt I find, covered in old stains.
Alexei would hate it if he saw it. He likes clothes that command respect, that intimidate without needing words.
I’m the opposite: I like to be underestimated.
I like to see them relax before they realize that, beneath the apathy, something is lurking.
I sit at the table on the indoor balcony, light a cigarette.
What’s left for me, now, is to wait. To wait for a phone call, a coded message, any sign that he’s still alive. But waiting is not in my nature. I need to act, even if it’s just to feel that I’m not merely a spectator in my own life.
I pick up the phone that Alexei left me. I take a deep breath, type a short message, because everything I have to offer fits into three words.
Come back home.
Simple, direct, pathetic in its vulnerability. But I send it anyway, because it’s the only move I have left.
After sending it, I feel my body relax strangely.
What could Alexei be facing, at this very moment? What would I do if I never saw him walk through that door again, with that blasé way of his, as if he carries the world on his shoulders and still has room to despise the gravity of small things?
While I wait, I do the only other thing you can do when you’re waiting for someone to come back from a war: I prepare the victory feast. I order food with the card he left me.
Not just for me. Champagne, meat that rich people eat, healthy things, in case Alexei is one of those types. And the best Thai food in the city.
Because if he comes back, we’re going to celebrate. And I hope he comes back hungry.