Epilogue #3
His voice is a mix of disapproval and invitation. I’ve quickly picked up this habit of ordering too much food with the new no-limit card he gave me.
“No,” I insist, restless. I turn in my seat, my legs thrown carelessly. “I’m talking about the best restaurant in the city. Real food. To celebrate for real.”
Alexei is the kind of man who calculates all the risks before any move—including those involving trivialities like dinner.
I know this. I also know that he hates losing control, that the lack of predictability throbs under his skin like an allergy.
I see him calculating all the possible health code violations and security risks that my definition of “best restaurant” implies.
It’s the same face he makes when I suggest watching an action movie with more than two explosions.
“…Alright,” he sighs, with the resignation of a man who knows he’s going to regret it.
I smile and rub against the leather of the seat with a childish anxiety. “You don’t even need GPS, boss. Just drive. I’ll be your co-pilot.”
The Mercedes glides toward the rotten heart of the city.
Under my instructions, we start swimming against the current.
The glass and steel buildings give way to stained brick facades, graffiti, neon signs piled on top of each other.
The luxury boutiques evaporate, replaced by pawn shops, bars with bulletproof glass, beauty salons that stay open past midnight.
The luxury car, once a moving throne, becomes a moving target.
I notice the way Alexei holds the steering wheel, the knuckles of his fingers white.
He is calm, but only on the outside. Inside, I know he hates every second of this—hates being exposed, hates that every corner is an unknown, hates depending on me to navigate a world where he is king only on paper.
But there is also excitement: that dangerous tension that only someone who has been both predator and prey at the same time can recognize. I love provoking that in him.
I also think about how easy it would be to end it all here. A group of kids his bodyguards failed to see, a makeshift rifle, and that’s it: the end of the Malakov dynasty, a headline in the tabloids, and me with a new hole in my chest (or head).
But Alexei’s presence by my side gives me a strange security. He is capable of bending reality to his will, making everything revolve around his own axis. That’s his superpower. Mine is to survive the explosion when that gravity fails.
In the last six months, Alexei has changed, and I have been the main spectator of this process.
Since the family meeting, since the division of the empire was stamped with blood and a handshake, he has finally seemed to breathe.
Now, with Vania playing emperor on the other side of town, the war has been replaced by a border.
It’s not peace, but it’s predictability.
Alexei’s men stopped dying out of nowhere, summary executions became a spreadsheet, meetings now have coffee breaks and digital minutes.
I see in him traces of a serene man—or, at least, a less paranoid one.
It’s easier to relax when the enemy is in another zip code, and not on the couch next to you.
What he can’t digest is Vasily’s disappearance.
No one talks about it, but his brother’s absence leaves a hole in the empire.
An exile is expected to disappear, I told him.
But it’s no use. A ghost enemy is a collective trauma, a virus of paranoia.
I see Alexei replaying this mentally, sometimes staring into space as if it were possible to extract Vasily from the void just by the force of will.
But he never comments on it. Not out loud.
The car finally parks in front of a metal door with no sign, with peeling paint, between a tire shop and a religious articles store. I point with my finger, triumphant.
“This is it,” I say, with a taste of poetic revenge.
He stares at the “facade” of the restaurant for a good ten seconds. I can hear the gears in his head turning, calculating the probability of us leaving here with food poisoning or a stab wound.
“Are you sure?” he asks, dangerously neutral.
“Trust me,” I reply, and get out of the car before he has time to change his mind.
The place is called “Aunt Mary’s Corner”.
The entrance is a small extension of grimy tiles, with a curtain of colored beads that makes a sound like rain when you pass through.
The room has four colorful plastic tables, all crooked, and a ceiling fan so old it creaks with every rotation.
The smell of garlic, grease, and industrialized spices is so intense it makes me want to cough.
Alexei enters behind me, and everyone turns to look.
The boss, in his navy blue suit, black tie, and general’s posture, looks like a penguin lost in the Sahara.
He pretends not to notice, but I see the physical discomfort: the way he adjusts his jacket, as if the fabric could protect him from the invisible threat of the poor people around.
We sit at a red table, which wobbles with every movement.
The tablecloth is plastic, printed with generic fruits, full of stains and a cigarette burn near the edge.
Alexei looks at the burn with a kind of forensic fascination.
Although he is the kind of man who can order decapitations and negotiate arms treaties in three languages, the trenches of real life disconcert him more than an armed ambush.
“Relax, boss,” I say, leaning over the table with a smile. “They wash the dishes. Most of the time.”
He gives me a warning look. His prudishness is a fetish.
Aunt Mary is an entity. A force of nature with more burn scars than skin, hair dyed swimming-pool-floor blue, and the eyes of someone who has lived through three apocalypses and survived them all.
She appears out of nowhere, twirling between the crooked tables, and pulls me into a clumsy, sideways hug that almost makes me fall out of my chair.
She smells of cigarettes, vanilla, and kitchen sweat.
“Griffin!” she yells, half-longing, half-scolding for not having come sooner.
Without waiting for an answer, Mary squeezes me, slaps my back hard, and lets me go only to look me up and down.
My black eye is a veteran—she doesn’t even bat an eye.
What catches her attention, of course, is Alexei: one of those Renaissance paintings of a royal family, lost among plastic forks and beer in a jelly jar.
“Who’s your rich friend?” she says loudly, without malice, just genuine curiosity. No one here has a filter. No one ever needed one.
I don’t hesitate for a second. “He’s my driver,” I shoot back, with the straightest face in the world. The look Alexei gives me is priceless.
I just stretch my little smile, provocative. Mary laughs and gives a sly old lady wink.
“He’s handsome,” she comments, her audacity on full display. “I like his hair. And that chin looks like a soap opera hero.”
Alexei tries to maintain an imperial dignity, but there is no dignity possible when you’re in a wobbly plastic chair and a blue-haired old lady is comparing you to a soap opera hero.
He makes one of those micro-movements of raising an eyebrow, very discreet.
I know his every tic as if they were my own.
“The usual, Mary. For two. Make it extra spicy,” I say, and she disappears into the kitchen, shouting instructions to her invisible granddaughters.
“Driver?” Alexei says. The ‘R’ comes with an almost growl, the kind of thing that would normally make a subordinate tremble.
“Technically,” I say, “you drove me here. It’s not a lie.” I shrug, lean back in my chair, and let the provocation settle.
He looks around, his eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other, processing every detail. The faded wallpaper. The broken fan. The ceramic rooster on top of the refrigerator.
“What’s the problem?” I ask. “Afraid of catching a disease? Think of it as… field training. You say you want to understand the common folk. Consider this a practical internship.”
Alexei has already lost the argument before it even began. I can see he’s trying to find the humor in the situation, but he’s out of practice. “I know how the ‘common folk’ live, Griffin. I rule over them. I just don’t usually dine with them.”
I laugh, loudly. “You fucking snob. You need to learn to let your guard down, boss. These places are less deadly than they look.” Then, quietly, just for him, “But if you want, check if there’s an emergency exit. You never know.”
The food arrives quickly, on matte metal trays, the edges already a bit bent from use. It’s cheap beer and beef stew, cassava boiled until it dissolves, a thick, red sauce, and rice. The smell hits hard. It erases everything else—sweat, fried food, misery. Only food remains.
I dive into the food without ceremony, using my hands, tearing off pieces of meat, and smearing my fingers with sauce. The taste is violent: spiciness and fat and salt, all mixed together, without the slightest ceremony. It’s one slap in the face after another. I love it.
Alexei watches, his eyes narrowed, wrinkled with disgust.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I ask, my mouth full. “It’s rude, you know? Aunt Mary might get her feelings hurt.”
He hesitates a little longer, then makes that methodical gesture: he takes off his jacket, folds it carefully, hangs it on the back of the chair.
He loosens his tie, unbuttons the cuffs of his white shirt, rolls up the sleeves to his forearms. I watch, mesmerized.
Because the more time I spend with him, the more I notice how hot he is.
Finally, he picks up a piece of meat with his left hand. He brings it to his mouth. He chews slowly, chews again, testing every enzyme. When he swallows, he pauses. His expression is impossible to read. It’s not pleasure, but it’s not contempt either.