Page 37 of Filthy Little Fix
"What?"
"My fern."
I lean my bruised head against the door, closing my eyes. There's an eternity of silence.
He asks,"That's all?"
"That's all," I say. The words send a fresh jolt through my jaw. The pain is chemical. Makes me feel alive.
There's another pause. Then a quiet, almost defeated sound.
"I… will comply. Sir."
He is utterly disgusted to call me sir.
FOURTEEN
DANTE
"You hadno right to go in there, Svetlana! I told you, he's my problem!"
Svetlana tends to go behind my back, and every single time it's the same. I hate it. I hate that she steps all over me because shethinksshe's smarter, more above it all, when Nyx requiresso much morethan a fucking MBA in economics.
"He's a crucial asset!" she snaps back. "I needed to evaluate his capabilities—what were you so afraid I'd see? That you beat him until he was purple? Those bruises are fresh, Donya."
The nickname irritates me. Svetlana reduces me to this, to brute force, and expects me to punch my way through every path. The way she says it grates on me. She thinks his marks are just my mismanaged brutality. She has no idea.
"I wasn't—I wasprotectingyou!" I say. It's not worth explaining that Nyx provoked all of it. "He's not like the other assets. He's crazy. Volatile. You can't just talk to him..."
"Oh, I talked to him, Donya, and he didn't seem crazy, just fucking depressed."
Nyx,depressed?
He might have self-destructive tendencies, but there's so muchperversionin them that pinning the 'poor thing' label on him like Svetlana is trying to shove down my throat is impossible to swallow.
Dmitry, listening from the corner of the room, says, "She's right, Donya. He just saved us millions. We need to integrate him."
The intellectual duo. They always have each other's backs.
"Youknew?" I confront him, already knowing the answer. Fucking irresponsible. "You knew she was going to talk to that freak? You let her go in there alone?"
"She's not a child, Donya."
No. But dealing with Nyx is a task I wouldn't wish on anyone, let alone my siblings. Just imagining him putting on the same show for them that he did for me makes my blood boil with an unbearable heat.
"Yourfreakwas perfectly articulate, completely lucid, and remarkably normal," she says. "Leonel was even polite."
The name hits me. So out of place.
"Who?"
"Our asset!" She exclaims, exasperated. "His real name, Dante! Did you not even read the initial intelligence report? My God, you're insufferable!"
Leonel.
Such a mundane name.
I must have read it. At some point. I just didn't register it. How could I callthat thingsuch a trivial name?Nyxjust felt right.
