Page 39 of Filthy Little Fix
She turns sharply to me. "Dante?"
I say, "No, but?—"
"I just don't understand you, Dante. Atall."
I stare at my siblings, at Dmitry's barely suppressed laughter and Svetlana's genuine confusion. They deal with money and power, not with whatever the fuck Nyx is.
I can't tell them. I can't tell my brother and sister, who have always seen me as a force of nature, that a scrawny hacker with a fetish for pain has reduced me to a confused animal—how the fuck could I? I can't tell them that he gets hard when I hurt him, and that the sight makes my own blood burn, or letthemexperience this.
Dmitry opens his mouth to say something, another logical and useless solution, but I raise a hand in a short, final gesture. There is nothing left to say. They will never understand.
Without another word, I turn my back on the two of them and leave the room. I need something to punch. Something that doesn't moan with pleasure when it bleeds.
The only placewhere the rage the world gives me can be converted into something productive, something that doesn't involve perversion, is the gym. Where a punching bag doesn't moan, doesn't smile, doesn't ask for more. Where the only thing that bleeds is my body.
My fists are wrapped, the skin of my knuckles long since raw before I even arrived here.
I throw my last punch with everything I have. The metal chain swings with the force of the impact, and I step back, breathless. I grab the towel from the floor, wiping the sweat from my brow.
That's when I hear the voice behind me.
"Svetlana is furious. She thinks you're a brute who solves everything with force."
I turn, seeing Dmitry leaning against the door in his impeccable suit, disapproving. He's calm, controlled, the complete opposite of me.
"She doesn't understand," I grunt, tossing the towel to the floor. "She thinks everything can be solved with an Excel spreadsheet."
"I understand even less. You've broken a man's hand for spilling a drink on your shoe, Dante. Since when do you care if an asset 'likes' to get beaten? What's so different about this kid?"
What's so different about him?
I know why Svetlana is furious with this idea—the idea that I just beat a man to force him to work for me. It's for the same reasonIam. I'mdisappointedin myself for making her think I would do that. Violate for the sake of violating.
So many times, I put myself up as a shield for her. More than I can count. Even before I was of age, while Dmitry hid in a crawl space under the floorboards, I offered myself and forced myself to take the violence for her, in the face of a Mr. Volkov altered by a sick rage.
He never needed reasons to hurt anyone—not even us. He broke two of my fingers with a wooden hammer. Fractured Dmitry's ribs and put out cigarettes on Svetlana.
She didn't like me trying to spare her from it, either. She grew to have an aversion to it after realizing I was also susceptible to the same violence as our father.
I remember it, too. I remember losing control for the first time.
Our father exposed us to how things work in the underworld from the cradle—my siblings and I saw executions that looked like animalistic attacks. Deaths drawn out by the sadism of people who did little to deserve it. I felt disgust. I know our line of work, and I know that thingsarelike this, but my father didn't see it aswork. They weren't consequences of a wrong life and they didn't weigh on his shoulders. It wasentertainment.
And I never thought properly about what that meant—how much he wanted me to follow in his footsteps—until I lost control.
A random person. An arrogant businessman at a meeting table with Svetlana and me. An event, with people around; witnesses. They were discussing business, and Svetlana was winning the debate—of course she was, she always wins. But the idiot, with his ill-fitting suit and his smug smile, wouldn't stop interrupting her. Calling hersweetheart. The irritation boiled in my stomach—the insolence. The pure, arrogant stupidity of a sewer rat trying to win a strategic debate with passive humiliation. He didn't see a Volkov. He only saw a woman.
I kept repeating to myself that it was just a job, all the while muffling all the stupidity of that businessman who only showed the bare minimum of respect whenIopened my mouth. He spoke to my sister as if she were a waitress. Svetlana belonged in this world of power as much as I did. Her blood was my blood. Her name was my name.
I don't remember what he said before he died. After Svetlana had torn through all his terrible arguments, he said something. Something about her place, about her usefulness as if she were a cheap whore. He took the name Volkov, a name forged in blood, and dragged it through the mud.
I stood up. I don't remember deciding to stand up. I didn't look at Svetlana. I didn't look at anyone. My eyes were fixed on the stain, on the smiling worm who still didn't understand he had just signed his own death warrant. The mantra in my head—it's just a job—went silent. Everything did. And then, my hands did what they were born to do.
When the silence disappeared, I only heard a sharp ringing. And screams. A police or ambulance siren—I don't know. And I was breathless, my hands raw and covered in red. The bloodwas his and mine, from where my knuckles had burst open. I shattered his head until it was unrecognizable.
The disgust I felt for him was nothing compared to the disgust I felt for myself. For the part of me that hadenjoyedit.
My father had never looked at me with so much pride before that. I had converted to him, and Svetlana knows it. She knows that whatever was in our father is also in me.
