Page 54 of Filthy Little Fix
"No. You heard three of my most experienced men, men who deal with violence and betrayal every day, admitting they wereoutmaneuveredby him. He's too smart to be left unsupervised, even for a second."
She raised an eyebrow. "Wewillbe supervising him."
"Not enough! We have no way to control him, so we should buy his entire company first to control theenvironmentaround him. We cut out all variables."
Svetlana was tired of arguing with me, I knew. And, to hell with it, the logic was sound. Such a volatile and powerful asset shouldn't have the freedom to get bored.
She sighed in surrender. "Alright, Dante. Have it your way. Buy the company." She paused, and her tone of voice changed, becoming lower, sharper. "But I want something made perfectly clear. Your ‘specific approaches' end where his value to this family begins. He's a kid, Dante. What is he, early twenties? Almost fifteen years younger than you."
The mention of his age, said like that, sounded like an accusation. One I didn't know how to refute.
"And, frankly," she continued, "of all your distractions over the years, of all the models and heiresses you've paraded around, this is, by far, the mostunexpected."
The insinuation was clear. She categorized me, putting me back into a box she understood. The box of Dante who liked tall, blonde, predictable women. And Nyx… he didn't fit into any box.
I never stopped to analyze my own hunger. It was always simple.
Until him.
"Just try to ensure your control doesn't leave suchintimate marksvisible on him."
She wasn't just accusing me of brutality. The accusation was uglier, more intimate. Her logic was perfect and, for that reason,wrong. She saw a simple scenario: a violent mafia boss forcing a young captive hacker to submit.
And how, in hell's name, could I defend myself? How could I say, "he likes it, he begs for it" without sounding like the worst kind of asshole? How to explain that his moans weren't from fear, but from a pleasure so deep it scared me? The truth was a thousand times sicker andimpossibleto explain than the lie she constructed in her mind. Every attempt at defense would only sink me deeper into the image of the monster she painted. A monster I fought every day not to be.
"You know nothing," I said. I took a step toward her, and for the first time in years, I saw caution in how she looked at me. "What I do with him has nothing to do with his age or my past partners."
"Doesn't it?" she challenged. "Then tell me what it is, Dante. Because frommyperspective, an asset who cooperates out of fear of what else the boss might do to him in the privacy of a locked room is a risk I'm not willing to take."
A laugh escaped me. A dry, humorless sound that made even Svetlana blink.Fear. The word was so inadequate, soabsurdlyout of place it was comical. My mind projected his images: Nyx in the warehouse, provoking me even after I threatened him; Nyx on his knees in his apartment asking me to make him apunching bag; Nyx at the poker table, smiling as he humiliated my most dangerous men.
"Svetlana,fear? You think the problem here is that he'safraidof me?"
Nyx didn't know what fear was. He fed on it. He used it as fuel. The idea of him being afraid of me was the biggest joke I'd ever heard.
"I pointed a gun at his head. Cocked. An inch from his forehead," I said, and as the words came out, I was back inthat dusty apartment. "And hesmiled. Are you hearing me? Hesmiledat me as if I was offering him a fucking gift."
I could still feel the weight of the pistol in my hand, the smell of old coffee and dust from that poorly kept apartment. It was a logical end. The pest that was Nyx needed to be eradicated. It was the clean solution, the rational way out to silence the obsession he had created. I wanted to solve the problem in the only way I knew.
And then he looked at me. And that bastardsmiled. Awelcomingsmile. Hedesireddeath frommyhands.
I didn't explain any of this to Svetlana. How could I?
"He doesn't operate by the same logic as us," I continued. That was as much as I could allow myself to say. "You talk about fear as if it were a tool I could use, but you don't understand… with him, everything is inverted."
Svetlana processed the information. Her face showed no relief or understanding. On the contrary, her expression became even harder, more clinical.
"That doesn't reassure me, Dante. It only proves you're losing perspective."
"I'm not losing perspective! I'm the only one whohasthe fucking perspective!" I insisted. "I'm the only one who's seen what he's capable of! That's why he can't have amillimeterof freedom!"
"And that's why you're making anemotionaldecision, not a strategic one."
She cornered me again. Every attempt to explain his madness only made me sound crazier.
I clenched my fists. "You don't have to understand. You just have to trust that Iknowwhat I'm doing."
"For the first time, Dante, I don't think you do."
