Page 57 of Filthy Little Fix
I won't let him do that again.
"Get out," I order.
He touches where my fingers had been—the red mark forming on his neck. Svetlana was right; the turtleneck underneath his dress shirt doesn't hide all the marks. The outline of my fingers in red bleeds out from above the wool collar, on top of bruises I remember too well causing.
Nyx takes a moment to move. He stares at me with that strange, fucked-up affection, his face flushed like a little girl's. This has no place here. Not for me.
He turns. He makes his way with slow steps, touches the doorknob, and hesitates.
He tightens his fingers on the metal.
"Mister," he calls. I clench a fist. I force myself to tense my shoulders, ready to remind him he's not in a position to question me. I expect him to say something depraved, something that makes me question if I shouldreallythrow him out, like he's done more than once before. I expect more of the same.
He turns his face, but doesn't look at me. He's still got his back to me, facing the door, and I see him open his mouth, hesitating.
He goes quiet. He thinks.
I'm about to rush him when he says, "I think I'm falling in love with you."
My chest tightens. Nyx always sucked the oxygen out of every room he deigned to be in, but this is different.
He peeks at my reaction over his shoulder. He gives me one of his out-of-place smiles, devoid of perversions or urges—justaffection.
Violence is something familiar. At least, despiteeverything, even withNyx, it's something I know.
Thisisn't.
He opens the door. Calmly, he walks out, pretending he hasn't just fucked up with my entire fucking head.
What the hell does that mean? Nyxin love? Love isn't for someone like him, it's not for someone likeus—nobodylovesLeonel Hays, nobodylovesDante Volkov. I've never heard that before, and I don'twantto hear it now.
I have no way to claim this because this feeling doesn't belong to me. It never has, and it has never touched the sameground as me. Nyx is afetish. It's perversion and passion and fascination, but not love.
Right?
"Goddammit."
I don't realize when I hurl my best bottle of whiskey at the wall. The glass shatters against the long curtains in front of the windows, the remnants of the drink splatter across the carpet and trickle down the wall.
He doesn't even know me. He doesn'tunderstand. He never could. He only has my surface—the face my father molded. I can't play this game with him. It makes no sense.
The cigarette box he gave me still rests on the ebony wood of the table. The brand I like, the same one I've used since I was sixteen.
Why would he be in love with me? Why would he think Iwantany kind of affection?
He shouldn't look at me like that, and I can't do this to him—he scares me too much to eventhinkabout having anything real with him.
He makes me want everything too much.
I can't focus.
Work is hell. I see my men flinching and telling each other, "the boss is in a bad mood," but they haveno ideawhat a bad mood is.
From the first day Nyx burst into my life, he's been lurking in the corners of my mind—he is, undeniably, showing himself more and more.I can't stop thinking about you,I had said, and it's true. I can't. But before, I still managed to stay functional. I still buried him when I needed to pay attention, when Ineeded to dedicate myself to more things beyond the fucked-up depravity he brought.
Now, that doesn't work.
Those ridiculous words are too heavy to simply be buried. They're resonant, hanging in neon lights above any fucking logical thought I might have. I read documents, attend meetings, give managerial orders, and he's there, etched onto my eyelids, spitting cheap sentimentality.In love.
