Page 58 of Filthy Little Fix
Svetlana says something about the lists of people she sent him to sift through—I don't care. The digital rat is the least of my problems; he doesn't cost me as much as Nyx does. She lectures about letting him have real server access, and she thinks I don't see when she exchanges glances with Dmitry, saying I'm not as combative as I usually am. Fuck that. I don't want any more headaches with Svetlana—not while Nyx is bombarding me.
I peek at the cameras. I'm not proud of how many times I do that during the day. Dmitry managed a competent team to monitor Nyx while we let him go back to work, even in a company now controlled by our family. The Volkovs have much more important functions than watching a mundane reality show of an IT kid's life, he said, and I agree.
But I can't trust anything beyond my own eyes with Nyx now.
I track his image. The cameras in his office show an ordinary routine beneath the residual panic of the only department partially surviving the corporate restructuring—an excuse to turn the building into a surveillance field—and I watch him infiltrate normalcy like a parasite. A diligent worker who finishes his tasks much faster than most, perpetually bored by the simplicity of his responsibilities. I see it in his boredom, in the occasional yawns, in his disinterested eyes.
He keeps his distance from his coworkers. He doesn't exchange words for long with any of them, when he doesn't leave them talking to themselves, and I'd say he's just a tired employeeif I didn't know him. Like Svetlana thinks he is—a disillusioned, depressed kid.
I watch the insistence of the girl in the cubicle next to his. I watch him nod at her, offer minimal answers while staring at an office plant pot.
She gets up at some point. She leans next to him and gives him a smile that borders on shyness. His eyes gain some tiny sliver of life when he lifts his head to her, and she smiles. I don't know if she's blushing or if it's makeup—I didn't care enough before to notice, but she comes back with a bigger smile and two cups of coffee, with more color in her cheeks. She leans in. She leaves the extra coffee on his desk, and she puts her hand on his back, and keeps it there.
He doesn't pull away.
In fact, hesmilesat her. That same easy, small, fucked-up smile he gives me when he kisses me. That smile ismine. And he's giving it to her, forfree, because of a fucking coffee; he's letting herput her handson him for a fucking coffee.
Is this hiscounterattack? To say he loves me, fuck with my head, and smile at just anyone like that?
She points at his bandaged hand. Concern. He lets out a polite laugh that doesn't suit him, and she touches his arm. His hand.
Fuck. He's not going to tell her how he got that injury? I watch him play house with this woman who surely has no idea of the perversion he embraces whenever he looks at me, of the submission with which he kneels.
I break a pen in my hand without noticing. It snaps in half and the ink stains my skin as I watch Nyx's "boss" give him some stupid order while that woman doesn't take her hand off him. Why doesn't he push her away?
The freedom of her touches irritates me. She doesn't have that right, and she doesn't knowwhoshe's touching. She shouldgo after someone who fits into the grayest mass of civilians managed by whatever that ridiculous boss is.
I pull up the company's employee list. Restructured as an IT integration of another asset, average employees with average resumes. I access her file, her data, her fucking documents.
Nicole Davis. Twenty-eight years old, white, redhead with brown eyes. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Data Analysis at the end of 2020. Owns a Honda Civic with 28 installments left to pay, her father depends on expensive blood-thinning medication, her brother was caught with marijuana on campus—no criminal record—, her debts are accruing high interest, and her entire salary is drained from her bank account immediately upon deposit. She has no investments, no support network. One late payment and she'd be in the red. An untimely accident and she'd lose the car while still owing the bank. A drug trafficking accusation would ruin her brother's life.
Four close friends at most. Social media is private, with few sepia-filtered sunset photos, selfies, and a stray dog—a simple life, justanyone.
I clench my fists before turning off the camera monitors—it's a sacrifice to stop myself from smashing the screens and crushing that fucking image of Nyx smiling at her like he smiles at me.
I know I'll do something irreparable if I keep watching.
I stand up. I let the chair fall, knocking an ashtray off the table.
I wait for six o'clock.
Until I reach it, it's a hell of a lack of focus, and a replay of Nyx looking at that woman. It's my men afraid to speak near me, afraid to die. They see my limit, and they tremble before it. I hear them question each other what happened, and I ignore it.
WhatbesidesNyx has been driving me insane lately?
At that time—at six—I allow myself to return to the office. I allow myself to pick up the fallen chair and put it back in its place, I allow myself to turn the monitors back on, and I allow myself to watch Nyx get up from that wheeled chair, pack his few belongings into an old backpack, and walk out.
And I see when she—Nicole—waves at him. She approaches, and he opens his mouth. He makes herlaugh. And she watches him. She watches him walk away like a lovesick teenager, watches him go down the street until he disappears from sight.
I wait. I take my best cigar from the bottom drawers, light it, and it's no surprise it doesn't calm me at all. The lookouts inform me that Nyx gets into the car—no surprise cigarettes today, just a quick drive of a few minutes until he's back here, and I order Luca to bring him to me first thing.
I count the seconds. I feel like breaking someone in half. Fucking Nyx and his strategy—it's always about messing with my head, more and more. The word still weighs somewhere in my mind.In love.
I recognize Luca's knock on the door, and I recognize Nyx's insubordination in not waiting for my permission to turn the doorknob. He appears as before—white in his paleness saved by colorful bruises. Now, his eyes are bored, tired, and the remnant of life in them is a poorly disguised curiosity.
I tell Luca to leave us alone. Then it's just the two of us.
"Sit down," I order him.
