Page 19 of Filthy Little Fix

"By God, Dante. I thought it was just me going crazy. It started about three days ago. In the office, in the car... Even on my headphones, in the middle of an important meeting. The same hellish melody, the same phrase. I almost fired the entire team for incompetence, thinking it was some inside joke of theirs."

Svetlana looks at us genuinely confused. "What are you talking about? I haven't heard any music. I'm talking about therealproblems. The casino numbers, the port delays... That's what matters."

I swallow hard. The coincidence is absurd. One week since I discarded Nyx, and now, this sonic plague spreads, infestingmy lifeandDmitry's. Svetlana is immune, of course. She doesn't have a sound system.

"It's not possible," I murmur, more to myself than to them. "It's just... coincidence."

Dmitry stares at me. "Since when do things simply happen in our world, Dante?"

His question hits home.Nyx. That perverse smirk, the way he seemed to want the pain, how he reveled in humiliation. He was chaos that delighted in messing up order. And what was this stupid music but an orchestrated mess?

"It's just a song," Svetlana says, already impatient. "Can we get back to the real problems? The delays at the Newark port have already cost more than any idiotic music. We have to find the source."

I close my eyes for a second, trying to push away the image of Nyx's face and the irritating melody. Svetlana is right. There are bigger problems. But the annoyance… the damned annoyance remains.

"All right," I say, opening my eyes and forcing my attention back to the tablet. "Let's focus on the real problems. Prepare a briefing for tomorrow, I need all the information you can gather about the origin of these bugs."

The meeting drags on for another hour, a bureaucratic torture punctuated by free-falling data and speculations about the source of the problems. On every new tablet screen, in every loss report, the duck voice and the irritating beat.

No, it can't be him. Not him. It's just fatigue. It's just stress.

The elevator descends,and finally there is silence. In the parking garage, I get into the Escalade and start the engine. I don't turn on the radio. I don't want to listen to anything now.

I barely leave the garage, and my cell phone rings. "Boss! Thank God you answered! We have a… a strange situation here."

My jaw clenched. "What now, Vinny? If it's about that fucking duck song, I swear to God that..."

"No, boss, it's not the music! It's the security room printer! It won't stop printing!"

I frown. "Printer? What the fuck about a printer?"

"It's printing… poems, boss. One after another, about plants."

My blood runs cold.Poems. My stomach churns with a familiar disgust, and the fucking duck song in my head suddenly seems louder, more irritating. "Destroy that shit, Vinny," I order, and hang up on him.

My phone is still hot in my hand. Vinny doesn't understand the gravity of the situation, butIdo.Oneaccident, a song—I could still entertain the possibility of stress. Buttwo? What advantage would the Malakovs gain from sending my printer to printpoems?

That bastard. That filthy aberration istoyingwith me, sending me fuckingpoems. The audacity… the damned audacity blinds me with rage.

I need his address. I need that bastard. I need to end this shit once and for all.

I run every red light and overtake every car that appears in front of me. The duck song, which I try to ignore, now plays in my head with terrifying clarity. Those free-falling graphs from Dmitry's tablet materialize in my vision.

I snatch another phone from the dashboard—the burner, for sensitive calls. I punch in Sal's private number.

It rings twice. Three times.

"Sal," I bark into the phone, not bothering with pleasantries. "I need the hacker's address. Nyx. NOW."

There's a pause on the other end, a beat too long. Sal, usually so quick, seems to hesitate. "Boss? You mean... t-the one from the interrogation? Luca said he was... disposed of."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Sal," I snarl, my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. The Escalade swerves as I take a corner too fast. "I want his address. Every single one you have. Now!"

Sal clears his throat. "U-Understood, Boss. Give me a minute. We had his last known residence, but his digital footprint is… tricky. He's good at disappearing, so I…"

"You have thirty seconds," I cut him off. My patience is a shredded mess. "If you don't give me that address, I will break every fucking bone in your body myself."

"N-No need, Boss! No need!" Sal's voice is suddenly urgent, panicked. "I'm sending it to your secure comms. Along with any other relevant data we have on him. Full file. It's coming through now."