Page 50 of Filthy Little Fix

I adjust my wrinkled clothes. My shirt is ruined, its collar stained with red blood, and my hand is still throbbing.

He doesn't answer my question.What's going to happen. He just drowns in silence in a stormy cloud of hatred; all the rage that wasn't in him before is now here. I'd let him empty it all into me. Hurt me.

I dodge the small dark stains on the carpet—my own blood and spilled whiskey—and walk to the door.

I glance at him over my shoulder. Leaning against the side table, he takes a cigarette from a box thrown in the corner of the cellar—Dunhill, I gather—, and he doesn't look at me anymore.

I open the door. I leave the office slowly, walking toward Luca, who waits for me at the end of the hall.

He looks at me with something that borders on sympathy and guilt. The blood. He thinks Dante beat the hell out of me in there, all for humiliating his capos under Luca's watch.

I don't clarify.

He takes me back to my room without a word.

My body is more markedthan it has ever been. There's a greenish blemish on my lower back, purplish marks on my waistand thighs, and bruises—hickeys—scattered across my neck and collarbone. They arehissignatures. I can't help but like them.

After my shower, I get a gauze pad and bandages from a first-aid kit in the medicine cabinet. I don't want anyone to ask me about a bite mark on my hand, so I wrap a few layers of gauze with the bandages around my palm. I find it difficult to do with only one available.

I secure the bandages with a random knot that I tie half with my mouth and half with my hand.

I leave the bathroom, drying my hair with a towel, and hear a knock on the door. A gentle sound, unlike Luca's authoritative ones.

It's Svetlana.

"Leo?" she asks from behind the door. "May I come in?"

Once again, Svetlana shows up at my door after Dante has fucked some part of my body. At least this time she gave a warning before entering.

"One second," I exclaim, putting on the first pair of sweatpants I see and looking for any turtleneck to hide the hickeys.

Dressed, I open the door.

Her perfectly cut suit, straight hair, and harmonious makeup make her as impeccable as ever.

The first thing she does is examine me with her emerald eyes, raking over my skin as if searching for fresh wounds and new scars.

She stares at my bandaged hand before saying, "The report."

I go to the computer desk, grabbing the flash drive I kept in the drawer. "I've completed 50% of the work."

She takes it from my hand, arching one of her thin, defined eyebrows.

"Efficient," she says, satisfied. "And what did you find?"

"Nothing that will break your financial market. The strangest thing was the head of security accessingfurryporn during work hours."

She looks disgusted. "Porn of what?"

"Furry. It's a subculture..."

"I don't want to know," she interrupts me. "Anything else?"

"I also found a small anomaly in a payment diversion. It's not a big one, but I imagined it could be a test from you, so it's detailed there. One of your capos paid nine thousand instead of ten to an employee. He kept a thousand for himself."

"Right," she says. If she was surprised by the diversion, she didn't show it. She puts the flash drive in her blazer, and her eyes return to examining me. She glances at my neck, noticing the slightly loose turtleneck, and I'm sure she's seeing the marks Dante left.

"What's the plan for Monday?" I say. I hope that, if Dante didn't give me any answers, at least she can provide some.