Page 60 of Filthy Little Fix

"You'd like to do that... ? Keep me as a pet. You don't know how good I can be," he says. He gets off on his own fantasy, moaning as he puts more weight on my hand. "How well I'll take your punishment if you think I'm disobedient. If you want me on the floor... I'll sleep there, mister..."

I can't fuckingstandhis filthy words, and I can't stand his goddamnedlook—so turned on and eager for the violence Idon'thave to offer him, not right now. My fingers press against his crotch to stop him.

"What the hell do you think we are? Lovers?"

"No..." He gives me a lewd smile. "You don't love me."

Fuck this. Fuck him.

I tighten my grip and squeeze. His moan dies in his throat. "I don't."

This is the answer to his confession.I think I'm falling in love with you.Thisis the answer. I don't love you. I can't love him, or anyone.

"But you like that I do," he whispers, leaning forward, running his hand over my cheek. I see the lust in his eyes—it's not him anymore, but thatslut, Nyx in his most twisted form. He brushes his lips against mine and smiles, in a daze. "That I think of you all the time, mister... That you're always in my head..."

I think of him all the time. He's always in my head too. But it's an unbalanced, unstable fixation, not aconfession.

I pull my hand away. I push him and get up—this is getting out of control, and I'm losing my ability to handle it.

"You'll obey me regardless of what you want. That's what it's about," I say. "Now, get out. I'm sick of looking at your face."

He catches my wrist.

"You want me to get out... but you don't want me to want anyone but you.That'show this works, right?" He gives me that fucked-up smile, but I'm too close to my limit.

I yank my arm away.

"Get the fuck out before I change my mind and fucking kill you," I order.

I can't look him in the eye. If he smiles like that at me again—like a goddamn slut, like I'm the only one for him—I don't know what I'll do.

I hear him step away.

I don't breathe until he's gone.

Svetlana is worried.Nyx's report on our collaborators' lives so far revealed no rat—it was ordered according to the trust and probability she saw in each of those people betraying us. This means those she judged most likely to betray have nothing, and that's eating at her as much as Nyx eats at me.

He completed 50% of the list. The full reports from other reliable sources for comparison arrived today without a conclusion pointing to betrayal.

The issue seems minor since Nyx became such a big problem for me, but Svetlana still has her head on straight. She continues to investigate the rat in our operations, the traitor who, ironically, was the reason I brought Nyx into this hell in the first place.

She tells me not to bother him, in a condescending tone—to let him keep the list of potential traitors as a priority task.

And I don't see him again. The image of him on my lap, the whisper of his provocations, the look of triumph when I threatened him… that will take a long time to leave my head. It's the most I can allow myself to see him—only in that disgusting memory that restarts every moment, repetitively, repulsively.

So, I create distance. I communicate only through Luca and divert Svetlana's request: I bury him in work. I give him impossible deadlines. Tasks that should take days, I demand in hours.

Luca warns me, "Sal's team would take a week," and I understand. Luca starts looking at me the waySvetlanalooks at me, as if what I do to Nyx,becauseof Nyx, is a monstrosity. He, too, doesn't understand. Even having seen Nyx's perversion at first, now, Nyx only shows it tome.

If his mind is occupied with firewalls and encryption, it won't be occupied with me.

The problem is that he adheres to my absurdity. I shouldn't be surprised, after seeing him save my family's system in twenty-four hours. Each of my demands is met with perfection, detailed reports, and precision. At my desk, on the terminal—with every fucking completed task, he reminds me more that he's becoming indispensable, and I see favors traveling to his door. Indispensable to the whole fucking team, asking stupid favors all the time, and tome.

His work is impeccable. The perception he used at that poker table that completely stripped my men was only a fraction of his attention, and that becomes clearer with each new report and service rendered.

The image of Nyx on my lap doesn't diminish, doesn't fade. Itspreads.

It's the second pen I unintentionally break in half.