16. DANTE
SIXTEEN
DANTE
I want him again. Fuck it.
The image of him at my desk is an addiction.
And the idea of him returning to that mediocre life, to that office, is a waste .
A waste of that intelligent mouth, that sick mind that only truly comes alive when kneeling for me.
I can't stand the thought of seeing him working for someone lesser, answering ridiculous orders, being touched by hands that don't even have the imagination to hurt him properly.
I watched him disappear under Luca's watch after what we did, obeying as if he were just another common employee. A poorly rehearsed charade. I wanted to tear him to shreds instead of letting him go.
I hate it. I hate how he offers me absolute control and, at the same time, steals it from me. It's a masterfucking trick, and I fall for it every time.
That night, after sending Nyx back to his room, I found my capos talking in low voices in the game room. They didn't leave early—they stayed for hours smoking and trying to understand what had happened.
"I've never seen anything like it," Grigory grumbled. "He cleaned the table with several unplayable hands."
"It's his mind ," Ruslan said, tapping a finger against his temple. "The kid was playing us."
Marco, the scar on his neck twisting as he spoke, nodded. "That's why the boss got that way when he brought him to the warehouse," he muttered, glancing around as if Nyx could hear him. "He's a monster. A guy who plays poker like that… you can't just leave him unleashed."
That's when Svetlana walked into the room.
She had been furious since our last argument. She thought I was becoming my father, even with all the clues about how far from normal Nyx was.
"Grigory, Marco, Ruslan. Out," she ordered, without even looking at them.
The three immediately stood up, muttering goodbyes and hurrying out. They knew they shouldn't stick around for a fight between the Volkovs.
"What do you want, Svetlana?" I asked.
"The decision about our asset," she got straight to the point, crossing her arms. "I compared his report with our experts'.
It's impeccable. He even caught a thousand-dollar diversion one of Dmitry's capos made.
The plan remains exactly as it was; we'll let him return to work on Monday.
Maintaining the facade of normalcy is crucial.
We monitor him, both digitally and physically, and if he shows any sign of instability or tries anything, we act—perhaps by buying the company he works for to exert more precise control. "
Svetlana's plans are always methodical and controlled. They always work, but in this case, it was a bad plan.
"You just heard what they said, Svetlana."
"I heard three men scared because they lost at poker to a kid," she retorted.
"No. You heard three of my most experienced men, men who deal with violence and betrayal every day, admitting they were outmaneuvered by him. He's too smart to be left unsupervised, even for a second."
She raised an eyebrow. "We will be supervising him."
"Not enough! We have no way to control him, so we should buy his entire company first to control the environment around him. We cut out all variables."
Svetlana was tired of arguing with me, I knew. And, to hell with it, the logic was sound. Such a volatile and powerful asset shouldn't have the freedom to get bored.
She sighed in surrender. "Alright, Dante.
Have it your way. Buy the company." She paused, and her tone of voice changed, becoming lower, sharper.
"But I want something made perfectly clear.
Your ‘specific approaches' end where his value to this family begins.
He's a kid, Dante. What is he, early twenties? Almost fifteen years younger than you."
The mention of his age, said like that, sounded like an accusation. One I didn't know how to refute.
"And, frankly," she continued, "of all your distractions over the years, of all the models and heiresses you've paraded around, this is, by far, the most unexpected ."
The insinuation was clear. She categorized me, putting me back into a box she understood. The box of Dante who liked tall, blonde, predictable women. And Nyx… he didn't fit into any box.
I never stopped to analyze my own hunger. It was always simple.
Until him.
"Just try to ensure your control doesn't leave such intimate marks visible on him."
She wasn't just accusing me of brutality. The accusation was uglier, more intimate. Her logic was perfect and, for that reason, wrong. She saw a simple scenario: a violent mafia boss forcing a young captive hacker to submit.
And how, in hell's name, could I defend myself?
How could I say, "he likes it, he begs for it" without sounding like the worst kind of asshole?
How to explain that his moans weren't from fear, but from a pleasure so deep it scared me?
The truth was a thousand times sicker and impossible to explain than the lie she constructed in her mind.
Every attempt at defense would only sink me deeper into the image of the monster she painted. A monster I fought every day not to be.
"You know nothing," I said. I took a step toward her, and for the first time in years, I saw caution in how she looked at me. "What I do with him has nothing to do with his age or my past partners."
"Doesn't it?" she challenged. "Then tell me what it is, Dante. Because from my perspective, an asset who cooperates out of fear of what else the boss might do to him in the privacy of a locked room is a risk I'm not willing to take."
A laugh escaped me. A dry, humorless sound that made even Svetlana blink.
Fear . The word was so inadequate, so absurdly out of place it was comical.
My mind projected his images: Nyx in the warehouse, provoking me even after I threatened him; Nyx on his knees in his apartment asking me to make him a punching bag ; Nyx at the poker table, smiling as he humiliated my most dangerous men.
"Svetlana, fear ? You think the problem here is that he's afraid of me?"
Nyx didn't know what fear was. He fed on it. He used it as fuel. The idea of him being afraid of me was the biggest joke I'd ever heard.
"I pointed a gun at his head. Cocked. An inch from his forehead," I said, and as the words came out, I was back in that dusty apartment. "And he smiled . Are you hearing me? He smiled at me as if I was offering him a fucking gift."
I could still feel the weight of the pistol in my hand, the smell of old coffee and dust from that poorly kept apartment.
It was a logical end. The pest that was Nyx needed to be eradicated.
It was the clean solution, the rational way out to silence the obsession he had created.
I wanted to solve the problem in the only way I knew.
And then he looked at me. And that bastard smiled . A welcoming smile. He desired death from my hands.
I didn't explain any of this to Svetlana. How could I?
"He doesn't operate by the same logic as us," I continued. That was as much as I could allow myself to say. "You talk about fear as if it were a tool I could use, but you don't understand… with him, everything is inverted."
Svetlana processed the information. Her face showed no relief or understanding. On the contrary, her expression became even harder, more clinical.
"That doesn't reassure me, Dante. It only proves you're losing perspective."
"I'm not losing perspective! I'm the only one who has the fucking perspective!" I insisted. "I'm the only one who's seen what he's capable of! That's why he can't have a millimeter of freedom!"
"And that's why you're making an emotional decision, not a strategic one."
She cornered me again. Every attempt to explain his madness only made me sound crazier.
I clenched my fists. "You don't have to understand. You just have to trust that I know what I'm doing."
"For the first time, Dante, I don't think you do."
She didn't think I was dealing with a security problem. She thought I was dealing with a personal problem, an obsession that could cost the family dearly.
Perhaps she wasn't wrong.
I ordered the acquisition of the company right after that conversation. We offered double what it was actually worth, and there was no negotiation beyond an enthusiastic acceptance of the best possible offer they could ever hope to receive.
Victory was supposed to taste better.
I spent the next day in my office. The acquisition was finalized before lunch. Every second of his mundane life now passed through a Volkov filter—the surveillance on his terminal was set up before he even arrived for work.
I had prepared myself for his reaction. If he got angry, if he tried to retaliate with one of his ridiculous pranks, we had reinforced all our systems while he was working on Svetlana's list. I have no doubt he could still tear down our defenses, but not without delaying him long enough for me to put him in his place before any real damage was done.
A pull of his hair worked miracles. Who knew what else would.
But no.
The secure phone rings late in the afternoon. One of the lookouts assigned to follow him—Dmitry had insisted an entire task force for a 23-year-old kid was overkill, but just like Svetlana, his view of the situation was colored by naivety.
I answer without a word. The first thing I hear is, "He's left the building, boss."
I check the clock—six in the evening. His clock-out time. Throughout his entire workday, he had worked like a civilian. Part of me expected him to refuse to be planted in front of a computer while being watched, but that's exactly what he did.
He showed nothing. And that had irritated me long before this call.
"Where is he going?" I ask, straightening in my chair. I drop the files I was reviewing—I can't even concentrate on them.
"Stopped at a convenience store on the corner."
This has to be it. The retaliation. What is he doing? Buying a burner phone? Making a secret contact?