16. DANTE #2
I wait for the next step, one carefully woven to get inside my head and destroy everything within. I expect more of the same behavior that led him to put a ridiculous song on a loop, blasting from every Volkov speaker.
"What is he buying?"
"Uh... cigarettes, boss."
Cigarettes.
I frown. The kid lived on frozen food and energy drinks; cigarettes weren't part of the profile I had forced myself to read after Svetlana's jab about his name, and during his entire time here, he never once put a cigarette to his lips.
"Cigarettes?"
"Yes, boss. He paid and he's leaving."
"Follow him."
I wait, motionless.
"He's getting in the car, sir."
Fuck.
I hang up. He did nothing but buy cigarettes he doesn't smoke before deliberately getting into the car that would bring him back to me with no detours.
As if it were normal, as if this level of control was part of his routine.
Is he going to start smoking now? Is that the act of rebellion I've been waiting for?
I'd like to say he was just a passing thought and that, after checking on him, I could get back to work.
But this son of a bitch has taken root in me, so instead of resuming my life, I wait for him.
I wait for the report, for anything that tells me he isn't simply accepting our move.
This doesn't feel right, it feels suspicious, and Nyx has always done what he could to make his protests heard. I'm sure he'll do it now.
The car arrives. My security guards escort him into the mansion, and I follow every movement on the cameras. I see him stop in the middle of the hallway and talk to my men, gesturing.
Then I get a call from security telling me he wants to see me.
A part of me—a part I hate—likes this. This is what I expect: anger, humiliation; attempts to bargain.
I want to know what he's going to do, if he'll find some sort of private revenge by blowing smoke at me and accusing me of killing him slowly.
If he'll tell me how humiliating it was to face his coworkers knowing he was the cause of the corporate restructuring, or if he'll show a remnant of the real Nyx I know.
So I say, "Send him in."
He passes from camera to camera—hallway to hallway—until he reaches my office door.
His escort knocks on the door for him. He opens it without waiting for permission. Typical. I cross my arms, leaning against my desk, and he emerges through the opening.
It's strange seeing him in person now in formal clothes. Nyx is anything but formal. The image of an average office employee still feels like a fever dream.
He steps inside. I signal for the guard to leave us alone.
I wait for him to clarify what he wants.
I search for signs of anger, signs that he hates me now.
He remains neutral. If anything is different, it's the opposite of my expectations—Nyx's face is light today.
His eyes are always stormy, his features always sharp—today his eyes are clear, his lines soft.
Strange. He approaches me. He slips a hand inside his blazer pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
Newly bought. He extends it to me. It's still wrapped in clear plastic.
"You bought my company, so I thought I'd buy something for you in return," he finally says. "Although a pack of cigarettes isn't very impressive."
I stare at the pack. Red and gold. Dunhill. The brand I usually smoke.
A lot happens in my head. He pays enough attention to me to know which brand of cigarettes I smoke. He's not angry, doesn't seem angry.
And his words take a moment to make sense.
Impressive? That's his conclusion?
I take the pack on impulse and force my voice to scrape its way up my throat. "Why the hell are you happy? We did this to control you."
His smile widens. It's the most insane and genuine thing I've ever seen.
"Yes," he says. "I almost got hard in public when I found out."
His reaction doesn't fit in any scenario I imagined.
It doesn't make any sense. The image of this Nyx smiling happily in a corporate setting, happy to know his movements were being controlled by an army of goons and cameras, is ridiculous, incomprehensible.
It's an impossibility—he takes every weapon I point at him and turns it into an offering.
And it makes me want to throw him against the wall until that smile fades.
It makes me want to touch him.
My fingers tighten on the pack, crinkling the plastic. "You're fucking crazy."
He laughs. And, damn, that laugh is even worse. The sound of what he is—a man with no concept of danger.
"For you?" he says. "Absolutely."
No, Svetlana. You have no fucking idea.
His hand slides up the front of my shirt, and his eyes fall to half-mast as he toys with one of the buttons. His tongue peeks between his lips, tracing them, wetting them. It's such a small gesture, yet it makes me think of a million disgusting things at once.
I leave the pack on my desk to grab him by the throat. I need to know if he's real. I need to know that his insanity hasn't crossed a line I didn't draw, that it isn't something beyond my control.
That my hold over him still works.
"I control you now," I remind him, pressing hard enough to feel his heartbeat hammering beneath my palm. His breath quickens. And his smile disappears. He stares at me as if my words are sweet. "Completely."
He sighs. Delighted. "Do you know how fucking good that sounds?" he whispers. "Fuck me up. Do what you want. You bought me."
The words make me dizzy. I press harder. His face starts to flush. His eyes, dark and fixed on me, turn pleading. His hands lift, and he touches me, curling his fingers on my sleeves, sliding down to my arms, trying to pull me closer.
He would let me do anything. He would let me break him. He would let me end him. And he would thank me for it.
With a curse, I let go.
I'm pushing us back to the beginning again. To Nyx burrowing into my head, pulling me to the edge of an abyss of violence I can't face right now.
I won't let him do that again.
"Get out," I order.
He touches where my fingers had been—the red mark forming on his neck. Svetlana was right; the turtleneck underneath his dress shirt doesn't hide all the marks. The outline of my fingers in red bleeds out from above the wool collar, on top of bruises I remember too well causing.
Nyx takes a moment to move. He stares at me with that strange, fucked-up affection, his face flushed like a little girl's. This has no place here. Not for me.
He turns. He makes his way with slow steps, touches the doorknob, and hesitates.
He tightens his fingers on the metal.
"Mister," he calls. I clench a fist. I force myself to tense my shoulders, ready to remind him he's not in a position to question me.
I expect him to say something depraved, something that makes me question if I should really throw him out, like he's done more than once before. I expect more of the same.
He turns his face, but doesn't look at me. He's still got his back to me, facing the door, and I see him open his mouth, hesitating.
He goes quiet. He thinks.
I'm about to rush him when he says, "I think I'm falling in love with you."
My chest tightens. Nyx always sucked the oxygen out of every room he deigned to be in, but this is different.
He peeks at my reaction over his shoulder. He gives me one of his out-of-place smiles, devoid of perversions or urges—just affection .
Violence is something familiar. At least, despite everything , even with Nyx , it's something I know.
This isn't.
He opens the door. Calmly, he walks out, pretending he hasn't just fucked up with my entire fucking head.
What the hell does that mean? Nyx in love ? Love isn't for someone like him, it's not for someone like us —nobody loves Leonel Hays, nobody loves Dante Volkov. I've never heard that before, and I don't want to hear it now.
I have no way to claim this because this feeling doesn't belong to me. It never has, and it has never touched the same ground as me. Nyx is a fetish . It's perversion and passion and fascination, but not love.
Right?
"Goddammit."
I don't realize when I hurl my best bottle of whiskey at the wall. The glass shatters against the long curtains in front of the windows, the remnants of the drink splatter across the carpet and trickle down the wall.
He doesn't even know me. He doesn't understand . He never could. He only has my surface—the face my father molded. I can't play this game with him. It makes no sense.
The cigarette box he gave me still rests on the ebony wood of the table. The brand I like, the same one I've used since I was sixteen.
Why would he be in love with me? Why would he think I want any kind of affection?
He shouldn't look at me like that, and I can't do this to him—he scares me too much to even think about having anything real with him.
He makes me want everything too much.
I can't focus.
Work is hell. I see my men flinching and telling each other, "the boss is in a bad mood," but they have no idea what a bad mood is.
From the first day Nyx burst into my life, he's been lurking in the corners of my mind—he is, undeniably, showing himself more and more.
I can't stop thinking about you, I had said, and it's true.
I can't. But before, I still managed to stay functional.
I still buried him when I needed to pay attention, when I needed to dedicate myself to more things beyond the fucked-up depravity he brought.
Now, that doesn't work.
Those ridiculous words are too heavy to simply be buried. They're resonant, hanging in neon lights above any fucking logical thought I might have. I read documents, attend meetings, give managerial orders, and he's there, etched onto my eyelids, spitting cheap sentimentality. In love.