16. DANTE #3
Svetlana says something about the lists of people she sent him to sift through—I don't care.
The digital rat is the least of my problems; he doesn't cost me as much as Nyx does.
She lectures about letting him have real server access, and she thinks I don't see when she exchanges glances with Dmitry, saying I'm not as combative as I usually am.
Fuck that. I don't want any more headaches with Svetlana—not while Nyx is bombarding me.
I peek at the cameras. I'm not proud of how many times I do that during the day.
Dmitry managed a competent team to monitor Nyx while we let him go back to work, even in a company now controlled by our family.
The Volkovs have much more important functions than watching a mundane reality show of an IT kid's life, he said, and I agree.
But I can't trust anything beyond my own eyes with Nyx now.
I track his image. The cameras in his office show an ordinary routine beneath the residual panic of the only department partially surviving the corporate restructuring—an excuse to turn the building into a surveillance field—and I watch him infiltrate normalcy like a parasite.
A diligent worker who finishes his tasks much faster than most, perpetually bored by the simplicity of his responsibilities.
I see it in his boredom, in the occasional yawns, in his disinterested eyes.
He keeps his distance from his coworkers. He doesn't exchange words for long with any of them, when he doesn't leave them talking to themselves, and I'd say he's just a tired employee if I didn't know him. Like Svetlana thinks he is—a disillusioned, depressed kid.
I watch the insistence of the girl in the cubicle next to his. I watch him nod at her, offer minimal answers while staring at an office plant pot.
She gets up at some point. She leans next to him and gives him a smile that borders on shyness.
His eyes gain some tiny sliver of life when he lifts his head to her, and she smiles.
I don't know if she's blushing or if it's makeup—I didn't care enough before to notice, but she comes back with a bigger smile and two cups of coffee, with more color in her cheeks.
She leans in. She leaves the extra coffee on his desk, and she puts her hand on his back, and keeps it there.
He doesn't pull away.
In fact, he smiles at her. That same easy, small, fucked-up smile he gives me when he kisses me. That smile is mine . And he's giving it to her, for free , because of a fucking coffee; he's letting her put her hands on him for a fucking coffee.
Is this his counterattack ? To say he loves me, fuck with my head, and smile at just anyone like that?
She points at his bandaged hand. Concern. He lets out a polite laugh that doesn't suit him, and she touches his arm. His hand.
Fuck. He's not going to tell her how he got that injury? I watch him play house with this woman who surely has no idea of the perversion he embraces whenever he looks at me, of the submission with which he kneels.
I break a pen in my hand without noticing. It snaps in half and the ink stains my skin as I watch Nyx's "boss" give him some stupid order while that woman doesn't take her hand off him. Why doesn't he push her away?
The freedom of her touches irritates me. She doesn't have that right, and she doesn't know who she's touching. She should go after someone who fits into the grayest mass of civilians managed by whatever that ridiculous boss is.
I pull up the company's employee list. Restructured as an IT integration of another asset, average employees with average resumes. I access her file, her data, her fucking documents.
Nicole Davis. Twenty-eight years old, white, redhead with brown eyes.
Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Data Analysis at the end of 2020.
Owns a Honda Civic with 28 installments left to pay, her father depends on expensive blood-thinning medication, her brother was caught with marijuana on campus—no criminal record—, her debts are accruing high interest, and her entire salary is drained from her bank account immediately upon deposit.
She has no investments, no support network.
One late payment and she'd be in the red.
An untimely accident and she'd lose the car while still owing the bank.
A drug trafficking accusation would ruin her brother's life.
Four close friends at most. Social media is private, with few sepia-filtered sunset photos, selfies, and a stray dog—a simple life, just anyone .
I clench my fists before turning off the camera monitors—it's a sacrifice to stop myself from smashing the screens and crushing that fucking image of Nyx smiling at her like he smiles at me.
I know I'll do something irreparable if I keep watching.
I stand up. I let the chair fall, knocking an ashtray off the table.
I wait for six o'clock.
Until I reach it, it's a hell of a lack of focus, and a replay of Nyx looking at that woman. It's my men afraid to speak near me, afraid to die. They see my limit, and they tremble before it. I hear them question each other what happened, and I ignore it.
What besides Nyx has been driving me insane lately?
At that time—at six—I allow myself to return to the office.
I allow myself to pick up the fallen chair and put it back in its place, I allow myself to turn the monitors back on, and I allow myself to watch Nyx get up from that wheeled chair, pack his few belongings into an old backpack, and walk out.
And I see when she— Nicole —waves at him. She approaches, and he opens his mouth. He makes her laugh . And she watches him. She watches him walk away like a lovesick teenager, watches him go down the street until he disappears from sight.
I wait. I take my best cigar from the bottom drawers, light it, and it's no surprise it doesn't calm me at all. The lookouts inform me that Nyx gets into the car—no surprise cigarettes today, just a quick drive of a few minutes until he's back here, and I order Luca to bring him to me first thing.
I count the seconds. I feel like breaking someone in half. Fucking Nyx and his strategy—it's always about messing with my head, more and more. The word still weighs somewhere in my mind. In love.
I recognize Luca's knock on the door, and I recognize Nyx's insubordination in not waiting for my permission to turn the doorknob. He appears as before—white in his paleness saved by colorful bruises. Now, his eyes are bored, tired, and the remnant of life in them is a poorly disguised curiosity.
I tell Luca to leave us alone. Then it's just the two of us.
"Sit down," I order him.
He approaches slowly. He pulls the armchair in front of my desk closer before sitting down, impassive to the tobacco smoke that permeates me.
I don't expect him to say anything. I haven't allowed him to say anything.
"Nicole Davis," I begin. One of his eyebrows slowly disappears under his messy bangs.
"A beautiful, kind woman. She made you coffee today.
" I draw smoke from the cigar, see the tension in his shoulders.
He doesn't know what I'm talking about, where I'm going.
"Tell me, Leonel . What else does she do for you? "
He frowns. His eyes—always almost translucent—dart to the carpet, to the fallen ashtray. He shrugs. "I thought you were more interested in my reports than my office social life."
And this bastard deflects my question.
"You seem close," I say, and the sound of it—Nyx and her close—disgusts me.
"This girl, Nicole… twenty-eight years old.
Has a hundred thousand dollars in outstanding debt.
Her father had two bypass surgeries. Her mother depends on his pension to survive.
The house mortgage has a variable interest rate that will be readjusted next quarter…
it would be a shame if the bank decided to foreclose due to default. "
He slowly understands the threat. His face shifts from mere patched-up curiosity to interest.
"You smiled at her today, Leonel ," I say.
I emphasize his name again. "She touched you—your arm, your back.
Harmless gestures." He doesn't show what he thinks.
He just looks at me with a strange intensity, and, fuck, I double down.
"There will be no more harmless gestures," I state.
"With one call, I'll fire her. I'll blacklist her name, ensuring she never works in this city again in any area remotely related to technology.
I'll destroy her credit. I'll make sure her loan is foreclosed.
So, let's establish some rules. Starting tomorrow, you don't talk to her, unless it's strictly about work.
You don't look at her. If she says good morning, you ignore her.
If she offers you coffee, you pour it down the sink in front of her.
And if she touches you again… I'll break every fucking one of her fingers.
And then yours , for allowing it. Am I clear? "
He needs to understand he's not playing with just anyone.
My hatred might have its uncontrolled form, but my control is different—and now, I control his world .
I need to remind him it's not a good idea to test me.
If before he did it for a punch and a hand job, now he understands that, above all, he drags people who have nothing to do with it into the black hole he is.
I don't directly involve those who don't deserve it. It's one of the Volkovs' internal rules. But he makes me want to burn all the lines. If Nyx wants to play with fire, I'll force him to watch everything he even looked at with kindness turn to ashes. And he'll know it's his fault.
He stands up. Slowly. I expect him to challenge me, to explain himself, but he doesn't. He wets his lips in the dirtiest way I've ever seen and gives me a feverish look. I see Nyx blossoming beneath that mundane skin of Leonel Hays.
I don't back down. This is the man I want to talk to.