Chapter 10 Bitsy
She looked up, her chin buried in the high collar of her knit sleeves, staring at the towering glass facade. The gold numbers on the front doors gleamed in the gray morning light, looking slick, expensive, and completely uninviting against the backdrop of Bridgeport’s financial district.
She hadn’t slept. Not even for an hour.
The cramped backseat of her rusted old sedan had felt smaller than usual last night, the air freezing and heavy while her mind looped through everything that had happened at the demolition site.
She’d spent the hours after leaving parked in the back corner of an all-night grocery lot, buried under three layers of cheap blankets, staring at the cracked vinyl ceiling.
The sheer size of him, the low, gravelly weight of his voice, and the terrifyingly precise way he had dismantled her entire setup in a matter of minutes had left her completely undone.
When he had handed her his phone and ordered her to put her number in, she hadn't even thought about fighting it. Her fingers had shaken so badly she could barely type out her name. And then that text had buzzed in her pocket, a digital line pulling her straight toward this massive building.
Enigma Executive Suite. 300 Atlantic Avenue. 9:00 sharp. Do not be late, little girl.
Little girl. The phrase made her chest feel tight.
Down at the diner, nobody spoke to her like that.
Clearing plates and dodging the heavy, stale-beer hands of transient dockworkers meant she had to be invisible, fast, and tough enough to blend into the background.
The only person who ever used those words with her was Jake, but he was old enough to be her grandfather, treating her with a soft, protective grandfatherly kindness whenever she saw him.
But the moment he had looked down at her on that cracked plastic milk crate, it hadn't felt like Jake's gentle affection.
His deep voice carried a weight that made her inside-self completely take over.
She had felt so incredibly small, so desperately exposed, and yet, when he used that corrective, firm cadence with her, a strange, terrifying wave of relief had washed over her.
Staring up at the building now, the sheer scale of the place made her chest tight with a new brand of panic.
She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It would be so easy for a man with his kind of power to set a trap right here behind the glass doors, waiting to hand her over to transit security or the police the second she walked through.
But three times her current wage was an amount of money she couldn't even compute.
It meant rent. It meant a real door that locked.
It meant heat that didn't rely on running her car's dying engine for ten minutes at a time just to keep her toes from going numb in the middle of January.
It meant not having to siphon bandwidth from a corporate giant just to have a safe, quiet space where the world couldn't touch her.
Bitsy swallowed hard, watching her breath mist in the cold air.
She still didn't even know what Enigma was.
The name was plastered on high-end real estate and transit contracts around Bridgeport, but to a girl from the docks, it was just another corporate fortress for people who lived a completely different life.
A shadow moved behind the tinted glass doors, and her breath caught in her throat.
The heavy door swung open, and he stepped out.
He didn't wear the heavy overcoat from the night before; instead, he was in a dark, tailored charcoal vest over a crisp black button-down shirt.
His dark eyes locked onto her instantly, tracking the way she was huddled against the wind, before he stepped forward to bridge the distance between them.
"You're five minutes early," he said, his voice dropping into that low, familiar register that immediately sent a quiet tremor straight down her spine. "Good. Let's get you out of the cold."
Bitsy gave a small, hesitant nod, her fingers tightening on her duffle bag as he turned and gestured for her to follow him.
The moment she stepped through the massive doors, the raw howl of the city wind was cut off completely, replaced by the quiet, climate-controlled warmth of the lobby.
Polished stone floors stretched out toward a secure elevator bank, and everything smelled faintly of citrus.
He didn't say a word as he led her toward a private elevator at the back. He placed his hand against a biometric scanner, the console pulsing a soft blue before the heavy doors slid open with a quiet hiss. He stepped inside and waited, his gaze fixed on her with a patient, unyielding intensity.
Bitsy hesitated at the threshold, her battered sneakers looking entirely out of place against the mirrored interior. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her headspace skating right at the edge of panic.
"Inside, Bitsy," he murmured softly. The tone was gentle, but it carried an underlying command that gave her feet the permission they needed to move.
She stepped in, pressing herself into the corner, keeping her duffle bag held high against her chest like a shield.
He didn't crowd her. He stood near the control panel, his large frame occupying the space with a calm, heavy ease that felt both terrifying and oddly protective.
As the elevator ascended smoothly toward the top floor, the silence between them stretched, heavy but steady.
When the doors finally slid open, Bitsy’s eyes widened slightly.
The executive suite was massive, all clean lines, dark polished concrete, and floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the sprawling city grid below.
It was entirely empty, the deep silence of the upper floor giving off a sanctuary-like calm.
"This is the executive suite," he said, turning to look down at her as he led her past a minimalist lounge area. "My office is through here."
He guided her toward a massive double-door entrance at the end of the hall. As they closed the distance, Bitsy’s eyes caught the sleek, brushed-metal plaque mounted to the dark wood frame. Engraved in crisp, minimalist lettering beneath the Enigma corporate logo was a single name: WYATT CALDER.
The name settled over her with a strange, heavy finality. Wyatt Calder. It sounded strong, solid, and completely unyielding—just like the man pushing the heavy doors open for her.
Inside, the office was lined with dark wood shelves, a sprawling mahogany desk dominating the center of the room with multiple high-end monitors glowing with scrolling code.
But what caught Bitsy’s eye was a smaller, empty desk set up directly adjacent to his, tucked into a slightly recessed corner of the room.
It was completely pristine, save for a brand-new, high-end terminal and a sleek chair that looked infinitely softer than any milk crate she had ever sat on.
"That's your space," he said, gesturing toward the smaller desk. "Go ahead and set your bag down."
Bitsy walked over tentatively, her movements slow and guarded. She set her battered canvas duffle on the floor next to the pristine wood, her eyes tracking the smooth, unblemished surface before lingering on the high-end monitor.
"I... I don't have to use my own laptop?" she whispered, her voice tiny, her eyes darting to him before dropping back down.
"No," he said firmly, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "You don't touch that patchwork machine again. Everything here is yours. Sit down."
She slid into the chair, her small frame nearly swallowed by the leather. It was warm, and the layout of the desk felt incredibly secure—tucked into the corner where she could see the whole room, yet directly under the protective shadow of his larger workstation.
He walked over to his own desk, picked up a sleek digital tablet, and brought it over to her. He rested his hip against the edge of her desk, leaning in just enough to let her feel his overwhelming presence without crowding her into a panic.
"Before we talk about what you're going to be doing here, and before I can explain exactly what Enigma does, we have to handle the legalities," he said, sliding the tablet in front of her.
A document was pulled up, the words Non-Disclosure Agreement bolded at the top.
"This says that everything you see, everything you code, and everything we discuss within these walls stays here.
It's a standard corporate safety net, but with us, it’s non-negotiable.
Read it through, and sign at the bottom. "
Bitsy looked at the tablet, her fingers creeping out of her oversized sleeve to trace the glass screen.
Her eyes scanned the dense legal clauses, her sharp mind easily translating the corporate jargon.
It was tight. If she leaked anything, they could essentially erase her from the city's ledger.
But she had no intention of talking to anyone anyway; she didn't have anyone to talk to.
She tapped the signature box, her hand trembling slightly as she carefully traced out her name.
He took the tablet back, his dark eyes checking the signature before nodding in satisfaction. He set it aside, his focus returning entirely to her pale, anxious face.
"Now that you're officially bound to our system, I can tell you," he said, his voice low and steady.
"Enigma is a BDSM club. Downstairs is an exclusive, high-end venue built around privacy, absolute discretion, and specific lifestyle dynamics.
Upstairs, we run the proprietary internal networks, private transit integrations, and logic infrastructure that keep the entire operation completely locked down and secure.
We build the fortresses that keep corporate eyes and prying data sweeps from bleeding our people dry.
And last night, a stray little girl sitting in a freezing demolition zone tore a hole right through our primary asset just to watch a cartoon. "