Chapter 11 Wyatt #2
Bitsy stared at the pristine case as if it were an active bomb.
Her fingers twitched inside her purple sleeves, her face turning pale as she looked from the luxury hardware up to Wyatt’s face.
"I... I can't take that," she stammered, her voice shaking with sudden resistance.
"No, I... I have my own machine. I told you.
I have my laptop in my bag. It works fine.
It has all my custom scripts and my... my personal files on it. I don't need this."
"Your machine is a safety hazard, Bitsy," Wyatt said, his voice instantly turning to stone.
The casual, conversational tone vanished, replaced by an unyielding wall of authority.
"I looked it over last night. The regulator is failing, the battery casing is warped, and it has practically no cooling system left.
You are running high-performance scripts on a heap of junk that is one surge away from catching fire in your hands. "
"It's not junk!" she cried out, her small voice cracking as she instinctively reached down to throw her arms over the top of her battered canvas duffle bag, protecting it like a stray animal guarding its only possession.
"It's mine! I built it! I salvaged the parts from old discarded lots and I soldered the links myself!
It's the only thing I have that... that works the way I want it to! "
Wyatt didn't move away, and he didn't raise his voice.
Instead, he took one slow, deliberate step closer, his shadow completely blocking out the bright morning light from the windows, wrapping her workspace in his heavy, protective presence.
He reached out, his long fingers gently catching her chin and tilting her face up, forcing her wide, tear-bright eyes to meet the unyielding depth of his gaze.
"Lower your voice, little one," Wyatt murmured. The instruction wasn't a snap or a threat, but it carried a thick, heavy warmth that left absolutely no room for defiance. "Shouting at me will not be tolerated, and it's certainly not how a good girl handles her frustrations. Take a breath."
He waited a beat, his thumb lightly brushing the soft skin of her jaw until her chest stopped heaving quite so frantically. When her small frame finally gave a shaky exhale, he let his hand slide away, trailing down to the arm of her chair.
"Now, sit back and let go of the bag."
The command was soft, but the absolute gravity behind it bypassed her panic entirely.
Her small arms trembled against the canvas, her eyes staring up at him in a mixture of fear and quiet awe, but under the steady, unblinking focus of his dark gaze, her resistance began to fracture.
Slowly, inch by inch, she let her hands slide off the bag and pulled them back into her lap, her lower lip quivering as she sat back against the leather cushions.
He reached down, his large hand easily lifting her heavy, battered canvas duffle bag off the floor.
Bitsy let out a small, choked gasp, her fingers banking into tight fists inside her sweater, but she didn't move.
She couldn't. The sheer authority radiating off him had her completely locked in place.
Wyatt set her bag on the corner of his own desk, unzipping the worn track with a practiced ease.
He reached inside, his long fingers wrapping around the scratched, dented plastic housing of her custom laptop—the one held together by electrical tape and salvaged copper wire.
He pulled it out, setting it flat on the mahogany.
"I will have my hardware team extract your local directories and your custom scripts," Wyatt said, his dark eyes fixing onto her pale, trembling face.
"Every single line of your personal data will be transferred securely to that new terminal on your desk by tomorrow morning.
Once the data transfer is verified, this machine is being disassembled and disposed of properly.
You will not touch it again. Am I understood? "
"You're... you're throwing it away?" She whispered, a single tear finally spilling over her lashes, tracking down her crimson cheek.
It wasn't just a computer to her; it was the digital fortress she had spent years building to hide from the cold, a piece of her fragile identity that she had scraped together.
Wyatt saw the tear. He see the heartbreaking vulnerability radiating off her small frame, and a massive, fierce wave of protective anger surged deep in his chest—not at her, but at a world that had left a brilliant, fragile creature so completely starved for safety that she was weeping over a piece of industrial scrap.
She didn't just need a boss. She didn't just need an employer to hand her a paycheck.
She needed an anchor. She needed someone to build the walls for her, to take the heavy, terrifying weight of survival entirely off her small shoulders so she could finally stop running.
He walked back to her desk, his movements slow and deliberate. He leaned down, his face inches from hers, his dark eyes locking onto her wide, frightened gaze until she was completely anchored by his presence.
"I am replacing it with something safe, little one," Wyatt murmured, his deep voice dropping into a thick, warm register that felt like a heavy blanket wrapping around her frayed nerves.
"You don't have to salvage scrap to protect yourself anymore.
You don't have to build your own walls out of garbage.
I am handling the hardware now. Your only job is to follow the rules, do your work, and let me worry about the rest."
Bitsy stared at him, her chest heaving as she let out a long, shaky breath.
The absolute finality of his words, combined with the steady, grounding stroke of his focus, seemed to pull her deeper into that quiet, secure headspace she had touched while coding.
The fierce resistance drained out of her, leaving her feeling incredibly small, incredibly tired, and strangely safe beneath the heavy shadow of his authority.
She swallowed hard, her chin dipping as she gave a small, submissive nod. "Okay," she whispered, her voice tiny and spent.
"Good girl," Wyatt said, the quiet praise carrying a weight that made her chest ache with sudden, sweet warmth.
He straightened up, his hand resting briefly against the back of her chair one last time to ensure she was stable.
"Put your new laptop in your bag. The transfer will be completed before you leave today.
Now, let's get back to the array baseline. We have a lot of structures to build."