Chapter 12 Bitsy
The steady, low hum of the server banks in Wyatt’s office provided a constant rhythm that slowly let Bitsy’s frazzled nerves settle. For the last two hours, the sheer speed of everything had kept her swept up, leaving her absolutely no time to second-guess the bizarre reality she had landed in.
She wasn't in a jail cell. She wasn't being interrogated by the Bridgeport police.
Instead, she was tucked into a leather chair that probably cost more than everything she currently owned combined, systematically mapping out the routing arrays for a multi-million-dollar private security firm under the watchful, unyielding gaze of the man she had hacked less than twelve hours ago.
Wyatt didn't hover, but his presence was an absolute anchor in the room.
Whenever she completed a logic path or finished optimizing a data stream, he was right there, reviewing her terminal with a quiet, sharp focus that missed nothing.
He spoke to her in that same calm, authoritative rumble, guiding her through the intricacies of Enigma's infrastructure, talking to her not like a criminal, but like an investment he was personally responsible for securing.
It was exhausting, but it was a good kind of tired.
It was the kind of deep, hyper-focused mental labor that Bitsy usually used to drown out the rest of the world.
Except today, she couldn't entirely drown out the world, because the world kept standing right next to her shoulder, smelling of eucalyptus and clean linen, occasionally dropping a large, warm hand onto the back of her chair to remind her exactly who was in charge.
"That's the last of the logic gates," Wyatt said, his deep voice breaking the quiet as he leaned over her desk to look at her progress. "You've structured the sandbox perfectly, Bitsy. The baseline is exactly where I need it to be for Monday morning."
Bitsy’s cheeks warmed slightly at the casual praise, her fingers hovering over the keys of the mechanical keyboard.
"It was... it was easy to map once I understood how your protocols handle the routing loops," she murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the glowing green screen. "The architecture is really elegant."
"It's about to be more elegant now that you're cleaning up the dead weight," Wyatt replied, a faint, rare trace of amusement in his tone.
He straightened up, turning toward his desk and picking up a thick manila folder.
"We're done with the digital side for today.
Since it's Saturday, the rest of the building is quiet until tonight, and I only wanted to get your onboarding handled so you aren't drowning on your first real day.
Come over here, little one. We need to finish up your paperwork. "
Bitsy swallowed hard, her muscles stiff as she stood up.
She pulled the sleeves of her oversized purple sweater completely over her hands, a nervous habit she couldn't seem to shake, and walked over to his desk.
She felt incredibly small standing across from him, her sneakers sinking into the plush rug while he stood like an unmovable wall on the dark concrete floor.
He slid the folder toward her, tapping a heavy finger against a stark white stack of documents. "This is your official employment contract, your non-disclosure agreement, and your direct deposit authorization. Take your time, read through the terms, and sign where indicated.”
Bitsy nodded, pulling a heavy silver pen from the holder on his desk.
She leaned over the mahogany, her eyes scanning down the standard legal jargon of the non-disclosure agreement first. She signed her name in her neat, compact script, her heart thumping against her ribs.
She was good at reading legal documents; you had to be when you spent years navigating the bureaucracy of the state's foster care system.
She knew how to look for the fine print.
But when she flipped the page to the actual salary and compensation breakdown of the employment contract, her breath caught entirely in her throat.
Her jaw literally dropped, her eyes widening as she stared at the bold black numbers printed on the page. She stopped breathing. She blinked, once, twice, certain that her tired eyes were misreading the digits, or that she had accidentally placed a decimal point in the wrong spot in her mind.
The base salary was a six-figure number. It wasn't just a living wage; it was an astronomical amount of money. It included full medical, dental, and psychological benefits, a matching retirement account, and a guaranteed quarterly performance bonus structure.
Bitsy's hand began to tremble, the heavy silver pen rattling slightly against her knuckles.
She had never made this much money in her entire life.
Her previous income had been a chaotic scramble of double shifts as a server, under-the-table side gigs, and a string of grueling minimum-wage jobs that never lasted long enough to provide any real stability.
To her, money was a source of constant, low-grade panic—a fluctuating metric of survival that dictated whether she could afford a laundromat or a gallon of milk.
This number changed everything.
At this rate, if she factored in the taxes and kept her spending exactly where it was now, she would have enough for a first month's rent and a security deposit in less than three weeks.
She could be out of her car. She could have a real door with a real lock.
An apartment. A real bathroom where she could wash her face in peace without checking over her shoulder or worrying about a security guard knocking on her car window in the middle of the night.
The sheer weight of the realization hit her like a physical blow, a sudden wave of prickling heat rushing up her neck.
She felt exposed, terrified that if she stayed frozen for too long, Wyatt would realize he was paying a homeless girl an executive's salary and tear the paper right out from under her hand.
"Is there an issue with the compensation structure, Bitsy?"
Wyatt’s voice was quiet, but it possessed a sharp, discerning quality that made her snap her head up. He was watching her closely, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as he evaluated the sheer panic written across her face.
"No!" she gasped out, her voice a little too loud, a little too desperate. She quickly swallowed, dropping her gaze back to the paper to hide the sudden sting of tears in her eyes. "No, sir. It's... it's perfect. I just... I didn't expect it to be so much."
"You breached Enigma's core perimeter, little one," Wyatt said, his tone softening into that heavy, grounding register that instantly anchored her flailing thoughts.
"I don't pay for mediocre talent, and I don't under-value the people who keep my infrastructure secure.
You earned that number the moment you proved you could think faster than my servers. Sign the paper."
With a shaky, trembling breath, Bitsy pressed the pen to the paper and signed her name.
Elizabeth Adler. It felt real now. It felt like a lifeline thrown directly into the dark, turbulent water she had been drowning in for years.
She filled out the rest of the tax forms, leaving the bank routing section blank since she would need to update it on Monday, and slid the folder back across the desk.
Wyatt glanced over the signatures, checking each line with a slow nod of approval before closing the folder with a decisive snap. He glanced at the sleek watch on his wrist, the hands pointing exactly to one o'clock.
"Elizabeth," he said, reading the script on the page before looking back up at her. "Didn't realize that was your actual name."
Bitsy swallowed hard, her fingers instinctively retreating into the oversized knit of her purple sleeves. "I... I don't really use it," she whispered, looking down at the edge of his desk. "I only go by Bitsy."
Wyatt watched her for a beat, his quiet, intense focus tracking the sudden tension in her shoulders. "How come?"
She tucked her chin slightly, her voice dropping into a small, defensive murmur. "My dad. He was the only one who ever called me that. Usually when he was angry, or right before things went bad. I just... I haven't answered to it since I left. I prefer Bitsy."
The office went completely quiet, the low hum of the server banks filling the space between them.
Wyatt didn't offer any cheap sympathy, and he didn't pity her.
He just held her gaze, a heavy, unyielding look of absolute protection settling over his face as he effortlessly absorbed her boundary and claimed it.
"Then you're Bitsy," he rumbled, his voice dropping into that low, calm register that instantly took the panic out of the room. "Elizabeth can stay on the paperwork. In this office, you're Bitsy. And you are taken care of. Clear?"
A sudden, sweet warmth bloomed high on her cheeks, her chest tightening with a strange, completely foreign sense of security. "Clear, sir," she whispered.
"Good girl," Wyatt said, the quiet praise grounding her instantly as he stood up straight and adjusted the cuffs of his dark shirt. "That concludes your onboarding for today. I'm taking you to lunch. Pack your things, and we'll head out."
Bitsy’s stomach did a nervous little flip. "Oh, um... you don't have to do that, Wyatt. I mean, I can just... I can just head out and handle my own lunch. You've already done so much today."
Wyatt stopped, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a look of complete, immovable authority. There was no anger in his expression, but there was a wall of pure command that made it explicitly clear that her objection was entirely irrelevant.