His face twisted. He looked enraged as he seethed in response, “No, baby, no one cared about you. There’s no one looking for you.”
“LIAR!”
“It’s true. You left and no one stopped to ask about you.”
“I had family!”
“Your aunt didn’t give a shit. She hated you. You were too beautiful. Her sick boyfriend mourned not seeing the hot college girl that lived poorly under his roof.”
“Kim would have said something –”
“You erased your life right before you were taken.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you did. No one’s looking for you.”
“Stop saying that!”
“No one’s looking for you.”
Tears streamed down my face. I sobbed under him, knowing he was right, knowing it all along.
He let go of me, allowing me to curl up in a ball and sob until my head and eyes ached. I felt raw, like my spirit was finally breaking, and I didn’t know how to mend myself. I’d never learned the skills to self-analyse. I just buried it all away, and I’d done so well for so long, but it wasn’t working anymore.
Nixon had slid off the bed at some point and was pacing around the room with clenched fists. He kept darting looks my way. At times he’d stop and take a step in my direction, and then he’d stop and go back to pacing, like he had talked himself out of comforting me.
“I can’t hear this anymore,” he muttered under his breath. “I can’t bear it when you cry, Vixen. Stop fucking crying!”
But I cried harder, wailing into the pillow, feeling the veins in my neck protrude. He started wigging out. He dragged his hands over his face, whispering, “Leona cried, she cried all the fucking time…”
What a fucked-up day.
I said that many times.
“This is so fucked up, Nixon. What a fucked-up day.”
“Yeah,” he panted. “It’s a fucked-up day.”
“You let Flynn get to you.”
“I did.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Exactly.”
“But you shouldn’t have let him feed you.”
“It was so fucking meaningless.”
“I don’t care. You shouldn’t have, Vixen.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s right.”
Eventually, my cries petered off and he stopped pacing. We looked at each other from across the room. We were such sad souls, fused together. His chest was moving fast, and mine was moving fast, too. I saw desire in his face, and I let him see the desire in mine.
Was it fucked up I wanted him to fuck away the pain? Was it wrong I wanted to deny him so he could force the pleasure out of me? Did I long for it so much because it made me feel like for once someone was fighting for me?
Finally, he took a step closer to me. “On your knees, baby.”
I went on my hands and knees as he approached me from behind. He flipped my dress up and caressed my ass and thighs. His voice was hoarse when he said, “I’m not going to take it easy.”
I nodded, knowing. “You’re going to fuck me like a brute.”
“Yes, baby.”
“What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to fight me, like you always do.”
I shut my eyes, accepting this, us. “Okay, Nixon.”
Nixon…
Nixon had ordered his men to back down when Flynn was caught dragging Vixen out of the hotel. He’d felt oddly calm doing it, though his skin had prickled with the intense urge to chase after her, to haul her back to him, to cut that kid’s hands off for daring to feed her.
But…it was that very reason he remained seated, feeling his brain blaze with thoughts. Scattered pieces began to come together, but the overall picture was still fuzzy. He felt like he was getting close to some kind of revelation.
“What the fuck just happened?” Hobbs had hissed soon after Flynn had taken her out of the room.
“His defiance,” Nixon replied, thoughtfully.
“What about it?”
“He just gave himself away.”
Hobbs had frowned, confused. “What does that mean?”
“He’s refined,” Nixon explained. “He has no fear. He is used to control. He’s…like me.”
Hobbs approached Nixon, shaking his head madly as he tossed his thumb in the direction of the door. “Him? No, Nixon, he was a street kid his whole life. He stole a car, did burnouts for attention, sent the police on a chase across the city, made them look like pansies. It’s how Toby found him. He steered me to him.”
Nixon didn’t answer. Hobbs didn’t see it, but that was because he didn’t know what to look for, but Nixon did. He saw Flynn for the first time, saw the same possessiveness over Vixen, but it wasn’t in the same manner Nixon felt.
No, this was different.
“I don’t think you dug hard enough into that guy’s life,” he said. “There’s something about him that’s all wrong.”
“I don’t see it, personally.”
“His defiance comes with too much ease, Hobbs.”
“That’s because he’s arrogant.”
“That is not arrogance. That is learned behaviour.”
Hobbs crossed his arms, shrugging. “So, what do you want to do about this?”
“I want to look into him.”
“Go for it, you won’t find much. He lost his mom really young, was a foster kid for some time, ran away a bunch of times, just another statistic from a fucked-up system that gave no shits about teenage kids.”
Nixon didn’t respond straight away. He’d stared at his watch, counting down the minutes. He’d given his men ten minutes to haul his vixen back to him. That was ten minutes of unsupervised interaction. Ten minutes of who the fuck knows, and God, it felt like eating razor blades.
When those ten minutes were up, Nixon stormed to the apartment and waited for her. He needed to mark her. He needed to possess her.
He needed to remind her who she fucking belonged to.
And he did.
*
That evening, Flynn was eating alone at the Bistro on the ground level of the hotel. Nixon had explicitly instructed everyone to leave him the fuck alone.
He would be sorting the cunt out.
As soon as Nixon entered the restaurant, he had to stand down the hostess. “Not now, Becky,” he snipped.
“Beth,” she quietly corrected.
“I’m looking for Flynn.”
Her eyes lit up. She knew exactly who Flynn was because her cheeks went pink and her demeanour changed. This guy was good with the girls. Made their knees all wobbly and shit.
So. Fucking. Refined.
Nixon used to be that kind of refined, too, until he met Vixen and stopped giving a fuck about the pussy. After all, how could he give anymore fucks about pussy when the only pussy he gave a fuck about was hers?
But anyway.
“He’s in the backroom,” she said, leading Nixon to him. “I’ve only just served him a drink. He hasn’t ordered yet.”
Nixon paused mid-step when he found him sitting in the booth he and Vixen usually sat in. He felt his heart beat faster, felt his fingers twitch with incredulity. It was too fucking serendipitous for this boy to be sitting there.