Rule and Ruin

nine; the perfect crime

chapter nine.

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IT WAS A DREAMLESS night, which for some reason, was worse.

Selene felt void when she woke. Her eyes blinked blank, and her mind ran empty. All she could think about was the numbness in her body.

She rubbed her eyes as she sat up and inhaled sharply when she noticed she was in the bed. Her eyes darted to the corner she had remembered occupying last night.

"Morning," Nix's rough voice filled the small room.

Selene snapped her head over to meet his gaze at the left corner where he was zipping up his pants from a piss break. His hair was wet and he didn't have a shirt on.

She narrowed her eyes.

"Stop looking at me like that," he muttered. "I woke up in the middle of the night and saw you all curled up in the corner. It was such a pathetic sight, so I moved you to the bed."

"What about you?"

"As if I'd give up a perfectly comfortable bed for you. Don't worry, I left room for Jesus," he huffed.

Selene scowled. The mattress was just big enough for two people and she shivered at the thought of him sleeping beside her.

Her eyes darted down to his injury. "How's the leg?"

"Been better," he shook it slightly. "Nothing I can't handle."

Selene sighed and thumped back down on the bed. She gazed up at the ceiling, "What now?"

"Nothing. I do my thing and you...do whatever you want."

She grit her teeth, "Why did you give me that file?" Why did you turn my world upside down? Why did you tell me the truth no one else could? What am I supposed to do now? 

"I did say I knew how to make you hate him too, didn't I?" he shifted around in the background.

"Yes but why? What could you possibly have to gain from this?"

Nix appeared and interrupted her view of the ceiling. He stood over her with a simple stare, "Maybe you're not as useless as I said you were. Maybe I thought it'd be fun to have you on my side."

"Your side?" she scoffed. "I think about killing you every moment I'm with you, what makes you think I'm on your side?"

Nix shrugged, "The fact that you haven't yet."

Selene just stared up at him. She had so many opportunities to but she hadn't killed him yet and she didn't know why.

"And you?" she blinked. "Why did you betray him?"

It was a question no one seemed to know the answer to. Dino was so sure he had given this boy everything. Every reason not to betray him, and yet here he was. As powerful as Dino had made him and as traitorous as she was.

Nix just smiled, "I have my reasons."

She narrowed her eyes. She didn't like that he was digging up her deepest secrets while she knew next to nothing about him.

He turned and left her field of vision. "Listen, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Move countries. Go back to Dino. Starve to death. I don't really care."

Selene sat up on the bed and looked after him. He dug around his belongings and pulled out a wrinkled grey tee.

"But I know you're not the type to let go like that. You're probably bursting at the seams right now over what happened, so I'm giving you the option to stay and work with me."

Selene frowned. Work with him?

"I just need to know what you're working for." He pulled the shirt over his head and then met her gaze. "Now that shit went down with Dino, what exactly do you want?"

What did she want?

All her life, what she wanted was what Dino wanted. She wanted successful deals and perfect crimes. She wanted power over his men. She wanted to punish traitors.

But there she sat, with the biggest traitor of them all. What did she want?

She felt the anger and sadness bubble to the surface. She realized everything she felt was due less to what Dino had done to her father and more to the twelve years he had stolen from her. Her entire life. A lie.

What did she want?

It was an easy question.

Selene looked into Nix's waiting gaze, "I want to destroy him."

His lips lifted into an approving smile that sent shivers down her spine.

"Good. Then we're on the same page."