Loving The Monster I Hate

Chapter Three

He didn't greet her.

Didn't ask her to introduce herself, didn't acknowledge that she had traveled across the city on two hours of sleep to sit in his office. Not like it was his business but it's still simple courtesy. He simply opened the folder in front of him, slid a document across the desk toward her and said —

"Sign this. You're to resume tomorrow morning."

Naya looked at him. All the composure she had practiced through the night, the mirror pep talks, the chin up, the shoulders back — left her in one quiet exhale. What replaced it was confusion, and underneath that, the beginning of something that felt very much like annoyance.

"Could you explain what it is you mean," she said.

"I'm quite certain your eyes aren't for fancy, Ms. Cole." He held her gaze without blinking. "You have a document in front of you. Read it."

He said it calmly. That was the thing that got under her skin — not anger, not cruelty, just this flat, unbothered calm, like she was a minor task on a long list and he had already moved on internally while his body stayed in the room. It only fueled her anger as she reached forward and picked up the document.

She read it once. Then she went back to the top and read it again because surely she had missed something, surely this was not what it plainly said.

She was to work as his personal assistant. Her full salary would be garnished and applied to Marcus's debt. She would remain in this arrangement until the balance had been repaid in full. If she refused or failed to comply, Marcus Cole's file would be forwarded to the appropriate criminal authorities without further notice.

She set the document down.

Her annoyance had been replaced by something bigger and hotter — anger, real anger, the kind that starts in your chest and has nowhere to go. She was angry at the cold statue sitting across from her, yes, but mostly, if she was being honest, and sitting in this office she felt stripped of the ability to be anything but honest — she was angry at Marcus. Her brother who had taken money that wasn't his, disappeared without a word, and left her here. Sitting in a chair that made her feel small, across from a man who had already decided exactly what she was, signing a document she had no power to refuse.

Her life was supposed to just halt. Just like that. No conversation, no negotiation, no consideration for what she was walking away from. What about her orders — she still had three of them, the yellow blanket not even halfway done when the envelope arrived. What about her mother, who didn't know any of this yet and would have to be told carefully so it didn't land the wrong way. What about the life she had been building quietly and steadily on her own terms.

None of that was in the document.

"You can't be serious," she said. She hadn't planned to say it but there it was.

Damian Voss looked at her with the same expression he'd had since she walked in. Unchanged. Unmoved. "I don't make arrangements I'm not serious about."

"I have a life," she said. "I have work. I have — " she stopped herself because she could hear how it sounded and she refused to beg, refused to list her life like evidence in front of this man who clearly did not care. She straightened in the chair. "How long does this last?"

"As long as it needs to."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one available." He leaned back slightly, unhurried as ever. "Your brother took from me, Ms. Cole. I'm recouping what I'm owed. The terms are in front of you. They're not negotiable."

She looked at the document again. Then at him. His face gave her nothing — no satisfaction at her discomfort, no cruelty, not even mild interest. Just that same flat patience, like he had done this before and knew exactly how it ended.

That was what made it worse. He wasn't enjoying this. She was simply a transaction.

She picked up the pen.

She told herself it was temporary. She told herself Marcus would surface, that this would get sorted, that she was not the kind of person situations like this defeated. She pressed the pen to the signature line and signed her name with a steadiness she did not feel and slid the document back across the desk.

Damian glanced at it. Closed the folder.

"Mira will brief you on your responsibilities. Be here by eight." He picked up his phone — not to call anyone, just to signal that she was dismissed. That was all. No thank you, no acknowledgment, no recognition that she had just handed over a piece of her life on a Tuesday morning in a chair she hadn't chosen.

She stood.

"Mr. Voss," she said.

He looked up. Just barely.

"My brother made his choices," she said. "I'm making mine. But I want you to know, I'm not him. Whatever you think you're getting by putting me in this building, I am not him."

He held her gaze for exactly two seconds.

"I know," he said. And then he looked back down at his phone.

She walked out. Mira was waiting on the other side of the door, ready to begin the briefing, already moving, already expecting Naya to follow. Naya followed. Because what else was there to do.

Behind her the door closed without a sound.