Rule and Ruin

eleven; the mermaid's miasma

chapter eleven.

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"WHAT THE FUCK is the Mermaid Venue?"

Nix and Ren exchanged a glance. Ren closed his eyes and brought his hand to his forehead in irritation.

"You don't know what the Mermaid Venue is?" Nix frowned.

"Should I?" Selene looked back and forth between them, wondering what she was missing.

"I thought you said she would be useful," Ren muttered.

"I did. She is. I think," Nix said before addressing Selene again. "What do you mean you don't know what the Mermaid Venue is? How do you not know what the Mermaid Venue is?"

"I don't know what the fucking Mermaid Venue is," Selene spat. "So if you could kindly tell me what the Mermaid Venue is now, I'd know it."

Ren looked up at the ceiling.

"Dino didn't tell you?" Nix was still frowning.

"Obviously not," Selene said impatiently.

"Can we get rid of her please?" Ren exclaimed.

"For fuck's sake, just tell me!"

Nix sat in silence for a moment before letting out a stifled laugh, "You know what? It doesn't matter. The Mermaid Venue is just another source of income for Dino. You might have seen it in your financial records. That's what you manage, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Selene frowned. "I've never seen it. Is it one of the money laundering locations?"

Ren banged his head against the table.

Nix shot him a glare, "Uh, something like that."

There was obviously more to it.

"I thought she was high ranking in Dino's close circle," Ren growled.

"I am," Selene said automatically. "...I was."

"So how the fuck do you not know your gang's greatest source of income is child sex trafficking?"

Selene froze, "What?"

Ren scoffed at her reaction.

Nix opened his mouth before turning around with a sigh. "Ren, go get us some water please."

"What am I? You're fucking maid?" Ren snapped but stood up and left the room nonetheless.

The room sat in silence. It felt like the air was mocking her. All she wanted to do was curl up and hide away because she felt so, so, so stupid.

"I thought you knew," Nix said after a few moments.

"Well I didn't," she said coldly.

Being with Dino, Selene had seen a lot of things. She had helped them launder billions of money. She had helped them smuggle and distribute gallons of drugs. She had watched them torture and murder hundreds of people.

"It's good you didn't know," Nix said. "It's better. I...I had thought you were in on it."

Selene let out a pained laugh, "So what? Does this change your opinion about me?"

"Yeah actually, it does," he said without the usual carefree lightness in his voice.

She stared at him. It had only been a single day and yet this man had single-handedly turned her world inside out, dumping secret after secret on her clueless, self-serving, deserving ass. He was right. She knew absolutely nothing.

Selene had long since abandoned all her morality, so why did she feel so cheated? Why did she feel dirty? With all the blood and death that stained her name, this shouldn't have bothered her. Except it did.

It made her blood run cold. It made her want to scream. It made her terrified - of herself - because she couldn't tell whether she was angrier that it was child sex traifficking or angrier that she didn't know about it.

Maybe Dino was right not to tell her. She didn't know what she would have done with it. Would she have tried to stopped it? Would she have gone along with it, been obedient about it like she had been all her life? She tried not to think about it.

Nix was watching her.

"Does that freak you out?" he said, his voice empty. "That he's been creeping on pretty little girls like you all along? Who knows? Maybe he's already done something to you."

Selene had never wanted to kill him more than in that moment.

"Shut up," she said quietly, because it was all she could manage.

God, she was so tired.

She thought about the way Dino would run his hands through her hair. The way he would hug her for too long. The way he would tell her how beautiful she was all the time. Selene sighed and closed her eyes but the thoughts would not leave.

"That's the kind of people you work with," he said. "The question is, is that the kind of person you are?"

Selene wanted to say no, but how could she be sure?