My name is Nixon.

Come closer and I’ll bite.

I’m a con man. A criminal. Call me whatever headline you want — the job stays the same. I pay other people to take what I point at; I flip it to buyers who don’t ask names. I started running this operation at nineteen. Now I’m twenty-five, and it runs the way I do: fast, ruthless, and a little beautiful. I’ve never been caught. Luck helps. So do favors owed and silence bought. A few cops look the other way — not because they like me, but because I make the alternative persuasive.

There’s a problem. Not a what — a who.

He.

This kid keeps showing up, elbows in other people’s business, smiling like conscience is cute. He gets to places before me, ruins setups with a moral quirk and a flair for surprise, and worse — he believes he’s clever. That little bubble of self-righteousness pops like a pinprick against my patience. It irritates me more than admission should.

So I found him.

Dragged him back to headquarters like a bad souvenir. Tied to a chair, wrists raw where the rope chews. Blindfold tight enough to bruise the edges of his eyes, cotton stuffed into his mouth. He sits straight, jaw clenched, breathing quick and thin — the sort of defiance that smells faintly of panic.

The room is a slab of concrete and fluorescent hum. A single bulb swings, catching the sweat at his temple and the cheap scuff of his shoes. The table beside him holds what’s left of a failed run: half a score of parted goods, a loop of receipts, and a wallet with someone else’s pride inside. The air tastes of oil and stale smoke and something metallic that might be my patience.

I walk in slow. My boots clip on concrete like a metronome gone charmingly violent. I flick a lighter — not to light anything, just to make the flame dance while I watch him. My smile is too bright for the light: a grin meant to bait, to show teeth without promising brutality and then delivering both.

There’s a manic fizz under my skin — the kind that makes sentences snap and laughter come too early. But beneath that fizz sits an even quieter thing: an appetite that doesn’t laugh, that plans. The mania paints me ecstatic; the coldness keeps me alive.

I lean in close enough that he can feel the heat off my coat. My voice drops, silky and playful and folded sharp.

“Aww… poor thing,” I said, stepping inside.