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DJ was so fucking stupid.
Vera is appalled—no, disgusted with the way he dismissed Elliot, his Elliot, like he was some kind of... distraction from their mission. He was their mission; the visionary that would help execute his vision, the architect of his future kingdom. They were destined to work together—how could DJ not see that?
Oh, well. Good riddance, he thinks as he stares down at the body on the kitchen floor, bleeding sluggishly from the bullet wound on his forehead. He looks back to the phone in his hand, at the pixelated breakdown of Elliot’s likeness on the screen, takes in his hunched shoulders and averted gaze. He feels something like awe for the woman who could make him look so heartbroken, when Vera himself had intimidated the other man all he could and had barely gotten more than a weary glance in return.
At the same time, though, he feels angry—how could she hurt someone like Elliot? Elliot was his. It was cosmically unfair of the universe to tease him with the idea of another person knowing the hacker so intimately, intimate enough to hurt him, while Vera could only look on from a distance, aching deep in his gut.
But not for long. Soon , he assured himself. Soon, Elliot would be his, and they could rule this island together, like they were always meant to.
While Peanuts is tailing the mystery woman, Javi reports on Elliot and has some very interesting things to relay.
DJ was fucking stupid. “Aloof” his ass—Elliot was out there on Christmas Eve getting his dick sucked by some nameless chick he’d picked up at a bar, some shy brunette bitty that reminded Vera of Shayla, a bit, from the blurry photo Javi had snapped of her sticking her tongue down Elliot’s throat. Figures the kid would have a type: glassy-eyed, dark-haired. Fucked up and a little broken. Just like Elliot himself.
If only Vera could tell him that she’s not good enough for you, that she and him simply weren't meant to be together—not the way he and Vera were, at least. Elliot and him were meant to rule the world together; the galaxies, even, if Vera allowed himself to dream a bit. His daydreaming is distracted, however, from movement outside Elliot’s apartment stoop, and he leans forward to get a good look.
He’d parked himself on the opposite side of the street, decided to watch the facade from a distance and wait for Elliot to get back home. He’d already broken into the apartment earlier that day and given it a brief scan, finding it more or less the same as he left it all those months ago, back in the spring when the smell of rain on pavement was still fresh in the air. There were some new pieces of furniture, an unfamiliar Urban Outfitter-looking lamp in the corner (something Shayla might have owned, he thinks absently), a new TV on the shelf. The side table by the couch—the same couch Elliot had no doubt spent countless hours getting high on the morphine Vera had given him—had been knocked over, though, a rotary phone cast carelessly across the floor, still beeping. Vera vaguely wonders what happened: had Elliot just been pissed and kicked at it in a rage? Or had there been a fight, someone else vying for his attention as much as Vera had?
He’d picked around a little more. Dug into the drawers by his bedside and found a half-empty box of condoms, which somehow Vera doubts the man’s touched since Shayla last graced his bed. When Elliot’s working for him, he thinks, he’ll make goddamn sure he’s got all the girls he could ever want. God knew that an orgasm or two would do the kid good, as wound up and tense as he was.
The ashtray that Elliot had always kept on the cabinet by his bed was still there, full of cigarette butts and half-smoked joints. The unit is suspiciously clean of morphine, though, not even a mirror in sight, and Vera has to color himself impressed. He’s almost a little flattered that Elliot never turned to another dealer after him—that the last morphine he took had been something packaged by none other than Vera himself, that the phantom memory of his last true high was tainted by Vera’s presence.
Vera is much more interested in the now, though, as he ducks low to peer at the man pressing insistently at the keypad, stumbling back to peer up at Elliot’s dark windows. He clearly doesn’t live there—he’s done up too neat, an expensive suit and long coat, dirty blonde hair clean and kept. Vera fumes at the sight: who’s this pansy-ass motherfucker? For someone who doesn’t talk a lot, Elliot sure does seem to get involved with a lot of people.
He’s almost embarrassed by the little flame of jealousy that alights in his chest when the man pushes past the front doors after jingling with the lock, disgusted by the man’s disregard for Elliot’s privacy. Sure, Vera had just done the same thing, but he and Elliot were destined for each other, so it was different. After he makes Elliot his, he’ll just explain that whatever other relationships he had would have to be put on the back-burner while they built their empire. Elliot knew the importance of work before play; he’d understand.
After all, Vera resolves as he regretfully pulls away from the curb, I’m everything he could ever need.