Page 14 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

"I'll transfer it! I'll transfer everything!"

"Good." Varrick steps back, pulls out his phone. "Jensen, escort Mr. Watts out. Make sure he understands the timeline."

Jensen appears as if from nowhere, hauls Jerome to his feet.

The older man is cradling his broken hand, blood still streaming from his nose, but he manages one last venomous look at me.

"You think you're special? You're just another whore who?—"

Varrick's hand shoots out, grabs Jerome's throat. "Finish that sentence. Please. Give me the excuse to skip the twenty-four hours and go straight to the killing."

Jerome wisely stays silent.

Jensen drags him out, and then we're alone.

"My office. Now."

I follow on shaking legs, hyperaware of how exposed I am, how his shirt rides up with each step.

He closes the door behind us, locks it, and then I'm pressed against it, his hands on either side of my head.

"You're wearing my shirt," he says, and I can't tell if it's approval or accusation.

"My clothes are in the laundry."

"You're practically naked in my kitchen, arguing with my business partner about embezzlement."

"I was handling it."

"You were." His eyes are dark, unreadable. "You're learning to fight back."

"He was insulting me. Insulting you by extension."

"You defended yourself."

"You said I belong to you." The words come out stronger than I feel. "Doesn't that mean I represent you? Your reputation? Your standards?"

Something shifts in his expression, something raw and hungry. "Say it again."

"I represent?—"

"No." His hand cups my jaw, thumb pressing against my bottom lip. "The first part."

My heart hammers against my ribs. "I belong to you."

The kiss is immediate and devastating.

Nothing like the kiss we had last night.

This is Varrick claiming, consuming, and conquering me.

His tongue invades my mouth, his teeth catch my bottom lip, his hands tangle in my hair hard enough to make me gasp.

I'm spinning, then my back hits his desk, and he's pressing me down against the wood, his body covering mine.

The kiss turns desperate, hungry, like he's trying to crawl inside me through my mouth.

"Say it again," he demands against my lips.

"I belong to you."

"Mine." The word is growled against my throat as he kisses down my neck, teeth scraping over the mark he left last night, making it darker, deeper. "My accountant. My mouse. Mine ."

His hands are everywhere—pushing up the shirt, his shirt, finding my bare skin.

When his fingers ghost over my breast, I arch off the desk, a sound escaping me that doesn't sound like my voice.

His hand slides down my stomach, over my underwear, finding me already wet and aching.

He groans at what he finds, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.

"So responsive," he murmurs against my skin.

" Please ." I arch against his hand, seeking friction, seeking anything to ease this ache. "Varrick, please."

"Please what?" His fingers tease, light touches that make me writhe but give no relief. "Tell me what you want, little mouse."

"You. I want you."

"You have me." He proves it by sliding my underwear aside, his fingers finding where I'm desperate for him. "You have me now."

"All of you," I gasp as he slides one finger inside, then two, stretching me carefully. "I want all of you. Want you to?—"

His phone rings.

Not the regular tone—this is something different.

He doesn't move for three rings.

Just stares down at me, spread across his desk like an offering, chest heaving, lips swollen from his kiss.

His fingers are still inside me, and I clench around them involuntarily, making him groan.

On the fourth ring, he answers, never looking away from me, never removing his fingers.

" What? " The word is sharp, angry.

Whatever he hears makes him close his eyes.

His fingers slide out of me, and I bite my lip to keep from protesting.

"How many dead?"

My blood cools.

He steps back, helps me sit up, his touch gentle now despite the crisis on the phone.

"Twenty minutes," he says and hangs up.

"What happened?"

"Warehouse fire. Three of my men are dead. Corsinis are retaliating for their broken bones." He's already moving, checking weapons, and grabbing his jacket. "Stay here. Jensen will?—"

"Be careful."

He pauses at the door, looks back at me, still sitting on his desk, clothes disheveled, skin marked by his mouth.

Something soft flashes across his face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.

"Lock the door behind me," he says. "Don't open it for anyone but me or Jensen."

"Varrick—"

"We'll finish this conversation later."

Then he's gone, and I'm alone with the ghost of his touch and the taste of his desperation on my lips.

I slide off the desk on unsteady legs, try to smooth down the shirt, fix my hair.

In the reflection of his computer screen, I can see marks on my neck—darker now where he bit over last mark, claiming me again, marking me as his for anyone to see.

I touch each mark, remembering the way he said "mine".

Last night, he kissed me in a way that transformed everything.

This morning, he gave me a distance that cut deeper than cruelty.

And just now, he kissed me like he was dying and I was the only cure.

I don't understand him.

I don't understand the push and pull, the way he controls himself and yet has desperate hunger, the way he treats me like I'm precious and dangerous simultaneously.

But I understand myself.

I understand that I want him—not just his protection, not just the safety he provides, but him.

His broken pieces and sharp edges.

His careful hands and violent heart.

The man who burns people alive for crossing him, but brings me soup when I can't sleep.

I want to belong to him completely.

I want him to take what Uncle Enzo sold him, but make it mean something different.

Not payment, but choice.

Not debt, but desire.

Not transaction, but... something else.

Something I don't have words for yet, but feel building in my chest like a storm.

The phone on his desk rings.

Not his cell—the landline that barely anyone uses.

I shouldn't answer it, but something makes me pick up.

"Hello?"

Silence.

Then, someone finally speaks."So you're the new pet." A woman's voice, smooth as aged whiskey, sharp as a blade. "I was wondering when he'd replace me."

My blood goes cold. "Who is this?"

"Someone who knows exactly what you're feeling right now.

The confusion. The desire. The way he makes you feel like you're the only thing that matters one moment and nothing the next.

" She laughs, but there's no humor in it.

"Let me guess—he's marked you but hasn't fucked you.

Typical Varrick. Always did like to play with his food. "

"You're her." The realization hits like ice water. "S.C."

The silence stretches.

"So, he kept the scar. How sentimental. Did he tell you how I gave it to him? How he begged me to mark him, make him mine forever?"

"You're lying."

"Am I? Ask him. Ask him about the hotel room and the knife and how he held still while I carved my initials into his skin. Ask him how many times he said he loved me while his blood dripped onto Egyptian cotton sheets."

I hang up, my hands shaking.

Not from fear, but from rage.

How dare she call here, call me a replacement, reduce what's happening between Varrick and me to some echo of their past?

But worse than the rage is the image she's painted—Varrick young and in love, letting someone mark him permanently, willingly.

The kind of devotion that leads to that kind of scar... what happened to turn it into betrayal?

No. I won't let her poison this, won't let her reduce me to some shadow of herself.

I think about the way he looked at the photo of his younger self.

The way he brought me food even after pushing me away.

The way he said I was learning to fight back like it was the best and worst thing he'd ever seen.

I'm not her replacement.

I'm something else. Something he doesn't know how to handle, which is why he keeps pulling me close and pushing me away.

The elevator chimes.

Jensen's voice calls out, "Miss Rosalynn? The boss wants you to pack a bag. We're moving to the safe house."

"Why?" I unlock the door, find Jensen looking grim.

"The Corsinis put a price on your head. Fifty thousand to whoever brings you to them alive." He pauses. "The boss is handling it, but until then, you need to disappear."

A price on my head. Because I matter to Varrick. Because hurting me would hurt him.

The thought shouldn't make me feel warm, but it does.

"How long?" I ask.

"Few days. Maybe a week. Pack light."

I nod, head to my room.

As I'm packing, I think about what’s happened this morning.

Six weeks ago, I was nobody.

Uncle Enzo's burden, Marco's victim, a virgin worth six million dollars to clear a debt.

Now I'm Varrick Bane's forensic accountant. His little mouse. His .

And apparently, that makes me worth killing.

I should be terrified.

Hell, I should be planning a way to escape, to find a way out of this world of violence and misery.

Instead, I'm packing.

When this is over, when the Corsinis are handled and we're back from the safe house, I'm going to seduce Varrick Bane.

I'm going to make him stop pushing me away.

I'm going to make him take what's his—not because Uncle Enzo sold it to him, but because I'm choosing to give it.

My virginity has been currency my whole life.

It's time to spend it on something I actually want.

And what I want is him. All of him.

I want the violence and the gentleness.

The control and the desperation.

The man who kisses me against his desk like he's drowning and I'm air.

Jensen knocks. "Time to go, Miss."

I zip the bag, take one last look at the room where I've spent weeks learning to feel safe.

When I come back, everything will be different.

When I come back, I'll make sure of it.

The elevator ride down is silent.

Jensen keeps checking his phone, his gun visible beneath his jacket.

The car is already running, another man I don't recognize in the driver's seat.

"Where's Varrick?" I ask as we pull away from the building.

"Handling things," Jensen says. "He'll meet us there."

Handling things.

Such a clean phrase for what's probably happening. Blood and violence, broken bones and burned buildings.

The Corsinis touched what's his—put a price on my head—and now they'll pay for it.

Six weeks ago, that would have terrified me.

Now, it makes me feel protected. Valued. Worth burning down the world for.

My phone buzzes.

A text from an unknown number:

You can't replace me. He'll destroy you like he destroyed me. Get out while you can.

- S

I deleted it without responding.

She's wrong.

I'm not trying to replace her.

I'm not trying to be anything but myself—Rosalynn Lombardi, who's learning to fight back, who belongs to Varrick Bane by her own free will instead of the transaction my family made.

The girl who's going to seduce the most dangerous man in Vancouver.

And mean it.