Page 2 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

My breath comes in short gasps.

His fingers are so close I can feel the heat from them, the almost-touch somehow more intimate than actual contact would be. "Please?—"

"I don't hurt women who belong to me, Rosalynn."

The word should terrify me. Belong.

Like I'm property, which technically I am.

Payment for my father's sins, a debt transferred in blood and fear.

But there's something in the way he says it, something that speaks of protection rather than just possession.

His thumb hovers over my cheekbone, where Marco's ring left a scar that's faded but never fully disappeared.

Still not touching, but mapping me, learning the geography of my damage.

"I don't belong to anyone," I whisper, surprising myself with the words.

"No? Your uncle seemed to think differently when he offered you to clear his debt."

"My uncle was wrong about a lot of things."

"Including thinking you were worthless beyond your virginity?"

Heat floods my face, but I can't look away from his eyes.

They're so dark they're almost black, with flecks of amber that catch the light.

This close, I can see the scar through his eyebrow, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.

A man this dangerous shouldn’t be this beautiful.

"I don't—" I start, but he cuts me off.

"Phillip was skimming to pay off a debt to the Corsini family. They've been trying to establish territory here for months." His hand drops, but he doesn't step back.

If anything, he moves closer, caging me between his body and the chair. "How many other discrepancies have you found?"

The change of subject makes my head spin, but the proximity makes it worse.

Every breath brings his scent.

Blood and cologne and something uniquely him, something that makes my pulse race for reasons I don't want to examine.

"Three smaller ones. Different patterns. I haven't traced them all yet."

"You will. Tomorrow. After you've slept." His eyes drop to my lips, and I realize I'm biting the lower one—a nervous habit I thought I'd broken. "I'll have Jensen bring you the full financial records in the morning. Everything. Not just the sanitized versions."

"You're trusting me with that?"

"I'm trusting you to find every rat in my organization before they steal enough to fund a war." He reaches past me, his chest brushing my shoulder as he picks up the brass knuckles from the desk.

The contact, brief as it is, sends electricity through my entire body. "Seven hundred thousand would buy a lot of bullets."

"Or a lot of loyalty," I say quietly, trying to ignore the way my skin burns where he touched me.

He's still close, too close, close enough that I can see myself reflected in his dark eyes. "Loyalty can't be bought, little mouse. Only rented. Remember that."

The nickname makes something flutter in my chest.

Not mocking, not cruel.

Almost... possessive.

Like I'm his little mouse, his to protect, his to keep safe in this penthouse cage.

"What happens when I find them all?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

"I handle it. You just find them." He finally steps back, and I can breathe again, though the air feels colder without him close.

He walks to his private bathroom, turning on the water.

I watch him wash the blood from his hands, removing all evidence of the violence I witnessed. "And Phillip?"

"Is no longer your concern." He returns to the office, pulling a crystal decanter from a hidden panel.

The whiskey gleams amber in the low light as he pours two glasses.

He sets one on the desk beside me. "Drink."

"I don't?—"

"You're shaking. Take a drink."

I am shaking, I realize.

Fine tremors running through my hands, my arms, my whole body.

But it's not entirely from fear anymore.

It's from him—from the intensity of his presence, from the way he looked at me like he wanted to consume me, from the careful way he didn't touch me even though every atom in the air between us was charged with the possibility.

The whiskey burns going down, makes my eyes water, but it does stop the shaking.

He watches me over the rim of his own glass. "Have you eaten today?"

The question surprises me. "I... yes."

"Liar." But there's no heat in it. "Maria says you barely touch your meals."

Maria, his housekeeper.

I didn't know she reported on me.

I should have guessed.

Everything in Varrick's world is observed, catalogued, and controlled.

"I'm not used to eating much," I admit.

"Your father?" His tone is casual, but there's something dangerous underneath it.

I touch my wrist again, feeling the scars through the watch band. "Among others."

He sets down his glass carefully. "Names."

"It doesn't matter. They're?—"

"Names, Rosalynn."

The command in his voice makes me answer before I can think better of it. "My father. My brother Marco, when he was drunk…" and I keep telling him until he looks satisfied.

The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees.

Varrick goes perfectly still, the kind of stillness that comes before someone snaps.

"Tommy Fitzgerald touched you?"

"Not... not the way you're thinking. He just liked to hurt me where it wouldn't show. Said it was a reminder to my father about payment schedules." The words tumble out, secrets I've never told anyone. Something about the darkness, the blood still lingering in the air, makes confession easier.

"Is that why Enzo really offered you to me? To keep you from Fitzgerald?"

I laugh, bitter and sharp. "No. He offered me to you because I was the only thing of value my father had left. Tommy was just a bonus he'd have to deal with later."

Varrick pulls out his phone, types something quickly. "Tommy Fitzgerald runs a gambling den on the south side."

"Ran," I correct quietly. "He died. Heart attack, they said."

His eyes find mine. "They lied."

The implication hangs between us.

Two months ago, was when my father's debts came due, and three weeks later, is when my life changed.

When the offer was made.

When Varrick Bane decided I was worth six million dollars.

"You killed him." It's not a question.

"I don't tolerate men who hurt women. Especially women who belong to me."

"I didn't belong to you then."

"The moment Enzo said you were my payment, you became mine. Retroactively." He moves toward me again, slower this time, telegraphing his movements. "The scars on your wrist. Show me."

My fingers fumble with the watch band. I've hidden these for so long, the shame of them burning as bright as the cigarettes that made them.

But I pull the watch off, extend my wrist.

Five perfect circles, a constellation of cruelty mapped on pale skin.

His fingers hover over them, and I hold my breath.

The almost-touch is excruciating, intimate.

I can feel the heat from his skin, see the fine lines on his palms still stained faintly pink from blood he didn't quite wash away.

His thumb traces the air above each burn, learning their pattern without making contact.

"Your father?" His voice is soft, dangerous.

"Uncle Enzo. He wanted me to cry, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. So, he kept trying."

"He's still alive."

"He's my uncle."

"That's not an answer."

I pull my wrist back, but he catches it—gentle but firm.

His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist, just below the scars, and I gasp at the contact.

It's the first time he's deliberately touched my skin, and it feels like being branded all over again, but different.

Not pain.

Something else entirely.

"These are old," he comments, thumb still resting on my pulse.

He must feel how fast my heart is racing.

"But this one." His other hand hovers over a now faint bruise on my upper arm, visible where my cardigan has slipped. "This is recent."

"I ran into a door."

"Try again." His thumb moves in a small circle on my wrist, and I have to bite my lip to keep from making a sound.

"Jensen. When he brought me here. He wasn't rough, just... firm. It's nothing."

Varrick's eyes darken further, if that's possible. "Jensen put hands on you?"

"To guide me. To make sure I didn't run. It's nothing," I repeat, but my voice comes out breathless because he's still touching my wrist, and his other hand has moved to my chin, tilting my face up to his.

"Everything is something when it comes to you," he says, and I don't understand what that means, but I can't think when he's this close, when I can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, when his thumb is pressing against my pulse like he's memorizing its rhythm.

"Why?" The question escapes before I can stop it. "Why do I matter?"

"Because you're mine." Simple. Possessive. Final. "And I take care of what's mine."

He releases me suddenly, stepping back, and I sway slightly without him to anchor me.

My wrist burns where he touched it, my chin tingles where his fingers were.

"You're not what I expected, little mouse."

"What did you expect?"

"Tears. Pleading. Maybe an attempt at seduction to secure your position.

" His lips quirk in what might be amusement.

"Not a forensic accountant who finds seven hundred thousand dollars of theft and debates whether to tell me.

Not someone who watches me beat information out of a man and doesn't run screaming. "

"Would seduction have worked?" The question slips out before I can stop it, and heat floods my face again.

He moves close again, sudden as a strike, and I'm trapped between him and the desk.

His hands bracket my hips, not touching but claiming the space around me. "Do you want it to work?"

I can't breathe.

I can't think.

He's everywhere—his scent, his heat, his presence consuming all the air in the room. "I don't know what I want."

"Liar." His breath ghosts across my lips. "You know exactly what you want. You're just afraid of it. Afraid of me. Afraid of what it means that you didn't run when you saw me with blood on my hands."

"Should I run?"

"Every instinct you have should be screaming at you to run." His hand comes up, fingers threading through my hair, tugging gently until I'm looking directly at him. "But you're not running. Why?"

"Because..." I swallow hard. "Because you make me feel safe. God help me, you terrify me, but you make me feel safe, and I don't understand it."

"I don't fuck virgins who shake when I walk into a room," he says, and the crude word makes me flinch. "I prefer my women willing. Eager. Choosing to be in my bed because they want to be there."

"And if I never want to be there?"

His hand tightens in my hair, not painful but commanding.

"Then you'll balance my books and find my thieves and live in comfort and safety until your father's debt is paid.

" He leans closer, lips almost brushing my ear.

"Three years, ten months, two weeks. That's what six million dollars buys at the interest rate I'm charging. "

I calculated it myself weeks ago, down to the day. "And then?"

"Then you're free to leave. Or stay. Your choice."

"Would anyone stay? After being payment for someone else's sins?"

His smile is dark, knowing. "You might surprise yourself, little mouse. You've already surprised me."

He releases me, steps back, and I have to grip the desk to keep standing. "You didn't run when you saw me with Phillip. You didn't even look disgusted. You looked... interested."

"I looked terrified."

"That too. But also interested. Like you were cataloging my methods. Analyzing my efficiency." He picks up the brass knuckles from the desk, slips them into his pocket. "It's the same way you look at numbers. Like you're solving a puzzle."

A clock chimes somewhere in the penthouse.

Three AM.

I've been awake for twenty-two hours, running on coffee and fear and the strange adrenaline that comes from being near him.

"Go to bed," he orders. "Jensen will bring the files at nine. I want a full analysis by evening."

"All of them? That could be thousands of?—"

"Then you better get some sleep." He walks to his private office—the one with the soundproof walls and drains in the floor, the one where he was conducting business before he found me. "And Rosalynn?"

I pause at the door. "Yes?"

"Next time you find something like this, you come to me immediately. Three hours could mean three bodies in the Fraser River. Understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Bane."

"Varrick." The correction surprises us both, I think. "When we're alone, you can call me Varrick."

I nod, not trusting my voice, and escape to my room.

It's only when I'm safely behind my locked door that I let myself truly shake.

Varrick Bane noticed me tonight.

Not as payment, not as property, but as something useful.

Maybe even valuable.

It should terrify me more than being invisible did.

But as I curl into the expensive sheets that smell like lavender and safety, all I can think about is the monster I work for.

For the first time in my life, someone killed for me.

Someone saw me as worth protecting, worth keeping, worth more than just my virginity or my father's debt.

And God help me, I liked it.