Page 31 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Varrick

The laptop’s screen throws blue light into the black corners of my office.

The city is dead quiet, but my heart’s beating like I just ran up all the floors in my building.

The video plays in a loop. Each time, I think I’ll get numb to it. I don’t.

She’s in a metal chair, wrists cuffed to the arms, ankles cinched with zip ties.

Her head is down, hair matted dark with sweat, but when she looks up, you can see where they bruised her, the defiance still in her face.

Not fear. Defiance.

There are three men with her. Mikhail’s men—Russians, all muscle and old prison ink.

The one on the left circles her, flips a butterfly knife open and closed with a rhythm that says he’s done this before.

The other two are just shapes in the shadows, hunched like they’re starving. Waiting for permission.

The camera shifts and catches her face. Blood at her mouth, but her eyes burn through the screen.

The fourth voice is Mikhail’s. Not on camera. That’s not his style. He stays out of reach, orchestrating.

“Every hour you delay returning my weapons,” he says, his English so smooth it almost passes as American, “she loses something. Fingers first.”

He lets it hang, then switches to Russian, not knowing I’d have Cyrus translate it on the fly. “After the fingers, we take the tongue. Then the eyes.”

I’ve seen worse videos. I’ve made worse videos. But this one feels like it’s being broadcast directly into the bone.

A hand lands on my shoulder.

Korrin.

He’s been pacing behind me since the call came in, grinding his teeth, waiting for me to do what I always do—cut the losses, move on.

“She’s one woman,” he says, voice a blunt instrument. “The kid is your blood.”

I don’t look away from the screen. “I know.”

He gets in front of me, blocking my view, forcing my eyes up to his.

The cut across his cheek is almost healed, a ragged pink line against the stubble. “You’re thinking too loud, brother. This is a fucking distraction. Mikhail wants us off balance.”

He’s right. But he’s also wrong.

Cyrus is in the corner, tablet balanced on one knee, skimming the video frame by frame.

His glasses are on, which means he’s doing the fine work, not the break-and-enter shit.

He doesn’t say a word, just taps the screen, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow, cataloging every detail.

The guy could probably tell you the room’s humidity from a three-second clip.

The video stutters, then loops back.

There’s a thud, and one of the men grabs Rosalynn by the jaw, forcing her to look at the camera.

She doesn’t flinch. Just says, in a voice that’s barely there, “I’m sorry, Varrick.”

It cuts worse than the threats.

Korrin snorts. “Jesus. She’s got you soft.”

I ignore him. Let the screen go black. The darkness is easier.

My phone buzzes, three rapid-fire pings. New message. Video file.

I open it.

Rosalynn, same room, but her head’s up this time. One of the men stands behind her, hands on her shoulders. The butterfly knife gleams in the light.

Mikhail’s voice, “The King still refuses to bend. So we start small. A single digit.”

A hammer comes down fast. You’d think they’d go for the pinky, something expendable, but they break the index.

She doesn’t scream. She just bites down and stares at the lens, sweat running down her face. When it’s done, she spits blood at the camera.

She says, “Don’t come. Protect Dante.”

The video ends.

I feel Korrin’s eyes on me, waiting to see if I’ll crack.

Cyrus clears his throat, a sound as precise as a surgeon’s cut. “Location is somewhere industrial, north end. Concrete walls, sound echoes, no windows. Likely a warehouse, possibly one of the old canneries.”

“Can you get a fix?” I ask, my voice so flat it sounds like a threat.

He nods. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll have coordinates.”

Korrin’s pacing again, fingers drumming on the hilt of his blade. “You’re not seriously thinking of trading the weapons for her.”

“No,” I say.

“Good,” he spits. “Because you can’t negotiate with these fuckers. You show weakness, they bleed you out.”

I agree. But I don’t say it. I watch the video one more time, looking for anything I missed.

The way her hands curl into fists, the way she looks past the camera, never at it.

She’s counting in her head. Numbers, languages, escape routes. She’s not giving up. Not yet.

The clock on the wall ticks over. Every second is a tick closer to another finger.

“Anyone? Anyone? Does fucking anyone have any fucking ideas?” I yell loud enough to startle Cyrus.

My phone buzzes again. This time, it’s a live feed.

Rosalynn sits in the chair, breathing hard, blood pooling at her feet.

The man with the knife leans in, whispering something in her ear. She shakes her head.

He slaps her.

Hard enough to snap her head sideways.

She blinks once, then locks eyes with the camera.

She says nothing.

I close the laptop. Stand. My vision narrows to a tunnel, every sound magnified.

Korrin is still running his mouth, but now there’s uncertainty in the edge of his words. “We could leave her. She’s not—she’s not family, not really. She was a means to an end. Killing Sienna and getting Dante are the priority.”

“She and Dante are the priority,” I say. I make sure the words are cold enough to freeze him in place.

He stops moving. “Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious.”

Cyrus looks up. “I have a way in. Can get us in by midnight. Maybe sooner, if we’re okay going in heavy.”

I look at my brothers, one at a time. “We go in. No negotiations. No trades.”

Korrin grins, savage. “That’s more like it.”

I nod once. “Suit up.”

They move. In seconds, the office is empty except for me and the ticking clock.

I stare at my reflection in the dark window. Blood on my shirt, old and new. Bags under my eyes. I look like a man who’s already lost.

But I haven’t lost yet.

My phone vibrates. It’s a text, no number. Just three words:

Come alone, King.

I type back:

See you soon.

Then I smash the phone against the desk until the battery pops free.

The clock on the wall keeps ticking, but now it’s counting down to something else.

War.

It’s raining by the time we reach the compound.

The kind of rain that sheets the world in gray and makes every surface shine like wet steel.

Our convoy ghosts up the access road, no lights, engines idling soft as a prayer.

Five cars in the main group, two more flanking from the side streets.

Cyrus runs the op from the back seat of the lead SUV, headset jammed in one ear, tablet in his lap.

He reads the feeds with the same detachment he’d use for a chessboard or a murder scene.

“We’re a go,” he says, not raising his voice. “Three guards on the north wall, two more at the loading bay. None on the roof. That’s your breach, Korrin.”

Korrin grins, already loading shells into a short-barreled Remington. “Roof’s good. Let’s go, King.”

I pull my mask up, check the suppressor on my Glock, and step into the wet night.

The world is nothing but footsteps and heartbeats.

Cyrus’s timing is exact.

At the second he calls, the alarms on the west perimeter flare to life—our decoys in position, torching a couple of stolen vans to smoke out the front guards.

The Russians rush for the source, guns waving, just as Korrin and I climb the roof access. We move like we’ve done this a thousand times. Because we have.

We drop in through a vent shaft, landing behind a mesh screen. The smell is chemicals and rot and something else—old, metallic, hungry.

Korrin knifes the first guard without a sound.

I shoot the second in the face.

The third tries to run, but Korrin puts a boot in his knee and drags him back, snapping the neck in a single twist.

We’re in.

The main floor is a maze of conveyor belts and rusted vats.

Shadows shift and vanish under the flicker of emergency lights. There’s no sound but distant alarms and the static of Cyrus’s voice in my ear.

“East corridor, then down. They’ve moved her below ground.”

“Copy,” I whisper.

We slip down the stairs.

The halls are lined with steel doors, some welded shut, others left gaping, all stained and ugly.

I count bodies as we move—two, three, four—each dispatched quickly and quietly.

Blood pools at our heels, but we keep moving.

The lower levels are colder. The air tastes like freezer burn, like death on ice.

At the first landing, we take fire… two men with automatics, crouched behind an overturned pallet.

The bullets snap the cinder block over my head. Korrin pops up, lets off a blast, and one of the Russians crumples.

I crawl low, circle right, catch the other as he’s reloading. Two taps, chest and head, and he drops.

Korrin wipes sweat from his brow, blood spatter streaking his hand. “You good?”

“I’m fucking great,” I say.

He grins, savage, and shoulders his way down the next flight.

The screams start then.

Not hers, not yet, but the sound of a man dying somewhere in the bowels of the place. The echo is pure terror.

Cyrus checks in: “Stairs at the end. Camera feeds dead. She’s in the last room on the left. There’s three with her. Mikhail’s not there—he’s running this remote.”

I rack the slide, signal Korrin to go loud. He nods, and we break down the door.

Inside, the temperature plummets. I see my breath.

Rosalynn is in the chair, same as on the video.

The men are around her, one holding a crowbar, the other two just standing, waiting. They look up when we enter, eyes wide.

I shoot the crowbar guy in the throat.

Korrin tackles the second, teeth bared, and drives a knife through his temple. The third drops his gun, backs away, whimpering in Russian.

“Do it,” I tell Korrin, and he does. One swing of the butt, and the skull caves in. The room is silent except for the drip of blood on concrete.

I move to her.

She’s not… there.

Her eyes track me, but she’s somewhere far away. Lips moving, but not words I can hear.

I kneel, gentle. “Rosalynn.”

She keeps her focus on the wall behind me, reciting numbers. At first, I don’t get it. Then I do.