Page 4 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

Security falls away into obscurity, and it’s just the two of us in the hush that comes after any major moment in my life.

I guide Rosalynn toward the med room.

Her gait is off—half a step slower, as if the bruises on her arm radiate into the rest of her bones.

I stop by a leather settee, the kind that’s too expensive to ever look truly comfortable.

She stands, refusing to sit. I don’t blame her.

“Show me,” I say. No inflection, just command. “Shirt off.”

She hesitates, then takes her shirt off, standing there in a plain white bra.

The color of innocence.

Her skin is already blossoming, purple veins spidering under the translucent surface.

Marco’s handprint is perfect, a signature in flesh.

I reach out, slow enough for her to calculate every option—flee, freeze, fight.

I catalog the damage.

Forearm: swelling, probably a hairline fracture, but nothing displaced.

Shoulder: old bruise, weeks healed.

I spot a newer mark at her collarbone, more delicate, placed carefully.

Something in me hardens.

I’ve seen this pattern before, mapped it on victims and enemies alike.

Marco’s not the only one leaving marks.

His team might be taking a turn with her.

Her breathing shifts—faster, not from pain, but anticipation.

She’s waiting for me to break something.

Maybe her. Maybe myself.

“I’ll kill him next time,” I say, and the words are so soft I almost don’t hear them. “I’ll make sure he never touches you again.”

She shakes her head, just once, but it’s final. “Please don’t.”

That stops me. I’ve seen bullets do less damage.

I lift my hand. “He broke your arm, Rosalynn.”

“It’s long healed. They always heal.” She swallows. “He’s still my blood.”

The logic stings.

Loyalty is simple to me: you pick a side, you stick to it, or you die.

Blood is only the first debt you owe, not the last.

I study her, all her nerves and quiet defiance, and wonder if she’s braver than I am, or just more broken.

“You don’t owe him anything,” I say. “You’re here because they traded you to me. You’re Bane property now, and you have been since your uncle made the deal.”

Her lips part, then close.

The words are there, but she’s not ready to say them.

I read the silence instead: it’s a ledger of pain and survival, of debts paid in flesh and never settled.

I pull back, careful not to crowd her. “If you want out,” I say, “say so now.”

She looks up, finally meeting my eyes. “Out to where?” Her voice is barely above a breathy whisper, but it carries all the gravity in the world. “He’d find me. Or his enemies.”

I nod. “Probably both.”

The ghost of a smile flickers across her face, bitter and precise. “Then I’m safer here.”

For a second, I want to say something, maybe offer a deal, a loophole, a promise that means more than the last one I made.

Instead, I just stand there, my fists useless at my sides.

“Let’s go,” I say. “This med room isn’t equipped for your injuries. I want to have you fully checked.”

She falls in step, like she’s always belonged here, adjusting her shirt back into place.

I walk half a stride ahead, hand hovering at the small of her back but never touching.

She knows I could force the issue, but I don’t.

Not with her. The difference between violence and care is consent, and I’ve always been a stickler for rules—at least the ones I write myself.

At the elevator, she presses the button.

Her fingers are unsteady, but she does it anyway.

I glance sideways, just in time to see her wince as she flexes her arm.

She catches me watching, and for the first time, she doesn’t look away.

“Thank you,” she says.

I nod, once. “You’re welcome.”

The doors open, drowning us in creaks and machinery.

Inside, we’re reflections of ourselves in the polished paneling, two survivors, each with their own set of scars.

I stare at her bruises, at the delicate structure of her wrist, and vow to remember every mark.

I intend to balance the books, one way or another.

My medical suite is three floors below the penthouse.

Clean, bright, never used for anything except patching up the wounds that shouldn’t exist.

The air smells like bleach and something sharper, astringent.

I hate it, but I trust it.

Rosalynn sits on the edge of the table, legs dangling.

She’s pale, paler than usual, and her hair hangs loose over her face like a curtain.

She holds her injured arm tight against her ribs, defensive even in safety.

Dr. Powell glances up at me, waiting for permission to proceed.

He’s been on my payroll for a decade.

Seen enough gunshot wounds and snapped fingers to know when not to speak.

“Do it,” I say.

He nods and sets to work.

The examination is clinical—powdered gloves, gentle prodding, questions asked in a soft monotone. “Rate your pain, one to ten.”

“Any numbness?”

“Dizzy?”

She answers with as few syllables as possible.

I watch her knuckles turn white as Powell raises his eyebrows at her bruises.

She doesn’t look at me, but I know she can feel my eyes.

I watch the doctor’s hands instead, noting every tremor, every bead of sweat.

He’s nervous.

Powell unwraps a sterilized packet and dabs antiseptic along the abrasion on her wrist.

She hisses in pain, and my fingers twitch at my side.

I want to cross the room, close the gap, pull her hand into mine, and promise it’ll never happen again.

But I don’t because caring is weakness.

I keep my arms folded across my chest, tight enough to constrict my breathing.

“Sprained, not broken,” Powell says. “Some swelling, but I’ll wrap it. Ice and elevation for the next twenty-four hours. I can give you something for the pain.”

She shakes her head, jaw clamped. “No.”

He hesitates, then nods and splints her arm.

He’s quick. Efficient.

When he finishes, he gives me a look— Is there anything else? —and I dismiss him with a flick of my chin.

The door clicks shut behind him. The silence is immediate, absolute.

She flexes her hand, testing the range of motion.

I watch the movement, fascinated.

Every shift of her fingers is mesmerizing, like she’s gritting her teeth to the world: still here, still whole .

Her face is unreadable in the harsh white light, but the set of her mouth is different—less afraid, more resigned.

“You should let me kill him,” I say, not because I want to, but because it’s true.

She looks up, finally. “You’re not my father.”

I scoff. “No. I’m worse.”

She studies me, eyes blue as a winter morning, cold and unblinking. “Why?”

“Because I don’t lie to myself about what I am.” I walk to the window, stare out over the city. “He’ll come back. Next time, he’ll bring a knife or a gun or something worse.”

“I know,” she says. Not a trace of fear.

I turn back to her.

She sits on the table, thin shoulders squared, chin up.

I see the outline of her scars—the old ones, the new.

I want to trace them, learn their language, and translate the pain into something I can understand.

“You ever miss it?” I ask. “Family?”

She thinks. “I miss what I thought it would be. But not what it was.” She shrugs with one shoulder, the motion delicate. “It’s just math. You subtract until there’s nothing left.”

I laugh, a short bark. “You’re a better accountant than any I’ve had.”

Her lips twitch at the edges. “You break your accountants’ fingers, don’t you?”

“Only when they steal from me.” I nod at her wrist. “That’s different.”

She watches me, silent.

I know she’s memorizing every word, every shift in my posture.

I wonder if she’s afraid, or if she’s simply taking inventory: risk versus reward, pain versus safety.

My reflection glares back at me from the chrome fixtures.

I look tired.

Older than thirty-one.

I see her in the cabinet’s glass, too, the way she sits so perfectly still, waiting for the verdict.

I cross the room and rummage through a chest of drawers, finding one of my old shirts and turning to toss it to her.

“You belong to me now,” I say, and it’s not a threat. Just a fact. “Not as property. Not as a game.” I let the words sink in, one by one. “You’re mine because I say so. Not because anyone gave you away.”

She nods, the motion tiny. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

She raises her eyes to the mirrored steel above the sink, finding my gaze.

For the first time, she looks at me— really looks—and I see something like hunger in the set of her mouth.

“Okay,” she says again, softer.

We stand there for a long time, two shadows painted across the boring fucking white of the room.

I watch the rise and fall of her breath.

She watches me, not moving, not speaking.

When I finally turn to leave, I don’t look back.

But I know she’s still watching, counting my steps, marking the distance between us before she starts following behind me.

And for the first time in my life, I want to be followed.