Page 101 of Dirty Game

Her voice is muffled against my skin. “No.”

“You really should be.”

She sits up, letting the light hit her face. Her eyes are blue ice, but there’s fire underneath now, where before there was only frost.

“I’m more afraid of being nothing,” she says.

I pull her down, not quite a kiss, more like the start of one. She lets me, and for a second, I want to drive my cock into her pussy.

But I don’t. I keep just enough back to stay dangerous.

She falls asleep like that, breath slow and even, head on my chest. I watch her until I’m sure she’s dreaming. Then I close my own eyes, letting the world drop away.

When I wake again, she’s still there. And so am I.

Only I have a text from my brothers that we need to deal with this Sienna mess, and I have no choice but to comply.

Not for me.

For Dante.

For Rosalynn.

The Black Crown is dead quiet at eleven in the morning.

The drunks have either sobered up or passed out, the cleaning crew has gone through like a plague.

The only sound is the hum of the security monitors, the faint tap of metal against wood where Korrin keeps flipping his knife into the conference table.

The back room’s just how I left it: every edge squared and functional, the walls lined with shelves holding files and firepower.

There’s a whiteboard with half a dozen maps taped up, overlapping like battle scars.

Korrin’s a black hole of energy.

Pacing, biting his nails, then remembering and picking at the cuticle instead. He’s already on his third espresso and has the twitch to prove it.

Cyrus is the opposite.

Still as a corpse, glasses perched on the end of his nose, one leg crossed over the other like he’s meditating instead of plotting a war.

He flips through a binder, pages covered in his microscopic handwriting.

I plant myself at the head of the table and scan the printouts.

Shipping manifests, encrypted texts, surveillance stills.

Cyrus has already circled everything in red or blue, his version of a mood ring.

Korrin finally cracks. “Let’s just kill them both and take the kid.”

I ignore him, sliding the manifest closer. “Sienna’s not the problem. It’s Mikhail. He’s got the Bratva backing him now.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Korrin slams the knife into the table so hard the handle bounces. “You hit him hard and fast, the Russians lose face. They’ll back off.”

“Or escalate,” Cyrus murmurs, not looking up. “Then we’re in a full-on street war, with every wannabe gang in the city betting on the outcome.”

Korrin leans over the table, planting both fists like he might tear it in half. “I say let ‘em. It’s time we clear house anyway.”