Page 19 of Dirty Game

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—reallylooks—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.

CHAPTER THREE