Page 33 of Dirty Game

She glances up, just for a moment, and gives me a nod—so small most would miss it.

A message. She’ll be here when I get back.

The look sits heavy between us as I close the door and ready myself for war.

Disposing of the fucks who dare threaten my empire was easy.

What I didn’t count on was the odd feeling that settled over me on the way back to the elevator.

And the one when I wished this fucking thing would go faster.

I make it to the office floor in thirty-two seconds flat.

The elevator tells me as much, because I count each tick of the passing floors… a habit drilled in by years of treating every second as a countdown.

The moment the doors open, I know something’s off.

The air tastes metallic, edged with the copper tang of fresh blood.

There’s a new sound, too—a muffled, arrhythmic thumping, like a heart trying to remember how to beat.

My office door stands ajar.

I should see three men posted outside, but instead, there’s only one, and he’s not standing.

He’s on the floor, spine contorted in a way I know means he isn't conscious.

His face is slack, mouth open, blood threading from his nose onto the expensive carpet.

Inside, two more bodies. Both mine. Both down.

Both breathing, but barely.

The nearest has a laceration across his temple and a broken forearm, the bone sticking out at an angle that’s almost obscene.

The other has his own gun pressed so hard to his cheek that the muzzle imprint is already deepening to purple.

Neither is a threat now.

The room is chaos.

Chairs are overturned, the glass coffee table is split in two, my father’s antique globe cracked along the Equator.

And against the back wall, just in front of the safe room door, is Rosalynn.

She’s changed since I left.

Not her clothes—they’re the same—but the way she stands, pressed flat to the steel of the safe room, arms locked in front of her, both hands clamped white-knuckled around the handle of a kitchen knife.

The blade is painted in red, and so is her sleeve.

Blood spatters dot the pale blue of her blouse, and a single line of crimson traces from her elbow to her wrist, where it collects and drips in regular intervals onto the carpet.

She’s panting, breath coming sharp and shallow, and her eyes are fixed on the two men advancing on her.

They’re not local.

I can tell by the build, one short and bullet-shaped, the other thin, almost athletic.