Page 94 of Dirty Game

Too damaged for children. Too fractured for forever. Too scarred to ever be enough.

Maria finds me in Varrick's office at four in the morning, surrounded by financial reports, trying to lose myself in numbers because numbers don't lie, don't compare, don't remind me that I'm competing with a ghost who came to life, who has his child.

"You need to sleep," she says gently, setting down a cup of tea that smells like chamomile and concern.

"I need to be useful."

"You are useful."

"Not like her." The words escape before I can stop them, bitter on my tongue. "She gave him a son. She built an empire from her pain. She carved her initials into his skin, and he let her. What have I given him? A few saved millions, and a virginity he could have taken from anyone?"

Maria sits beside me, her presence warm and maternal in a way that makes my chest ache.

My mother died when I was seven, before she could teach me how to be a woman instead of just a survivor.

"You gave him something she never could."

"What?"

"A choice. She took from him—his trust, his love, his ability to feel safe. Everything with her was a transaction, even their passion. You give him the choice to be better. To be more than the monster she helped create."

"But—"

"And you gave him peace." Maria's voice is soft but certain. "I've worked for Mr. Bane for ten years. I've seen him in every state—victorious, furious, drunk, sober, bleeding, healed. But I've never seen him at peace until you. He sleeps through the night now. He eats regular meals. He smiles.Actuallysmiles, not those sharp things he used to do that were more threat than joy."

I want to believe her, but then I remember the way he looked at Dante.

The recognition. The wonder.

The immediate, visceral need to protect what was his.

He'll never look at me that way—with that primal ownership that comes from creating life.

"Sienna knows how to hurt him," I say quietly. "She knows all his weak spots because she put half of them there. How do I compete with that kind of history?"

"You don't compete. You create something new."

I turn back to the reports, needing to be useful, needing to matter in some tangible way. That's when I see it.

"That's not right," I mutter, pulling up shipping manifests from the last month.

"What isn't?"

"These routes." I spread the papers out, mind already racing, that familiar thrill of finding what someone tried to hide. "Mikhail Volkov's trucks. They're using our territory, our routes, but the fees. They're not being paid. And the cargo weights don't match the declared contents."

I dig deeper, cross-referencing with warehouse reports, dock schedules, customs documents that cost Varrick a fortune in bribes to access. Each layer reveals more deception, more betrayal.

"Look at this," I show Maria, though she probably doesn't understand the implications. "The weight discrepancies are consistent—always heavier by the same margin. Hidden compartments. And the routes all converge at the same warehouse on the south side."

"What does that mean?"

"He's moving weapons," I breathe. "Mikhail is moving weapons through Varrick's territory without permission, without payment, without?—"

"Without him knowing," Varrick's voice comes from the doorway.

I spin in my chair to find him standing there in just sleep pants, hair mussed from bed, looking like sin and salvation combined.

He moves into the room with that predatory grace that still makes my breath catch, eyes fixed on the papers spread across his desk.