Page 109 of Dirty Game
She moves so fast I don't see it coming.
Her hand cracks across my face hard enough to make my ears ring, hard enough that I taste copper immediately.
The force spins me half around, and I have to catch myself on the back of the couch.
But I don't flinch. Don't step back. Don't give her the satisfaction of seeing me afraid.
I've been hit by professionals—by Marco when he was drunk and needed to feel powerful, by Uncle Enzo when he was teaching me my place in the world.
This is nothing. This is performance.
"I've been hit by professionals," I tell her, touching my split lip, tasting my own blood. "You'll have to do better."
Something shifts in her expression—surprise, maybe a flicker of respect. Then calculation, like she's recalibrating her approach.
"Dante," she says without looking at him, her voice switching to false sweetness, "go wait in the hallway. Mommy needs to have an adult conversation."
Ironic, considering the things she tells this poor child.
"But—" The boy starts to protest, and I see fear flash across his small face.
He doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to be alone with her men.
"Now." The sweetness evaporates, leaving only command.
He goes, that careful walk that speaks of other punishments for disobedience.
Each step measured, quiet, trying not to draw attention.
One of her men—built like a mountain, face like a gravestone—follows him out.
The moment the door closes, she strikes again. But not with her hand.
The wire comes from nowhere—piano wire, thin and sharp, professionally wielded.
It loops around my throat before I can scream, before I can even process the movement.
She's behind me suddenly, using her height advantage, using her training.
The wire pulls tight enough to cut off air but not quite enough to cut skin. Yet.
"Let me explain something," she whispers in my ear as my vision starts to spot, as my hands come up instinctively to claw at the wire.
Her breath is hot against my neck, intimate as a lover's whisper. "He'llalwaysbe mine. First love. First fuck. First everything. You're just a placeholder. A warm hole with a calculator for a brain. A temporary distraction while he figures out how to win me back."
I claw at the wire, but she knows what she's doing.
My nails break against it, leaving bloody crescents on my own throat.
My lungs burn, screaming for air that won't come. My knees start to buckle as oxygen deprivation sets in.
"When this goes bad—and it will—he'll sacrifice you for Dante. Blood over everything. That's the Bane way. That's how they're raised. Their own blood matters. Everyone else is expendable."
She's probably right.
The logical part of my brain, the part that still works despite the lack of oxygen, knows she's right.
But I can't say that with a wire around my throat, can't admit that I know I'm temporary.
