Page 46 of Dirty Game
“Sienna,” he says, and the temperature in the room drops a full three degrees. “She’s alive. Moscow’s dogs have her on a leash, but she slipped them tonight. Came straight for the waterfront.”
Korrin doesn’t move.
I watch the muscle jump along his jaw. “Why are we talking about Sienna?” The knife in his hand is still, suddenly, as if he might put it through the table.
Cyrus shrugs. “Because the girl’s a problem. We should have cleaned her up when we had the chance.” He slides the picture my way, then sits, steepling his fingers. “And because I think King’s got himself a new one.”
My turn. I don’t let the mask slip. “Might I remind you, that bitch was carryingmychild. Myheir. As far as the ‘new one’… You’re referring to the Lombardi girl.”
He smiles like a hyena. “Rosalynn.”
I don’t let my mask slip. My brothers could be like fucking dogs with a bone. “She’s a payment for a debt. Nothing more.”
Korrin snorts, the knife again in motion, a nervous tell that he’d break his own finger before he’d ever admit to fear. “You want her. You keep her in the penthouse. You watch her work, you send your own guards to follow her anytime she leaves your sight. If she were anyone else, you’d have her caged underground by now.”
“She’s useful and she’s finding our money. Wouldn’t do us well for the best numbers man in years to die on us, now would it?”
Cyrus’s voice cuts in, surgical. “You’re a terrible liar, Varrick.”
For a second, I almost smile.
If anyone else talked to me that way, I’d have them picking up their teeth off the rug.
With these two, it’s as ritualistic as making morning coffee.
I lean back, let the chair creak, and study the lines of the map in front of me. “She’s not Sienna.”
“No,” Korrin says, voice flat. “She’s worse. Sienna was a game. This one could be real.”
The words sting, but not because they’re true.
They hurt because the truth was never supposed to matter.
“She’s a Lombardi,” I say, as if that settles anything. “You want to tell me you don’t have nightmares about the shit that family did to us?”
Korrin grins, slow and wolfish, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “I sleep fine, King. The difference is, I know which Lombardi to trust. None of them.”
Cyrus’s gaze sharpens. “You really think she hasn’t noticed? You left her alone in the office last night. She fixed every error in the books—three years of shit our own men couldn’t see. She’s smarter than Sienna ever was.”
I don’t respond, because there’s nothing to say.
I know what Rosalynn did to the ledgers.
I spent the night watching her work through the security cams, memorizing the movement of her hands, the way she lost herself in the numbers like the world could only be safe if every column aligned.
“She’s an asset,” I repeat, but it comes out wrong, too clipped.
Korrin sets his knife on the table, blade pointed toward me. “You’re attached.”
“I’m aware.” I keep my voice as dead as the city outside the window.
He leans in, close enough that I can smell the sweat on his skin, the iron tang of old blood on the knife’s handle. “Don’t fuck it up, King. Last time you fell for a girl, the whole east side burned, you lost your fucking kid and almost your fucking life.”
The room goes quiet.
I remember the fire—how it crawled up the sides of the building, painting the night orange and black, the smell of burning flesh and hope.
I remember Sienna running for her life, my baby safely growing inside her.
