Page 49 of Brutal Union
“Alive,” I snap. “No thanks to you.”
Bhon’s all lean, wiry muscle beneath a black mandarin-collared shirt that doesn’t wrinkle no matter how much he moves. Every inch of him is composed, from the way his arms fold across his chest to the slight tilt of his head.
A blade gleams at his hip—curved, elegant, old.
“Well,” Bhon says, his voice low and smooth, “I didn’t kill her only because you came to her rescue. Fifteen years of assassin work and I have never missed a target. Never needed to issue a refund, until now.”
I snort, moving the bottom left side of my button-up shirt, subtly showing him where my weapons are. “Why do I get the feeling you expect a thank you?”
“Wouldn’t hurt,” he shrugs, moving deeper into the room.
“So wouldn’t a bullet to the skull,” I counter, earning a deep chuckle from him.
Bhon lets the laugh linger for a second too long. He moves past me and nods toward the Saint Andrew’s cross, taking slow steps, running his fingers along the edge of the padded wood. “Was that a threat?”
“Only if you want it to be,” I mutter, leaning against the wall as I fold my arms.
Bhon grins, teeth barely visible behind his lips. “I wouldn’t dream of touching your girl. That would be suicide. Beautiful thing like that with a kill count? She's probably like heroin to you.”
“More like fentanyl,” I smile. “Maybe just a tab bit deadlier.”
He finally turns, his eyes narrowing. “This woman has changed you.”
“Maybe, but what’s changed you?.” I arch a brow. “You didn’t always care if you killed someone’s lover, friend, mother or brother so why do you care now?”
“Let’s just say…someone important to me would kill me for hurting you,” Bhon says simply, his voice steady.
“What’s their name? I should thank them.”
I push off the wall and walk toward him, in measured steps, closing of the space between us. My palms press flat against the black table at the room’s center, the leather warming beneath my touch. I lean in just enough to let my voice curl like smoke between us.
“Well, if we’re talking heads,” I whisper, “how much is yours going for these days? Seventy? Eighty million?”
“Try two-fifty,” he replies, a flicker of pride in his smile.
I whistle. “You’ve been busy.”
“So have you,” he counters, that sharp tongue of his back in full swing. “Slaughtering the remnants of your bloodline… forcing your father to replace an entire council. Executing six of the most trusted Yakuza families in cold blood.”
“I found out some things after my mother’s death,” I say, voice like a blade being unsheathed. I lean forward, matching his energy with my own, letting the tension stretch between us like piano wire. “Including why there are no women in the Yakuza…or haven't been in the last thirty years.”
Bhon’s lips twitch as a faint smile crawls across his face—unnatural and cold, like it was carved there with a scalpel rather than formed by joy.
“You know what they do to the expendables,” he says, his voice almost tender in its cruelty. “And now you’ve come to save the day… how precious.”
“Don’t mock me,” I snap, venom lacing my words. “I was a child too.”
“Yes,” he murmurs, the smile curving crueler. “But you werethechild. The golden one. The heir.” He wiggles his fingers like he’s twirling threads of my memory around them. “You weren’t traded for a debt. You weren’t held down and trained to kill your brothers in exchange for food. You weren’t called dog, ghost, or number. You weren’towned.”
“I know,” I whisper, jaw tight, guilt swelling in my chest like something alive.
“I was being raised to serve the future king,” Bhon continues, stepping forward, voice dropping into something darker. “To die for you. To kill for you.”
“Iknow,” I roar, the words bursting from me like shrapnel. My fists tremble at my sides, knuckles bone-white. The images flood in without mercy—children shackled, trained like animals, carved into weapons and sold like currency. My own privilege curdling inside me.
I squeeze my hands together to stop them from shaking and avert my gaze. “I know, Bhon. And I swear—I will end it.”
The Yakuza wasn’t always like this. Once, there was honor—even in the shadows. But that died long before I picked up my firstblade. Somewhere in the bloodline, someone traded steel for flesh, and the poison seeped in slow. The sex trade. The children. The ghosts in the basements of Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok—names with no faces, bodies with no homes.
