Page 71 of Brutal Union
The hug isn’t gentle—it’s bone-deep and suffocating, like he’s trying to fuse our blood back together. His grip tightens around my shoulders with the desperation of a man hugging his last family member goodbye. I go stiff at first, caught off guard. I can feel the tension in his back, the strength in his arms, and the way his heart is pounding hard enough to echo through his chest. I haven’t been held like this in years. Not like this—without caution, without an agenda.
His voice is quiet against my temple, barely more than a breath. “I know you can protect yourself… but I’d still rather someone be here. With you.”
For a moment, I’m not standing in my kitchen. I’m somewhere else—in some other time.
A rooftop in Osaka. A hotel room in New York. A warehouse floor covered in blood. I’m thinking about calloused hands, cold steel, and the only man who ever made me feel like I could fall and still be dangerous. I think of his smirk in the dark. The weight of him behind me. Sho Matsumoto—my enemy, my mirror, the one person I’ve never been able to erase no matter how hard I try. Even now, he’s here—in the pit of my stomach, in the ache in my chest, in the memory of what I never got to say.
But I don’t tell Nik any of that.
I press my lips tightly together and force the truth out before it sticks in my throat.
“There’s no one.”
18
NADIA
This nightmarealways starts the same.
I am at the edge of a field filled with daisies and wild roses, the air thick with the scent of honey and sun-warmed petals. The horizon is endless, painted in hues of lavender and gold, and for a moment—just a moment—it almost feels like peace.
My mother is there, radiant in the center of the field like a goddess carved out of light and memory. Her long blonde hair cascades down her back like liquid gold, shimmering with an ethereal glow as it dances in the breeze. It covers every inch of her skin, wrapping her like a robe of sunlight, and somehow, I know—this is how I envision heaven.
I’m calling out to her, my voice high and desperate. I’m barefoot, small, no more than six or seven. The wind steals my cries before they can reach her, and still I call, arms outstretched like if I just try harder she’ll turn and see me.
But her shoulders roll back, her air tangles in the wind like the world is trying to hide her from me.
The damp dirt beneath my feet begins to shift, clutching at my toes like a dozen greedy fingers. It’s cool—almost icy—and unforgiving, pressing up against my skin with the weight of something ancient. Each step becomes heavier, like I’m dragging time itself with me. The ground pulls me downward, slow and relentless, as though the earth has decided it wants me—body and soul—buried in its silence.
The daisies around me sway in the breeze, but something about their movement feels wrong. Too synchronized. Too controlled. They lean in as though watching, whispering secrets to one another in rustling petals. The air is thick, unnatural. And as I press forward, my muscles begin to tighten—not from fear, but from age. My spine curls, my breath shortens, and my body grows weary under the invisible weight of years I haven’t yet lived.
“Mommy,” I pant, my tongue thick with the sharp, strange blend of earth and honeysuckle. It tastes like rot beneath perfume—like something once beautiful that’s been left too long in the sun. “I need you.”
She shifts, and for a heartbeat, a single heartbeat, she’s real. Flushed pink in the sunlight, her posture relaxed and familiar, like she’s just gotten lost in the pages ofMrs. Dallowayagain. Like the world has melted away for her, and she didn’t hear me because Virginia Woolf was louder.
“Mommy, please—” I whimper, dropping to my knees. Pain shoots through my leg as I grip it with both hands, dragging myself forward with every ounce of strength I have left.
But when I lift my eyes again, everything has changed.
Her skin is soaked in crimson. Her body limp. And her head—her beautiful head—tilts, then rolls into the flower bed like a dropped doll.
I scream, my throat ripping open with the sound. I fall, crawling, clawing through blood-streaked petals and dirt. My nails break on the ground as I reach for her, as if I could sew her back together with nothing but want.
“No!” I screech, the word cracking in my chest. “Mom!”
My mouth fills with soil—gritty, bitter, final—and the world tilts. My forehead hits the earth, and then?—
Silence.
I am cold again.
Seated in the worn chair before my mother’s vanity, my knees tucked tight against my chest, I stare into a mirror that reflects someone I barely recognize. My skin is blotchy, tear-streaked, and flushed from some emotion I can’t quite name—grief, maybe. Rage. Fear. The knuckles of my fists, resting against my thighs, are slick with tears I don’t remember shedding. My breath fogs the lower edge of the glass, and I find myself searching my own face for answers, for something solid in the middle of this storm.
Behind me, my father’s voice cuts through the silence, low and measured. “Nadi.”
I don’t turn. I can’t. I keep my eyes fixed on the version of me in the mirror—the one who looks so young, so small, so breakable. My cheeks are streaked with chalky lines. The tip of my nose is red and raw. But it’s my eyes that catch me off guard. They’re impossibly bright, bluer than I’ve ever seen them,almost glowing beneath the vanity light. They’re the only part of me that still looks alive.
“You are as beautiful as your mother,” he says, and his hand settles on my shoulder. There’s no tenderness in the gesture, only possession. His fingers tighten, grounding me in a way that feels more like restraint than reassurance.
