Page 73 of Brutal Union
When the gas lifts, the world feels like it’s been shattered and stitched back together wrong. My ears ring, my head is pounding, and the house smells like ash and chemicals. I don’t wait for backup. I don’t call for Nik. I run—sprinting up the stairs, every muscle burning with dread, every step hammering with the echo of gunfire I didn’t get to stop.
I expect carnage. I expect the hallway to be slick with blood, the walls painted in violence. I expect to see Gwen’s body curled around the twins, trying to shield them from what no mother can stop. I expect crimson handprints on doorframes, glass shattered, family photos torn through with bullets.
But what I find is worse.
Gwen is sitting in the center of the twins’ room, crumpled like a broken doll, rocking back and forth with silent sobs. Her hands are smeared with something—maybe blood, maybe not—but her eyes are wild, unfocused, as if the screaming hasn’t stopped in her head. The room is untouched, too untouched, eerie in its stillness.
And outside the door, embedded into the walls are ninja stars. Five of them. Perfectly spaced, gleaming in the dull sunlight.
Inside the bedroom, Gio stands frozen. His eyes are locked on the opposite wall, unblinking, as though looking too long at the empty space might make his sister reappear. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t cry, doesn’t move. His shoulders are locked in place, his fists trembling at his sides as if every breath he draws is an act of defiance against the panic pressing down on him.
My eyes drift to Mia’s bed—or what’s left of the innocence it held. Her yellow daisy-print comforter lies crumpled in a pile at the foot of the mattress, the fabric creased and dirtied by smallfootprints, like someone walked across it carelessly. Like she didn’t have time to scream. My stomach knots. That comforter is the only trace of her left in the room.
“Gwen…” I try to say her name, but it comes out like a rasp, thin and weak and barely audible.
She’s collapsed in the middle of the floor, her body shaking so violently it looks like her bones might shatter beneath the weight of her grief. Her sob breaks free before she speaks, a sound that isn’t made for language—it’s a raw, guttural sound that vibrates in my own chest, sharp and jagged like broken glass.
“They took her,” she chokes out, clutching the carpet like it’s the only thing keeping her from unraveling.
Gio crouches beside her, voice barely a whisper as he touches her shoulder, trying to ground her. “Mom…”
She doesn’t stop crying. If anything, the contact makes it worse—her sobs turn convulsive, ragged. Her entire body trembles like it’s trying to shake itself out of the world.
“I’m so—” I start to say something—anything—but it dies in my throat.
She turns on me fast, eyes swollen and bloodshot, her face drawn tight with rage and pain. The red in her stare is startling—it cuts through me like a knife and freezes my breath mid-chest.
“Go get my daughter,” she snarls.
“Gwen, where’s Nik?” I ask carefully, not moving toward her, not daring to meet her eyes for too long.
“Why?” she spits back, stumbling to her feet. “So you can get him killed too?”
Her anger is a weapon, honed by fear, and it’s aimed directly at my throat.
“Gwen, I didn’t know they’d come here?—”
“You’re the leader now,” she snaps, her voice cracked and breathless as she lurches forward, jabbing a finger toward my chest. “You fought Nik for the Bratva. You beat him. You wanted it—you wanted all of it—and ever since you becameVor, we’ve been living like prey.”
She’s shaking, every word a direct hit. “And now—now my daughter is gone.”
I open my mouth, but the sound of the front door swinging open silences the entire house.
Footsteps—uneven, heavy, dragging—echo up the staircase. A moment later, Nik stumbles into view. His shirt is soaked in blood from the bicep down, the fabric clinging wet and dark to his arm. His face is ashen, lips tight, jaw flexed, but he’s upright. Still breathing. Still here.
He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t flinch when Gwen surges toward him. She starts hitting him, soft at first, then harder. Fists pounding against his chest like she wants to drive them through him. He catches her gently, almost reverently, pulling her into his one good arm, holding her as her fury caves into sobs.
Nik looks over her shoulder at Gio, nods once.
“Take her,” he says quietly.
Gio steps in, wrapping an arm around Gwen and guiding her back into the room. Her cries echo as she crumbles against him again, her fingers curling into his shirt like she’s trying to hold onto something—anything—that won’t vanish in the next breath.
Nik turns to me.
“We need to talk,” he says, voice low and clipped.
I follow him out into the hallway without a word. The smell of blood trails behind him like smoke. He leans against the wall for balance, breathing through his teeth as he cradles his bleeding arm, his face pale beneath the grime and tension.
