Page 93 of Brutal Union
“Right,” I hum out the word, before clearing my throat and looking at the imaginary watch on my wrist, “but we have only been dating for I don’t know… three minutes.”
“And I hear the wedding bells, don’t you?”
“Sho--”
“Come on, Hime,” he says with a smile so twisted adrenaline rushes through my veins. “Let's go kill your father.”
22
NADIA
I don’t believe it.
Like—Iseriouslydo not believe what is in front of me right now.
I thought Nikolia had shown my father the depths of hell when we had him locked up. I thought the cold cells, the strategic starvation, the bone-deep beatings, and psychological torment we unleashed on him were the pinnacle of retribution.
But that?
That was mercy compared to what Sho Matsumoto has done to the once-great Boris Petrov—the Demon of New York. The man who built a criminal empire on blood and screams. The man who mademe.
The man of so many nightmares. The man ofmynightmares.
Now? Now he barely looks like a man at all.
He’s chained in the center of the room—not to a wall, but to a wooden beam suspended low enough that he can’t quite stand, but not low enough to sit. His legs shake from the effort of holding himself upright, ankles raw and red where steel cuffshave rubbed skin down to wet sinew. His arms hang limp, dislocated, chained at the wrists and stretched wide above him. His body sags like meat on a hook.
He’s shirtless—if you can even call the scraps hanging off him clothing. His once-proud chest, the same chest I remember standing tall in Bratva meetings, is now marked in violent calligraphy. Deep lacerations cross his abdomen in deliberate, clean patterns—slashes that aren’t meant to kill butkeep him alive longer.Some still ooze, others have crusted black, outlined in angry infection.
One of his ears is missing.
Gone.
Just a mess of scar tissue and blood-soaked gauze where it used to be.
His face is a ruin—unrecognizable, bloated in some places and sunken in others. A mass of bruises and split flesh. One eye is swollen shut, the other bloodshot and glassy. The proud aquiline nose that passed on to Alex? Flattened. His lips are split so badly the bottom one hangs lower, and a trail of thick spit—pink with blood—dribbles down his chin.
And thesmell.
Dear God.
He reeks of rot and sweat and infection anddespair.The metallic sting of blood mixes with the sour tang of pus and the musk of a man who hasn’t been allowed to die. Who’s been keptjustalive enough to suffer more.
He’s gagged, barely, a frayed cloth shoved into his mouth, held there with thin wire twisted around the back of his head. Sho didn’t want him to scream.
“Fucking hell,” I rasp, each step I take is smaller than the last but I can’t stop my slowed movement toward him.
Sho strides ahead with effortless calm, bare feet silent against the warped wood of the floor, as he grabs a rusted bucket from the shadowed corner of the room, his fingers wrapping around the dented metal like it’s nothing more than a kettle.
He turns slightly, the faintest trace of amusement curling at the edge of his mouth. “He would have been more presentable, but your father has a mouth on him.”
My gaze drops—instinctively, involuntarily—and my stomach flips violently. On the floor, scattered like dropped candy, lie teeth. Six. No—seven. Some are yellowed, one chipped, a few streaked with dried blood. One molar still has a thin shred of pink gum clinging to its base. They glisten faintly in the low light, grotesque in their stillness.
I nearly gag. My mouth parts in disbelief, in horror, in awe. This is a man I once feared more than death. Now pieces of him litter the floor. Again, what the fuck did Sho do to him?
Sho chuckles to himself and grabs a rag from a wooden peg by the wall. The fabric is stiff with old blood, its edges frayed like it’s been used a hundred times before for the same unholy purpose.
“He said somefucked upshit about you, about your mother,” Sho continues, his tone light and conversational. He doesn’t even look at Boris as he speaks, like the man no longer warrants eye contact. “Shit I won’t repeat, but fucking hell, Hime. I am surprised you didn’t kill him yourself years ago.”
