Page 94 of Brutal Union
I take another shaky step forward and whisper, “I wanted to.”
Sho tilts his head toward me, his eyes locking with mine across the room. For a moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
And then Boris twitches. Just barely. A tremor of recognition, as his eyes lock with mine across the room.
His body, or what’s left of it, shakes. The chains rattle softly as he attempts to shift his weight, but there’s nowhere for it to go. He’s suspended in purgatory, forced to exist somewhere between standing and hanging, his knees quivering from the strain, ankles rubbed raw and bloody. His face is barely human now—a mass of swollen, discolored tissue, one eye fused shut, the other a sunken, cloudy orb that darts between us with confusion and dread.
When Sho finally turns to look at him directly, there’s a dangerous calm in his posture. He steps forward, barefoot and fluid, and leans just enough to let his voice slide in like a scalpel.
“Konban wa, otosan,”Good evening, father,he says softly, almost reverently.
Boris lets out a sound. A wet, strangled groan that bubbles in his throat like he’s drowning on dry land. His jaw trembles beneath the frayed gag that’s cinched so tightly his lips have cracked beneath it. There’s no fight left in him, only the twitch of primal fear, the flinch of a cornered animal.
Sho watches him for a long moment before crouching next to his violently shaking body, picking up a cloth and dipping it into the bucket. The water runs pink, swirling with blood and grime, and when he wrings it out, the sound is thick, meaty—like something being slowly torn apart.
“You should’ve heard him before,” Sho says, wiping Boris’s chin with surprising gentleness. “Real colorful language. I can see where you get your mouth from.”
“Sho-” I snap.
“Kidding,” he smiles, flashing those pearly white teeth at me.
The rag slides across Boris’s cheek, smearing more than it cleans. Sho glances up at me again, his expression unreadable, as he wipes some of the grime from my father’s face. “I didn’t do too much damage though. I wanted him to be coherent when you got here.”
He stands then, wiping his hands on the cloth before tossing it back into the bucket with a wet slap. The sound echoes in the stillness, and Boris shudders visibly.
Sho’s voice is quieter now, but darker. More intimate. “He’s not much of a talker these days, so don’t be surprised if he doesn’t respond to your threats.”
I can’t speak. My hands are shaking. My knees threaten to collapse beneath me. And yet, I take another step forward. Then another. I stop just short of him, staring at the thing that used to be my father.
And for the first time in my life—he flinches.
Sho steps back, his gaze steady on mine. “He’s yours now, Nadia,” he says simply. “Whatever you want to do—say, ask, break... you earned it.”
My eyes drift away from the grotesque figure of my father and find Sho again.
And when they lock—when those sharp, impossible green eyes meet mine—I feel the air collapse from my lungs. It’s too much. The silence, the weight, the pain I thought I buried deep beneath my skin... it’s all clawing its way to the surface now. I can’t breathe through it. Not properly. All I can do is shake, violently, my shoulders trembling beneath the weight of this moment. My lip quivers, but I bite it—hard—just to keep the sob from spilling out.
Thisman.
The one I betrayed. The one I almost handed over, like he was disposable, like I didn’t know he was already inside me in ways I couldn’t name.
And still—still—he’s giving me this.
He’s giving me the one thing he knew I would destroy us over. He is giving me my father’s head on a silver platter. I want to kiss him silly. Take him down, show him that this is the best thing he has ever given me.
I don't even see him move. But suddenly Sho is in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his bare chest. His hand slides around my hip, firm and sure, grounding me instantly. He pulls me in—not urgently, not possessively, but with the kind of gentleness that fractures my armor. My cheek presses against the space between his collarbone and shoulder, and for a second, I can feel his heart beat.
Then he leans in and presses a kiss to the top of my head, soft and tender like I am someone worth protecting, caring and worst of all, loving.
My breath stutters out of me. And the tears I’ve been holding—burning behind my lashes, I swallow back only because I can’tlet Boris see me cry, not again and definitely not in his final moments.
“Thank you,” I whisper into his skin. My voice is so quiet I’m not sure it even reaches him, but I feel him nod against me, the curve of his jaw brushing the crown of my head.
That’s when it hits me—crashing over me with a violence that nearly sends me to my knees.
This is love.
Not the chaotic kind I thought I knew. Not lust masked as affection or power masquerading as loyalty. No, this... this overwhelming, terrifying fullness swelling in my chest is something else entirely. It's selfless. Sacred. A kind of ruinous surrender I never believed I was capable of. This is what itfeelslike to love a man you were never supposed to love. To be capable of something against your basic instinct. My blood runs cold. Is this what he has been keeping from me all the time? The feeling of being unconditionally loved? Is this what Nikolia feels for Gwen? And Aleksandr for Lily? Is this what drives them mad? This unfathomable feeling of completeness?
