Page 96 of Brutal Union
Boris closes his one good eye, jaw quivering. It’s not fear of pain. Not anymore. It’s the realization thatthisis the legacy I’m building—not beneath him, butabovehim. With every breath he takes, I get stronger. And it eats him alive.
I straighten slowly and let the tooth slip from my fingers. It hits the floor with a soft tap, barely a whisper, but in the silence of this room, it sounds like a gunshot.
“You think this makes you strong?” he spits, lips curling back over bloodstained teeth. “You think I lost? You’re just parading around in a dress stitched from my name, Nadia. If I gave the order tomorrow, half the Bratva would still kneel.”
I turn to him slowly, eyes narrowing. He chuckles—or tries to—but it comes out as a wet hack, stringy saliva spilling down his chin.
“You weren’tmeantto lead,” he sneers, voice rising despite the damage. “No man in this world respects a girl playing king. I’d rather give the throne to a bastard... to ahalf-blooded son of a whore... than leave it to my cunt of a daughter who couldn’t even keep her legs closed to be worth something.”
I tilt my head, studying him, calm as ever.
Leaning in until my lips almost graze his ear, I whisper, “I am going to kill you, Papa. Me, your daughter, will be the one to end the Demon of New York, and when I am done I will tell that man upstairs that I love him, and fuck him with your blood still drying on my hands, sounds good to you?”
“When they kill you, Nadi,” he whispers, the words slithering from his battered throat like poison through cracked lips. “When they put your strength to the test, I will be there.”
His chains rattle violently as he thrashes, the sound shrill and desperate like the death cry of a dying animal. His single bloodshot eye glimmers with feral glee. His voice rises, raw with spite.
“When they kill you for being theweak girlyou are, I will be there tospit on your corpse, Nadia. Do you hear me?” His body shudders with the force of his conviction, the words spat through his broken teeth. “I will not die. You cannot kill me!”
My blood is already boiling, but then he gathers whatever foul, sour saliva remains in his mouth and launches it at me—a wet, violent glob of blood-tinged spit that lands across my cheek and jaw.
Silence floods the room. I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. I just stand there—his filth streaked across my skin, warm and sticky and unworthy of wiping away. My chest rises once. Slow and controlled like I am swallowing any emotion I had left, any obligation I had as his daughter, down.
My first strike is a brutal, closed-fist punch to the side of his jaw, the crack of bone echoing through the room. His head snaps to the side, a splatter of blood flying from his mouth. Before his chains can swing back into place, I slam my fist into his gut—deep, fast, and sharp enough to lift his body slightly from its hanging position. He groans—chokes—but I’m already swinging again.
“This is forNikolai!” I scream, my knuckles breaking skin as I drive another punch into his mouth. “For dragging him through your war! For making him clean up your messes with blood on his hands andyourname on his back!”
I don't stop. My fists are a blur—ribs, face, jaw, temple.
His chains creak with the force of each blow, blood raining down like ink.
“This is forGwen!” I snarl, grabbing the chain above his head and driving my knee into his sternum. “For threatening the one person who saw my brother as more than your puppet! For putting achildin your crosshairs!”
I yank his head back by his hair and slam my elbow into his nose. The cartilage crunches beneath the force, and a fresh spray of blood soaks my chest.
His head lolls. His breathing turns to wet, shallow gasps. But I don’t stop. Not yet. Not until he feelseverything.
“This is forAleksandr,” I growl, my voice cracking now, hoarse and wild. “For turning my beautiful brother into a man afraid of his own fucking demons—yourdemons!”
Boris tries to speak, to wheeze some final word—but I don’t let him.
I grab the iron cuff around his wrist and pull his arm taut. With a shout, I drive my boot into his exposed elbow, the joint snapping backward with a grotesque pop. He screams—high and animalistic—but I don’t flinch.
Ineverflinch now.
“This,” I whisper, the words thick with rage and tears as I crouch in front of him one last time, my blood-slicked hand curling into a fist, “is forme.For the daughter you tortured. For the little girl who slept with a knife under her pillow because you taught her to fearlove.”
I hit him again.
And again.
My arms ache. My bones scream. My hands are raw and broken.
But his face is no longer recognizable. His body sags like a torn sack of meat, twitching faintly with what little nerve function he has left. He gurgles something, but the only words that matter now are mine.
“For the woman I becamein spiteof you.”
I wrap my fingers tighter around the chain above his head, my breath ragged and loud in my ears as I stare down at the ruin I’ve made.
