Page 97 of Brutal Union
“And last but not least,” I say, voice hoarse, almost broken from the force of my screams, “for my mother—for the bad luck she had stumbling upon you, you terrible man.”
With a final roar, one that scrapes out of my chest like it had waited years to be born, I pull. Hard. The beam groans under the strain, wood cracking, metal shrieking. His body jerks once, violently, then drops like dead weight. The chains go slack. The room falls quiet.
I let go, my arms trembling. My chest heaves as I take in the stillness around me.
The silence is sharp, total.
And in it—against every expectation, against everything I’ve built my life to resist—I feel complete. Not triumphant, not victorious, not even proud. Just… whole. Still. The storm inside me is gone, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m not waiting for the next blow to fall. I wipe the blood and spit from my mouth with my forearm and look down at what’s left of the man who thought he’d never be defeated.
Boris fucking Petrov, the demon of New York just died at the bare hands of his daughter. A fate he would deem worse than death itself.
I stare at the body for a long moment. There’s nothing left to say. No more words to be exchanged. I turn away, not because I wantto escape—but because there’s something more important I need to do.
Something I should have done long before now.
I move quickly, the blood on my hands drying tight against my skin as I leave the room and climb the narrow stairs. My legs ache. My chest still burns from the fight, from the screaming, but none of it matters. None of it slows me down.
By the time I reach the top, I’m out of breath. My heart pounds harder than it did when I was hitting him. My feet carry me across the narrow hallway, faster and faster, until I find Sho.
He’s sitting in the center of the small living area, legs crossed under the low table, a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. His shirt hangs loose on his shoulders, hair still damp from the shower. He doesn’t look up immediately, too caught in whatever he’s reading.
He’s calm. Entirely untouched by what just happened downstairs.
I stop just inside the doorway, trying to catch my breath. Blood clings to my knuckles and forearms, smudges of it probably on my face. I know how I look—like a storm. Like I crawled through hell.
But when he finally lifts his eyes to mine, he doesn’t flinch. His gaze meets me the same way it always has—sharp, amused, steady.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes at first.
He waits, setting his book down. “Is it done?” he asks, voice quiet.
I nod. “It’s done.”
He studies me a moment longer, and I know he’s reading everything on my face—every unspoken thing I’ve kept locked behind anger, behind power, behind my survival instincts. For years, I built myself into something indestructible. I was made to endure. To rule. To take.
But no one taught me how togive.
So I take a breath. Deep and shaking.
And then I say it—what I’ve never said to anyone.
“I love you.”
23
NADIA
He doesn’t move,eyes locked on mine, as the adrenaline of all the events from last night and early this morning unfolds itself inside my chest like a vice. I have never felt this emotion before. Not like this. Not this precise mixture of panic and vulnerability, like I’ve been split open and asked to wait while someone else decides whether or not to sew me back together. It’s unbearable. And yet, it pushes me deeper into the room, closer to him, drawn by a need I barely know how to name.
I take a cautious step forward, my voice tighter now, cracked from the effort of holding back the spiral.
“I love you, Sho,” I say again.
The silence that follows feels louder than a scream. It swells in my ears and hums beneath my skin, an oppressive, pulsing weight that turns my every breath into a fight. My heart, which had just begun to calm after the blood and fire of what I did downstairs, kicks up again—tight, frantic, disorganized. A different kind of violence.
My cheeks flush hot, and my stomach coils. I came to him raw, trembling, covered in my father’s blood and unspoken history, and I gave him the one truth I’ve always kept to myself. And now I just stand here… waiting. Still. Unanswered.
My pride claws at me to retreat, to pull back, to armor up before the shame can sink in fully. But I don’t move. I can’t. Because if I flinch, it means I meant less than I said—and I meant every word.
