Page 12 of Brutal Unionn
The table groans beneath Draco’s pinned weight. His face twists in agony, sweat dripping down his temple, but Sho doesn’t move, doesn’t waver. He radiates the kind of control that could silence armies, and for once, I don’t feel the need to bare my own fangs.
I pull back from Draco watching Sho, awe curling hot and heavy in my gut. No one has ever defended me like this—not as the Queen of the Bratva, not as the assassin they all feared. And the terrifying truth is that I like it.
Sho glances at me finally, calm as ever, as if blood isn’t still dripping from the blade in Draco’s hand. His dark eyes glint with amusement, with ownership. “Shall I go for the second one, Hime? Or has he learned his manners?”
I straighten, and meet Draco’s stunned, pain-glazed stare. “You are to report to Brother Sergei Volkov by dawn for your punishment.”
“Youstupid bitch. You think--”
Sho moves before the insult can land. His hand fists in Draco’s hair and he slams his skull into the felt with a dull, reverberating crack. The entire table rattles under the impact. Draco’s head lolls back up, a line of blood painting his brow, his defiance broken into a groan.
Sho leans down, close enough for only Draco to hear, his tone silk over steel. “One more word, and I’ll deliver you to Sergei in pieces. Do you understand, soldat?”
“Y–yes,” Draco whimpers, head hanging low between his massive shoulders.
“Good.” Sho releases him like he’s nothing, straightening with the poise of a man who hasn’t even broken a sweat.
I can’t tear my eyes off him—off the effortless dominance, the way the entire room shrinks back from his presence. No one looks at me now; every gaze flickers warily to him. And I… I like it. I like being under the shield of someone deadlier than myself.
Sho finally turns, catching me staring. There’s a spark of humor dancing in his midnight eyes.
“What?” I ask, breathless without meaning to be.
“I’ve never seen you speechless before,” he smirks
“I’m not speechless, just surprised.” I swallow dryly, and move closer to him. “You know I could have killed him myself.”
“Yes, but why would you when I’m here,” he smiles, sending a fleeting wink in my direction as he slides back into his seat nextto me.
He peels back his lips and reveals a blinding smile. There is something about Sho that truly melts my heart back together. It is mind-boggling how a man this cute could also be deadlier than me. I know from how I look, it is unsurprising when I am cruel, but Sho? He looks like sunshine. He looks like he’d help a grandmother across the street. Like he would coach little league and kiss his wife chastely on the cheeks. If it weren’t for the tattoos, you’d think he’d been on the straight and narrow his entire life.
“Some being cute,” I murmur, my finger dragging along the rim of his drink. “I came here to kill you.”
“So what about me, keeps me alive, Hime?” He smirks. His arm stretches across the edge of the table, fingertips grazing against the sleeve of my arm, so gently that I hold my breath, silently begging for him to do more. “My smile. My abs. Oh, I know, my winning personality.”
“Your personality is shit,” I smile.
“I can’t tell from the way you’re smiling.” He shrugs, moving in even closer, the smell of smoke wraps around me and I feel drunk.
I lean in, just close enough to blur the lines between threat and want. “Maybe I like watching you squirm.”
Sho’s smile deepens, lashes lowering in that infuriating, devastating way of his. “You like watching me, period.”
He shifts in his seat, arm still lazily stretched across the table, his fingers brushing the crook of my elbow now. It’s such a light touch—barely anything—but it steals the air from my lungs. I can’t stop staring at his mouth.
“I think you keep me alive,” he murmurs, “because you want to see what else I can survive.”
“And if I wanted to test that theory?” I ask, my voice a silky smooth that I have never heard before.
His eyes glitter a shade darker than playfulness. “Then I’d let you.” He lifts my hand, presses his lips to my knuckles—not as a gentleman, but as a man who knows how to break each of my knucklescleanly.“But you’d have to promise not to stop halfway.”
My mouth opens and I am about to tell him there is nothinghalf-assabout me when a phlegmy voice cuts through the tension.“That’s enough!”
The world seems to tune back in around us and I can hear the continuous moaning of Draco as his eyes drag up and down the exposed knife. A short, bald Japanese man storms towards the table in an expensive horribly red suit, flanked by two security guards.
The man stops right in front of us, hands on his hips as he narrows his gaze on me. “Miss?”
I reluctantly slide my hand out of Sho’s and present it to the man like a queen addressing a peasant. “Petrov.”
