Page 95 of Brutal Unionn
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 burieddeep 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’t let Boris see me cry, not again and definitely not in his finalmoments.
“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?
I am seconds from letting those forbidden words roll across my tongue when Sho pulls away from me.
“Scream if you need me,” he whispers into my hair, before turning back to Boris with a large smile. “Goodbye Boris, enjoy your final sunrise.”
My eyes dart to the small window being illuminated with the orange and pinks of the rising sun, as I listen to the soft creak of the basement stairs of Sho leaving the basement.
I stay where he left me, my hands still trembling faintly, as the weight of his absence presses against my spine. The warmth of his touch lingers along my hip, ghosting the spot where he’d held me as if his hand had carved itself into my skin. But now,the air is colder, harsher. The scent of blood and rot reclaims the room in his wake.
And in front of me, chained and quivering, is the man I once feared above all else staring at me like an expectant child.
The man who ruled entire cities with nothing but his reputation and a single word. The man who tore my mother to pieces—body and mind—and carved a legacy of violence into my bones. Now, he is nothing more than sagging flesh and fractured pride, bound to a wooden beam like a criminal from another age. His muscles twitch under broken skin, his chains groaning softly with every pitiful shift.
I walk toward him with the lazy stride of a queen walking down the aisle to her coronation. My steps land with a hollow, steady rhythm on the bloodstained floor, and the echo feels like a drumbeat of judgment in the silence. As I near him, he attempts to raise his head. The effort alone seems monumental, and when he finally manages to lift his gaze, his one open eye fixes on me with a murky desperation. There is no hate in it. No command, but he can’t stop the hatred flooding his pupils.
A bitter laugh coils in my throat before I even realize it's coming. I don’t try to hide it. I let it spill freely into the room, low and humorless. I stop just inches away from him, arms loosely folded across my chest, as I take in every broken detail of the monster who made me.
“I almost don’t believe it,” I murmur, my voice smooth and edged with ice. “Captured again. Stripped, gagged, shaking in your own filth. My, my how the mighty have fallen.”
My fingers dance along his chains, a small smile on myface.
“Papa,” I croon, the word soaked in irony and venom, “you used to walk through rooms like a god, remember?”
I drift closer, running my nails lightly down the rusted links that bind him, watching his skin flinch with every tap.
“Entire mafias bowed to your presence. Grown men pissed themselves at the sound of your name. You were bigger than life.”
I circle him again, moving with an assassin’s patience and precision, each step punctuated by the sharp click of my heels against the warped floorboards. The scent of stale blood and rot trails with me like a shroud. His head twitches toward my voice, but he doesn’t have the strength to follow. Not completely.
