Page 76 of Brutal Union
"Or yours," he counters, pulling me closer.
His phone buzzes again. Multiple messages in quick succession.
"Let it ring," I say, pulling him down for another kiss. "For a few more hours, let the world wait."
He silences the phone, his attention returning fully to me. As exhaustion finally claims us, I think about the tattoos we'll get, the marks that will bind us when everything else has failed.
We're home. But home, I'm learning, is just another battleground. And when we've slept, when our bodies have recovered enough to face what comes next, we'll go to war again.
Together this time. Permanently. No escape clause for either of us.
29 - Marco
“You became a killer.”
Alice's words land like bullets in the morning sun streaming through the plate-glass windows of the Northwestern coffee shop. My wife doesn't flinch, but I see her knuckles go white around her coffee cup, the black ink of her tattooed ring—three days old, still tender—stark against her skin.
The accusation hangs between the sisters like a blade. I stay silent, letting them navigate this minefield, but my hand rests on my thigh, inches from the Glock beneath my jacket. Alice arrived fifteen minutes late—deliberate power play, making Valentina wait until other patrons started stepping around our table like we were a force of nature they didn't want to disturb. Now she sits at the furthest chair from us, back straight, looking older somehow. These few days have aged her years.
"I became a survivor," Valentina says.
Her chin lifts, the line of her jaw so sharp it could cut glass, and I would be embarrassed by the way my body reacts if I wasn’t so preoccupied with the very real possibility of someone getting shot before we finish our lattes.
My wife’s voice is even, but her words snap in the air between us, brittle and bright. "With power. With choices."
The implication hovers: I made the choices you couldn’t, and I’m still standing. What does that say about you?
Alice doesn’t blink. She folds her hands primly on the table, a child’s posture at odds with her severed innocence. Theresemblance between them is unmistakable in this moment—same, dark eyes; same arched nose and high, Slavic cheekbones; same hint of something violent and wild buried beneath. I catch a glimmer of what they must have looked like as girls, fighting over the last cookie or a broken doll, and I realize with an awful clarity that this conversation was written in their bones long before any of us stepped into this goddamn coffee shop.
"Mom died trying to save us from this life," Alice reminds, her voice so soft it’s almost gentle. The words coil around our table, venom in silk. She leans forward, and the plastic spoon in her cup trembles, a tiny quiver of fear or rage or both. "She burned for us—literally. You know that."
Valentina doesn’t yield. "Mom died because she thought she could outsmart men who spend their lives building cages for women like us." Her gaze never leaves Alice’s face. "She tried to run. I stayed and fought. That’s why I’m alive."
Two old men at the next table argue about baseball stats, their voices rising and falling in the background like the tide. A woman with a stroller checks her phone, thumb scrolling while her baby screams into the void. The world keeps spinning, unaware that the balance of power in the city could tip over the edge with a careless word from either sister.
I want to tell Valentina she doesn’t have to do this. That we could walk away, disappear together, start over someplace with no ghosts—except I know that’s a lie. The ghosts always find you. I know this because I am one. The man I used to be haunts every decision I make, every time I reach for a weapon instead of a word, every time I let Valentina take the lead because she’s better at bloodshed than I ever was at being good.
Alice shifts, and her knee bumps the table. "You think you’re free," she says, "but you’re just at the top of a different cage." Her eyes flick to me, then back to her sister. "You married a man who could kill you. Is that power?"
Valentina smiles. "I married a man who would die before he let anyone touch me." She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t need to. "That’s all the power I’ll ever need."
I want to reach across the table, thread my fingers through hers. But she doesn’t want comfort, not now. She wants a witness.
Alice’s mouth twists, and I wonder if she’s about to cry or throw her coffee in Valentina’s face. Instead, she looks away, out the window, where a black SUV idles at the curb. "You’re not safe," she says. "You never will be."
The words chill the inside of my chest, because they’re true. Not just for Valentina, but for all of us.
I tilt my chair back, scanning the room again. The barista from earlier wipes a counter, but his eyes keep straying to our table. The college kid with the laptop hasn’t typed anything in ten minutes. In the reflection of the glass, I catch the glint of a camera lens. I reach under my jacket, fingers grazing the cold metal of my Glock, and I feel Valentina’s approval like a warm hand at the back of my neck.
Tommy's positioned at the north entrance, two more men in unmarked cars. Even this conversation requires an army.
Alice's eyes find mine, those young eyes suddenly ancient. "Your father killed our mother."
"Yes." No point in denial. The guilt sits in my chest like shrapnel, sharp and constant. "And I'll carry that sin forever."
Three days since the chapel. Three days since Valentina killed Liam with his own gun. Three days since we tattooed permanence into our skin instead of wearing rings that could be removed. The marks have barely healed, and here we are, waiting for the last piece of her old life to pass judgment.
"But not our father?" Alice's voice sharpens like a blade finding its edge. "He's still alive?"
