Page 89 of Brutal Union
He pauses, mid-step, turning to the side.
The silhouette of his chiseled form is relaxed and yet every muscle is pulled tight. His side profile cuts through the dim light leaking through the paper walls braced with wood around the edges: sharp jaw, sloped shoulders, the slope of a well-earned V-line disappearing into the loose waistband of his pants.
“You fucked up,” he replies evenly.
I finally yank the first shoe off and toss it inside, the heel skidding across the wooden floor. I scoff, shifting to balance on the tips of my toes as I start tugging at the other boot. “Yeah, I fucked up,” I mutter. “And I said I’m sorry.”
Sho doesn’t move at first, but when he speaks again, his tone is tighter—cut from something raw and dark.
“No.Fucking upis getting my order wrong at the store,” he says, stepping toward me, his shadow stretching across the floor. “Fucking up is writing my last name wrong by one letter because you still can’t read or write in Japanese.”
Another step. His presence fills the space like smoke—slow, suffocating, and I stumble to my feet as I slide the shoe off and hold the doorframe to keep me steady.
“Fucking up is forgetting my birthday or losing a knife.What you did,” his voice drops, low and sharp enough to sting, “wasn’t a fuck-up.”
He’s standing close now, towering just inside the doorway, his frame bigger, broader, more brutal than I remembered. His shoulders stretch the seams of his black shirt, and the flickering moonlight from the paper window casts his muscles in sharp relief—his chest rising and falling like a storm held at bay. There’s heat rolling off of him, thick and suffocating, the kind of heat that saysrunorburn.
“You didn’t fuck up, Nadia,” he growls, my name curling off his tongue like venom, sharp and full of betrayal—for the first time in our lives.
“You tried to sell me back to the fucking Yakuza. You were going to have me killed.”
“That was a deal I made before I knew about us,” I snap, voice thin but defiant. “Beforethis—” I gesture between us, a wild slash of my hand “—was even real.”
His eyes narrow.
“So you made this deal before Gwen was even kidnapped?”
“No.”
He doesn’t blink. “You made this deal right after I escaped?”
“No, but it doesn’t?—”
“It fuckingmatterswhen you made the deal, Nadia,” he snarls, turning on his heel and stalking deeper into the dimly lit house. His back is tense, muscles shifting beneath the thin cotton ofhis shirt like caged violence. The moonlight cuts across his jaw, turning him into something mythic—half-man, half-wrath.
I slam the door behind me and follow him into the next room, the sharp crack of wood-on-wood echoing like a gunshot. The silence stretches as he speaks, voice low as he unties the battered wraps from his knuckles.
“Because if you made that deal while I was still your prisoner—while we were still just playing our twisted little game—thenfine,maybe I could forgive that,” he says, tossing the wraps onto a nearby chair. “But you didn’t.”
He turns to face me, his green eyes glowing like broken glass in the moonlight. “You made that dealafterwe fucked. After you knew there was something real between us. Youknew,and you still?—”
“You left me,” I cut in, my voice cracking before I can stop it. “You left me tied up. Naked. In your hotel room. You didn’t even look back. I thought I was a fuckinggameto you, Sho. I didn’t think?—”
“Bullshit!” he explodes, stepping closer, every muscle in his body coiled like a viper. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
His eyes burn with something deeper than rage—betrayal, disappointment, something raw that makes my chest cave in.
“I watched you, Nadia,” he snarls. “I watched the way you looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that made you feel alive. And don’t tell me it wasn’t real, because I felt it too. Youmade that dealafter you had my hands on your skin and your heart in my mouth. I called you after and I brought you clothes. I didn’t leave you alone in the cold.”
He’s breathing hard now, each inhale sharp and ragged, like every word he just spat was a punch he barely held back. His chest rises and falls beneath the sweat-dampened cotton. “You knew what this was. And you still agreed to hand me over.”
“IsaidI’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice breaking on the edge of tears. It rasps from my throat like it’s been buried too long, raw with desperation. I take a step forward, reaching out, forcing my trembling fingers to lace with his.
But before our hands can settle into anything resembling comfort or connection, he yanks his away like I burned him and moves to the far side of the room, putting the narrow cot between us like a barrier.
“No, youfucking didn’t,” he snaps, turning his back to me.
“What?” I gasp, stunned, confused, watching his silhouette under the fractured moonlight as he unbuttons his shirt. One by one the fabric falls away from his body, revealing the full scale of how much he’s changed.
