Page 63 of Brutal Union
Nik arches a brow. “That’s him, isn’t it?”
“What about dismissed, do you not understand?” I cock my head to the side, and Nik holds up his hands with a tiny smile on his face.
“I think she’s scarier with a boyfriend,” Nik teases, wiggling his eyebrows as he backs away to the door. Alek chuckles quickly following him out of the room.
I answer the phone, the smile that creaks across my face. “Boyfriend.”
“Girlfriend,” he says in a voice that makes me think his smile must be blinding. “I got a quick question for you.”
“Shoot,” I smile, leaning back in my chair and placing both of my boots on the desk.
“A really old, crappy guy is currently sitting with my blade against his neck, but he told me that you are supposed to hand me over to the fucking Yakuza?” Sho asks, in a voice that sounds too amused to be serious. “Is he lying, or do I get to pound his head in the rocks?”
The breath catches in my throat. “What old ass man told you that?”
“I’ll tell you that if I like your answer,” he grunts, the sound of waves crashing in the background. “Now were you, or were you not supposed to deliver me to the Yakuza in exchange for an alliance and the location of your father.”
I sit up straight.My legs slide off the desk and hit the floor with a dull thud. My spine locks into place as if bracing for impact. A slow, tight pressure coils in my chest, and I can’t breathe right.
“You don’t understand?—”
“Hime.” His voice is clipped. Sharp. Controlled in the way that only means he’s anything but. “What did you do?”
“Sho, this was before?—”
“Before what?” His voice hardens. “When did you make this deal?”
I hesitate. My lungs feel shallow. “Three months ago.”
A silence follows. It stretches too long.
“I fucked you three months ago,” he says. The words leave his mouth without hesitation. He isn’t asking. He’s stating fact. The kind that breaks things. A short, humorless chuckle follows, but it doesn’t sound amused. It sounds tired. Hollow.
“Sho—back then, we were just?—”
“Just what?” he cuts in, his voice louder now, more direct. “Because we weren’t friends, and we weren’t enemies. So what were we?”
I swallow. I try to find something solid to stand on, but my thoughts feel loose and slipping through my hands.
“Sho, stop. Just talk to me.”
“Fine,” he growls. “Talk tome, Nadia. Say something. Tell me the truth.”
The heat in his voice scorches through the phone, and I flinch at the sharpness of it, at the way it pierces through my chest. I don’t look around the room—I can’t. I’m not here anymore. I’m with him, wherever he is. Feeling him come apart. Because of me.
“Because from where I’m standing,” he continues, his voice snapping like tension wire, “it looks like the Bratva made a dealwith the very people who’ve tried to kill me. Who’ve hunted me across three continents. Whotorturedthe boy I used to be until there was nothing left.”
He breathes hard, but doesn’t stop.
“And you said nothing. You didn’t warn me. You didn’t try to protect me. You didn’t eventellme. You're silent. You’re still fucking silent.”
“I never said I did that,” I snap, my breath coming out in sharp gusts of air.
“You didn’t need to, Nadia. You hesitated,” he whispers. “You hesitated, and I felt it. In my fucking chest. I felt it”
My pulse drums in my ears, a rush of panic slicing through me. I grip the desk to steady myself, the wood groaning under the pressure.
“Did you ever love me, Nadia?” Sho asks, voice low. The gravel in his throat makes him sound fucking wrecked. “Or was that just another weapon in your arsenal?”
