Page 12 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

SHO

Broad daylight in the middle of Osaka is a private spring—quiet, serene, and deceptively innocent.

The onsen ( Japanese hot springs) sits tucked between a stretch of high-end ryokan and traditional homes, a place frequented by high-ranking Yakuza members who like to wash their sins away in mineral water and pretend they’re still men of honor.

One man in particular stands out: Matsuda Kenji, the current lieutenant of the Yakuza, the brain behind their financial empire.

The man launders billions, manipulates the stock market like a puppet show, and plays politicians like flutes.

He also has a very specific, very disgusting soft spot—for barely eighteen-year-old girls and boys. And a knack for strict, predictable schedules.

My buddy Nickel runs this onsen with his parents.

The second Kenji started coming around regularly, he let me know.

That was two months ago. Since then, I’ve been patient.

Watching. Waiting. Gathering patterns. And more importantly, gathering dirt.

Because I know all about Kenji’s preferences—not from rumors, but from history.

From my time in the Yakuza. From the years I spent as the heir.

During that time, I was their ghost and their golden boy. The one who bowed the lowest in public and slit throats in private. I learned every dirty little secret, every soft weakness and hidden shame behind the men who called themselves brothers. Back then, I pledged my loyalty to them with blood.

Now, I just want to spill it.

I’m seated on a flat rock under the shade of a maple tree, loose robes slung around my hips, feet dipped in the warm edge of the spring.

Posing as just another guest, but that doesn’t matter, because Kenji is too focused on a dark haired girl to even think about me.

My eyes track his every movement as he emerges from the changing area in a fresh linen yukata, summer kimono , sandals tapping quietly against the stone.

He spots me. I keep my expression lazy, neutral—like I haven’t just mapped the two guards posted at the edges of the courtyard.

He nods once, a subtle, informal bow. I return it, just enough to acknowledge without inviting attention.

From this distance, and at this angle, there’s no way he can see me clearly.

The lighting is dim, my posture turned slightly to the side, and the tattoos—my most telling feature—are covered with medical-grade concealment stickers.

Even if he squints, all he’s getting is a vague silhouette and a familiar energy he can’t quite place.

It’s been almost seven years since he last saw me. And if Kenji had any real instincts left—beyond his fixation on getting his dick sucked—I might’ve had to kill him right then and there. Instead, I watch as a flicker of curiosity crosses his face. Not recognition. Not yet. Just... interest.

“Aye lover boy,” a voice rings out over the tranquility of the spring.

Kenji and I both sharply look in the direction of the voice.

It's Nickel; he scurries across the stones with a goofy smile on his face.

Nickel has always been loud, unorganized, rude and the exact opposite of me.

He looks like the Japanese version of Buddha with a man bun.

Kenji approaches me with that ever-slick smile of his, something wrapped neatly in a cloth held in one hand.

“What about incognito did you not understand?” I whisper, my eyes still on Kenji whose head is cocked to the side as he watches our interaction.

He follows my eye-line to Kenji and bends at the waist, showing the utmost respect to that disgusting man. Once he rises, he turns to me.

"Thought you might be hungry," he says, extending the wrapped cloth toward me.

I raise a brow, skeptically looking at the triangle shaped cloth. Nickel has been known to cook some of the worst food in all of Osaka, maybe in all of Japan . “Onigiri?” Rice balls?

“Spicy crab,” he replies, crouching slightly to offer it at eye level like he’s doing me a favor. “Fresh.”

I narrow my eyes and he exclaims. “Ah! Okāsan made it.”

I accept it, turning it in my hand. “I am only taking this because your mom scares the shit out of me. You don’t usually bring snacks to all of the assassins stalking out their prey in your Onsen.” Japanese hot springs.

He chuckles, low and smooth. “Old habits die hard. Besides, I figured if you were going to kill him, I believed you would have already done it.”

I shrug, peeling back the paper. “Maybe I’m lazy.”

“Or maybe you’re waiting for Okāsan to go to sleep so she doesn’t kill you for getting blood in the spring,” he says, standing again, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeve.

I take a bite, the spice exploding on my tongue coupled with the cooling effect of kewpie mayo and the freshly made furikake.

Japanese seasoning blend . The flavors remind me of my mother, how diligent and patient she was with everything she did.

If I said I wanted ramen, I had to wait twelve hours because even with the cooks, nannies, and maids, she still made every dinner from scratch.

Everything she did was a labor of love, even her death.

He walks away before I can answer, slipping behind a screen wall and into the steam like a snake disappearing into grass.

I watch as the dark-haired girl with subtle curves walks demurely out of the women’s changing room, her bare feet making the faintest sound against the smooth, wet stones.

A white robe, soft and silken, clings lightly to her frame, patterned with pink, blue, and purple flowers that shift gently with each step she takes.

The steam of the hot spring curls around her like a veil, catching in her hair—long, straight, midnight-black—now damp at the ends, sticking delicately to the curve of her collarbone.

Kenji licks his lips, practically foaming at the mouth at her appearance.

She feigns embarrassment tucking her chin into her left shoulder as the robe slips off her right shoulder.

“No need being shy, doll,” Kenji chuckles, one hand out as he beckons her closer. “I won’t bite too hard. ”

She approaches the water’s edge, the robe slides lower, exposing a smooth line of skin and the faint trace of the slope of her breast, along with the outline of her curve.

She kneels briefly at the edge of the spring, testing the heat with the tips of her fingers, then slides the robe off with an uncharacteristic level of confidence.

She smiles at Kenji, but almost like she was compelled to, her eyes dart in my direction and she takes a moment to make sure there is a figure standing there.

The steam thickens around her as she shifts, arms gliding along the surface of the spring, causing a gentle ripple that distorts her reflection.

Then, as if she'd forgotten something—or remembered exactly what she meant to—she turns her head slowly toward Kenji.

In overly formal Romaji, normally used by children to an elder, she turns to him, and pouts.

“Sumimasen…,” Excuse me…, her voice barely audible over the burble of water and wind through cedar branches.

“Ojisama, yuzu no ofuro ni shite moraeru kashira. Ohada ga… motto yawarakaku naru no.” Sir would you make it a yuzu bath? My skin would become much softer.

A request for an Yuzu bath, which would be a whole other part of the Onsen. Kenji smiles and replies in Romaji: “We wouldn’t want you not to be soft any longer.”

The girl giggles as Kenji kisses the crook of her neck, then rises slowly from the smoke, moving toward the reception area with sex fueled gusto.

His guards fall in step behind him, one of them offering a robe he pointedly refuses.

Moments later, they vanish through the curtains, leaving only the lingering scent of incense and ego.

After a beat, the girl glances in my direction. Then, with a lazy sway of her hips she makes her way toward the waterfall—nose pinched in annoyance, but her body language shows a lazy stroll, like we don’t have ten minutes before Kenji would normally summon her again, this time to a private spring.

“Taking my targets, are we Sho?” she questions, eyes narrowed as she emerges from steam, her naked body on display again, but I avert my gaze.

“I think we all know the Yakuza is mine to kill,” I respond, my eyes focused on the guard watching us from the door of the changing room.

“Are you averting your gaze? It’s not like this is your first time.” She mocks, fingertips running along the surface of the spring.

My eyes shift back to hers. “What type of man do you take me for Aoi?”

She crosses through the waterfall, her long black hair sticking to her body, as she clicks her tongue in a teasing way that would make me sweat if it wasn’t for the fact that my dick is permanently thinking about a certain, tied up, drooling, curvaceously murderous Russian princess.

“I take you for the animal you are.” Her fingertips run over the curve of my neck, a small smile on her lips. “The bloodthirsty killer. The sadistic lover. I know you, Sho.”

Before her fingers can interlock behind my neck, I grab her forearms. “Shame then, only the bloodthirsty killer is available, right now.”

Aoi scoffs, a girl of her considerable beauty has never been rejected before, but there is always a first time for everything. “Sho, don’t tell me--”

“It’s not official, but my girl would kill you, Aoi,” I smirk, crossing my arms over my chest.

Aoi chuckles, brushing a damp strand of hair behind her ear as the Tokyo humidity curls around us like silk. “You forget how bad I can be when someone threatens my territory.”

My smile stretches wider, a flash of teeth and memory.

The first time I met Aoi, I had just put a bullet between the eyes of my first target in Osaka.

I was cocky, careless—still drunk on the rush of my kill, and the pride of running back to my father with the evidence of my success, when she pinned me to the concrete like a goddamn ghost. Her knee pressed against my throat, a blade tucked against the soft skin below my jaw.

After cursing me about killing on her territory, she looked me over and said I was too cute to kill.

Most people, less masochistic people would’ve killed me.

She didn’t. She taught me instead—taught me how to kill without blinking, how to breathe through blood and silence and guilt.

She carved out the small traces of the boy my father had left in me, and replaced it with the killer my father always wanted.

If I had continued in the Yakuza, there was a possibility that Aoi would have been my right hand, or if my father had his way, my wife.

“You’re only territorial when you're bored,” I mutter, leaning against the smooth rocks on the other side of the waterfall.

“And when I like what I have claimed,” Aoi counters, reaching for a silk robe draped over a nearby stone. She slips it on, the crimson fabric settling around her shoulders as she crosses her arms under her breast. I keep my eyes on hers.

I tilt my head, studying her. The wind catches her silk sleeves, the crimson fabric fluttering like blood in water.

Aoi is not someone I can afford to have as an enemy when I am trying to take down the entire Yakuza—every inch of her is a weapon.

She killed her pseudo- father after she found out he was actually an uncle who kidnapped her, for the selfish gain of his own criminal empire, and that was at the age of twelve.

She wouldn’t blink an eye if she had to kill me, cute or not.

“I cannot be claimed.” I reply.

Aoi steps closer, and her smile is all teeth now. “So you say.”

I watch as she takes a step forward, humming as she trails a finger along my chest, just over the scar she gave me during training. “And now you’ve got a girl who’ll do it for me. How romantic.”

I catch her wrist before her hand can dip lower, holding her gaze. “She’s not just a girl. She is my girl. And she’s pretty ruthless when she’s annoyed. I’d hate to see her jealous.”

I would love to see my Nadia jealous.

“You don’t want to see me jealous,” Aoi murmurs, her eyes gleaming with that same feral glint she used to get right before slicing someone’s throat open. She leans in, the air thick between us.

I chuckle low in my throat, my fingers tightening around her wrist. “You don’t want me to kill you, Aoi.”

She blinks once, lips parting like she’s about to rip my head off.

“Ore no koneko-chan!” Kenji’s voice echoes across the spring, and my lips curl at the timing.

Aoi’s face shutters into something pleasant, but I see the irritation coiled tight beneath her lashes .

“This isn’t over,” she whispers, voice like silk pulled taut over glass. Then she straightens with a sudden bright smile and chirps over her shoulder, “Hai, Kenji-sama! Ima ikimasu--”

I smirk as she walks away, heels clicking with venomous grace. She’s still the same Aoi. Still sharp, still manipulative, still dangerous.

And if she so much as thinks of breathing near Nadia—I’ll rip her heart out and leave it on Kenji’s goddamn desk. Will that expedite my plan? Sure, but will she learn her lesson? Absolutely. A final one.

I am already fishing my phone out of my pocket before the thought finishes.

I flick to the tracking app— there .

A red dot pulses gently on the map, nestled in the upscale residential district I dropped her in. Home. Safe. At least for now. The leather jacket I gave her last week was lined with more than satin—it carries a discreet little gift stitched beneath the collar.

She doesn't know yet. Or maybe she does. She’s clever like that.

I emerge from beneath the waterfall, water trailing down my skin in slow, silver ribbons.

The cold bite of the mountain spring clings to me, but my veins run molten.

I climb back onto the slick stone ledge, muscles coiled, breathe steady, and settle into a crouch like a predator at rest. The night hums around me—crickets, distant thunder, the ghost of a war I haven't started yet.

I drag a dripping hand through my hair, and pull my kimono tighter against my body. If Kenji is alone with Aoi, he’ll be dead by the morning, and with one man gone. I want to celebrate by seeing my girl.