Page 37 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

NADIA

The stench of blood was heavier than the air.

It didn’t just hang—it clung, hot and wet and metallic, curling through my nostrils and sinking into my skin.

The pit looked like a war zone: red with broken bits of bone and weapons, and a few dents in the dirt where his last opponents fell. In the center stood Sho.

And fuck me, he looked glorious.

He was breathing hard, chest rising and falling with each strained inhale, blood smeared across his ribs and pooling at his feet.

His shirt had been torn nearly to rags, his blade looked like it had crawled through history and never got cleaned, and still…

still he stood like a crowned king drenched in carnage.

The rusted weapon hung in his grip like an extension of his will. His stance was loose, but not weak.

He was injured, yes. But not finished, and I couldn’t help but want a piece of that, a minute of this.

My hand shoots up like a rocket before the words even leave my mouth, “I do! ”

The crowd parts and everyone looks at me but I keep my head high as I make my way deeper into the room. This was not the original plan. I was supposed to corner him after, but he can’t ignore me in front of all these people. He can’t run not if he doesn’t want to forfeit his bragging rights.

“You can’t be fucking serious.” Sho growls, glancing at Aoi. “I am not fighting her.”

“The final fight is always between the survivor and a volunteer.” Aoi chides, “No one else seems eager to enter the ring with you. These are the rules.”

“Fine.” Sho mutters, unhappy with the circumstance, yet his eyes return to me.

I take my time descending into the pit, feeling the weight of every step, my pulse steady, my breath controlled.

I don’t need armor. I don’t need flash. I don’t need more than these blades, my fists, and my intent.

The denim clings to my thighs, damp with sweat from the heat of the bodies and the fire in my chest. My hair is pulled back into a loose knot, strands already sticking to my temple. I look nothing like royalty.

And I have never felt more like a god.

Sho watches me the way he always has—like I am both threat and temptation. His eyes follow my hands, my hips, my mouth. And when I stop in front of him, close enough to feel the heat off his skin, he doesn’t lift the blade.

Not yet.

“You always do like to make a mess,” I say, voice soft but cutting.

Sho’s lips curl at the edges, just slightly. “You always do like to show up when it is already cleaned up. ”

I tilt my head, studying the fresh blood on his collarbone, the fatigue blooming just beneath the surface. He looks like he’s moments away from collapse. And yet, there is something unshakable in him, something too stupid to die. That’s what I like about him. That is also what makes him dangerous.

“Ten bodies,” I say, tone almost admiring. “I’m surprised you don’t keep one alive just to monologue at.”

“I am saving that for you,” he murmurs.

My jaw twitches with the threat of a smirk. “Good. I like an audience.”

For a moment, we just stand there—two weapons that know each other too well. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I step into the ring. Not because he is cautious. Because he knows me. He knows I won’t show unless I intend to draw blood.

“You come all this way to stop me?” he asks.

“No,” I say simply. “I came to see if there’s anything left of the man I once broke.”

Sho’s smile turns razor-thin. “I’m the one still standing.”

“Then let’s see what happens when someone who knows where to cut finally joins the fight.”

The tension between us hums like electricity. My fingers brush one of the hidden knives tucked against my lower back. The steel is cold. Comforting. Familiar. Around us, the pit’s edge blurs—the crowd, Bhon, Aoi—they all fade into meaningless background noise.

Because this isn’t a match. This isn’t revenge. This isn’t a performance.

This is a reckoning .

I meet his eyes fully, the way I used to when I want him to break. “Let’s see if you bleed for me like you used to.”

I drive the blade toward his core, my feet shifting into a tight lunge, muscles honed by years of war snapping into motion.

The second knife slips into my left hand, drawn from the small of my back with a flick of the wrist. I don’t expect the strike to land clean—not on Sho.

Only an idiot assumes a sneak attack catches him unaware.

But I don’t rely on the strike—I rely on his reaction.

He moves just as I know he will. His blade arcs across his body in a swift, fluid parry, meeting my first arm with far more force than I calculate. It knocks my strike wide, sends my shoulder stinging from the impact.

But the feint works. As his attention turns toward the right, my left knife comes in from beneath, slicing a clean line across his forearm. Not deep, but enough to split skin and draw a sharp, involuntary wince from his lips. For a second, I taste victory.

Then he reminds me who he is. Sho’s knee twists, and before I can adjust my footing, his leg whips into a spinning roundhouse that catches me square in the ribs. The knives slip from my grasp mid-air as the impact rips through me like a freight train. Air flees my lungs. The world tilts sideways.

I hit the dirt hard, roll once, twice, and land on my knees with dust in my mouth and blood boiling under my skin.

Pain crackles down my side like a thunderstorm, but I don’t waste time.

I spit, wipe grit from my lips, and pull two more knives—thin and curved, the ones I only use when I am done playing.

When the blood stops being personal and starts being inevitable .

Sho doesn’t pounce. He doesn’t rush. He is taking his time, walking slowly toward me like a predator at the end of a very long hunt.

His blade hangs relaxed at his side, blood still wet across his forearm, but he isn’t even looking at the wound.

Instead, he takes out his hand wraps and wipes the blood away with deliberate care, eyes locked on mine.

That grin stretches across his face like a scar that never heals.

“So… what?” he says, voice casual, amused, and dangerous. “You think if you beat me, all will be forgiven? You’ll get a medal from the Yakuza?” He gestures around to the pit with a slight flick of his chin. “This is a death ring, Hime. Only one of us walks out.”

I scan the ground around me, searching for the two blades he knocked from my hands. They are gone. Not just dropped—gone. He kicks them aside, buries them, ruffles them under the dirt while I am still catching my breath.

I rise to my full height again, blades poised at either side, pain screaming through my ribs, but my smile doesn’t falter. “Do you think they’d mind a dead body?” I ask sweetly, lips curling. “Because I’ve got a lovely one picked out.”

The grin slips off his face. Not entirely—but it hardens.

His eyes lock on mine with more weight than before, something ancient flickering beneath the green—anger, maybe. Disappointment. Or worse… understanding.

“You don’t get it,” he says softly. The humor is gone from his voice now, replaced with something far colder.

“You think this is about you versus me. About revenge. About pride. But I’m not here to win.” He steps forward, blade lowering. “I’m here to end the part of you that thinks we’re still playing the same game. The rules have changed. ”

My grip tightens on the knives.

“You think things have changed,” I shoot back. “But you still talk like the broken little prince your father makes you.”

His jaw twitches. “I am broken,” he says, stepping into striking range. “And I rebuild myself using the ruins of what you left behind.”

He comes in faster than before. Not erratic—precise. His blade slashes at my right hand. I parry—but it is bait. His left fist comes in under my arm, striking the nerve above my elbow. The blade flies from my hand, skittering into the dust.

I spin to catch him with the second, but he catches my wrist mid-turn, wrenches it hard, and twists until the steel slips free and drops beside my boot.

Two more knives. Gone.

He drops my wrist, but holds his blade against my neck.

The rusted edge hovers just beneath my chin, cold and steady, angled with surgical precision against the soft curve of my throat.

A cruel courtesy—he gives me my hand back, but steals my life in the same breath.

If I am anyone else—one of the nameless fools who bleed out in the dirt—my neck blooms open like a red flower, my body collapsing in a graceful, twitching heap beneath his feet.

But I am not anyone else.

I am me.

Sho’s blade stays in place, unmoving. But his eyes—those sharp green eyes, usually locked on mine like we are the only people in the world—refuse to meet me. They hover somewhere between my shoulder and the blood pooling near our boots. His jaw is tight. His breath comes out uneven .

“I can’t have you breathing down my neck anymore,” he mutters, voice rough, broken at the edges.

“Threatening my life. Interrupting my plans.” His grip on the blade tightens, but he still doesn’t press in. “It’s over now, Nadia. I’ve got bigger things to deal with.”

The words land hard, but not because of what they mean. It is the way he says them. Like he wants me to believe this is mercy. Like he doesn’t want to admit that ending us hurts more than the slashes across his skin.

My fury comes in hot—white and feral, rising in my chest like a scream I don’t have time to release. “And I don’t?” I spit, my voice a blade of its own. “You think you’re the only one with bigger things to deal with? You think this game stops being a game for you a long time ago?”