Page 50 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

I struggle against him for a beat, but he doesn’t budge. His grip is exact and brutal, and he knows me well enough to brace for the backlash. I don’t speak, don’t curse, because the second the blade makes contact, all the breath is ripped out of the room.

The knife strikes just beneath her left eye.

It doesn’t pierce deeply, just enough to slice the skin in a single line that glows red against the pale canvas of her face.

Blood trails slowly, along her cheekbone from the shallow cut.

Her body doesn’t move, not an inch. She doesn’t startle or cry out.

There’s no flinch, no shock in her expression—only the same poised calm she walked in with, as if she expected it.

The ribbon holding the mask together falls off from the precise slit of the knife, and drops to the stage floor with a soft clatter of lacquered wood against polished oak.

She’s fully visible now.

Every inch of makeup that Aoi layered with obsessive detail is perfectly intact—deep red lips, sculpted brows, sharp eyeliner and glittering shadow—but none of that holds the attention of the room anymore.

What arrests them, what stops every whisper cold, is the face beneath the paint.

The mask is gone, and there is no illusion left.

“Ah,” my father’s aged voice echoes throughout the space. “Such an unforgettable beauty.”

Nadia looks up at the corner of the room, like she senses me from the shadows before looking at my father with a demure smile. “Master Matsumoto, it’s an honor.”

“No,” my father clicks his tongue, a tinge of humor in his tone. “Do not lie to me and use words you don’t understand.”

He grabs the shiny black cane with a silver handle next to him, and steadily stands, and takes lazy steps forward as the whole room watches.

My heart pounds harder now, a dull throb behind my ribs. I don’t even realize I’m pushing forward until Bhon braces against my chest again.

“She can handle him,” he mutters.

“She shouldn’t have to,” I grit out.

“You speak of honor,” my father bellows, folding his hands neatly over the top of his cane. “But you walk onstage in lingerie and silk, disguised as a gift for the honorable men in this room. And you offer a smile, as if you are not poisonous.”

Nadia straightens her spine just slightly beneath the fall of her robe. She lifts one hand with elegant ease, brushing a single lock of hair away from her face, drawing subtle attention to the bleeding line across her cheek.

“Perhaps I misunderstood the kind of performance required for this crowd,” she replies, her voice measured. “After all, I heard your organization values tradition. I dressed to suit the role. I bleed for it too, now, thanks to your hospitality.”

My fists clench again, this time harder. Bhon hasn’t let go of my arm. I can feel the tension in him too, not as panic but readiness. He knows how my father works. He knows what happens when this man smiles.

Takeda doesn’t react to her jab. If anything, he looks entertained by it.

“I once trusted you to be a queen amongst kings” he says, tone low and laced with theatrics.

“I have always been,” she replies evenly. “A master of my own fates, if you will.”

“So you admit your deception," he says.

“I admit I’m dangerous,” she answers. “I admit I am a queen. I admit that you have stolen a very valuable subject of mine.”

Takeda’s face doesn’t move, but his fingers tighten slightly over the silver handle of his cane.

“She is valuable indeed. A subject worthy of a prince’s ransom” he says, voice calm. “Wouldn’t you agree son?”

I step forward before Bhon can stop me.

He catches the hood of my hoodie, but I pull loose without force. Every eye in the room snaps to me with the ripple of audible sounds of surprise, but I only look at one man.

“I mean…” I tilt my head with the smallest shrug, hands slipping into my pockets. “You’d know better than anyone what a prince is worth these days, wouldn’t you? I’d say your fifty best men to start. ”

Takeda stares at me with a look that could split concrete. “All these years,” he says quietly, “and you still speak with the wit of a boy.” His eyes flick back to Nadia, and his lip curls faintly. “I don’t know how you stand to talk to him. His mouth runs faster than his brain.”

Nadia tilts her head toward him and smiles, this time with a little more fang in it.

“You’d be surprised,” she says. “You have to have a certain level of intelligence to keep up with Sho. There’s no shame if you can’t follow.”

My father’s expression doesn’t change, but I know that look. That’s the one he wore before he ordered my grandfather’s death with a bow and a polite smile.

“You defend him as if he were something more than a discarded name,” he says to her. “As if his bloodline has not been erased by his own hand.”

I step closer, the platform still between us but shrinking.

“I erased your name, old man,” I say, the edge finally creeping into my voice. “And if you want to see how far I’ll go to finish the job, keep talking.”

“So hot headed. So quick to react.” My father clicks his tongue, looking back to Nadia. “So quick to answer when it is the woman’s choice.” He lifts both of his hands and turns around to the public. “What is a child you love worth? The price of a queen, or a prince? The womb, or the heir?”

I take another step forward, the meaning behind his words becoming clearer by the second. Nadia looks at me, her eyes heavy with despair, and her lips already moving before I can stop her .

I want to tell her that I know she loves me now, and that there is no right price for Mia.

That we are doomed. Star-crossed lovers and it was only a matter of time before someone killed one of us.

Until one of us sacrificed ourselves for the other.

There was no other way to do this. There is no other way to love each other.

“My subject is worth a queen’s ransom,” she says aloud, steady and clear, her voice carrying through the room without a tremble. “Isn’t it better to have a slew of heirs than just one?”

My father gives her a mocking three clap applause. “A benevolent queen, indeed,” he says.

The second his words land, I break into a run.

I shove past the lunging of a guard and surge toward the stage.

My heart pounds in my throat. I don’t care about the crowd.

I don’t care about my plan going up in smoke before my eyes.

I see only her—still and unflinching on that stage, the blood on her cheek now dried into a dark line that cuts down to her jaw.

But I don’t make it far.

Five men intercept me as if they were waiting for the signal.

Suited, trained, and fast, they close around me before I reach the second step.

Two grab my arms, another my chest. I drive my elbow into one’s ribs and drop the fourth with a knee to the groin, but the fifth wraps an arm around my throat and pulls me back in a chokehold.

I thrash against them, legs scraping the floor, vision spotting at the edges.

On the stage, Nadia doesn’t move.

Two men in white gloves ascend the stairs from either side, framing her like a ritual procession. They don’t touch her roughly. There’s almost a reverence in the way they guide her— like they know she’s royalty, even if she’s walking into a cage.

I shout her name, but it comes out strangled against the arm tightening around my throat.

My vision clears just long enough to see her turn her head, giving me one last look. She doesn’t cry. Doesn’t scream. Just looks at me with that maddening calm, the one that says she’s already accepted the cost.

That again she has made the choice to keep us apart, despite how much this must kill her. My father is right about one thing. She is a benevolent queen indeed.