Page 51 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

SHO

Every time I wake up in this hell hole the cold hits first, and despite it being a week since I was brought back here I just can’t get used to the feeling.

It’s the type of chill that creeps beneath the skin and settles deep in the joints, spreading through the spine like a warning.

I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling, the same cracked concrete I know better than I know my own reflection.

The smell tells me before my sight confirms it—mold, rust, dried blood, and that sterile chemical tang of disinfectant, the kind they only use after someone bleeds too much.

A thick iron cuff is locked tight around my ankle, chained to a bolt set into the center of the floor.

The chain is long enough to stretch the exact length and width of the perfectly squared room and not a centimeter more.

I don’t bother pulling at it, because any attempt to escape will end with a bruised ankle at least and a broken leg at worst and that’s just from the tightness of the cuff.

If someone catches me, I’ll be lucky to be able to breathe without fluid filling my lungs .

I push myself into a seated position, moving slowly as the ache of bruised muscle and dull exhaustion spreads through my back and ribs.

The cot behind me is as hard as I remember—just a flat slab of metal welded to the floor with no padding, no blanket, and barely enough space to lie flat without my feet hanging over the edge.

My eyes land on the far wall. The light from the overhead fixture flickers in slow, irregular patterns, making the shadows stutter across the rough surface.

There, tucked into the back corner just above the floor, are the carvings.

Rows and rows of them—small notches grouped in fives, each cluster a set of days I lived through without light, food, or touch.

I made those with my own fingernails, dragging them across the concrete until they split and bled.

I was twelve the first time they put me in here.

Bare-chested, covered in bruises, shivering through the night while my father’s voice came through the vents above, telling me this was how warriors were born.

My father calls this place “the hole.” Always said it wasn’t punishment, but tradition. A rite. A lesson in suffering all future leaders of the Yakuza needed

I haven’t seen this room in years, but nothing about it surprises me.

My body remembers the weight of this place.

My breath falls into the same measured rhythm I used to utilize to keep from panicking.

In here, emotion was weakness. Noise was punished.

You learned quickly how to keep still. How to feel nothing.

These last few days have pushed me close to that edge again.

Every moment has been a test—keeping my voice calm, my body under control, my mind sharp enough to calculate three steps ahead even while the ground shifted under my feet.

I’ve been pretending it doesn’t affect me.

Laughing in faces that deserved knives. Walking into fire like it couldn’t burn me.

But the truth is, I’ve been unraveling slowly.

Not all at once. Not in ways anyone could see.

Just enough that when Nadia turned herself over to them, I felt it break.

I let them bring me here. No kicking. No screaming. I didn’t have to be dragged. I walked through the door because if I hadn’t, I’d have done something worse. And because even now—especially now—she needs me. Not as a soldier. Not as a killer. But as someone who can survive this.

My thoughts drift to her without effort. I can still see the curve of her jaw as she turned her head that last time onstage. The blood drying along her cheek. That look in her eyes—sharp, defiant, but already accepting the cost of what she’d done. She’d made her move, and now I have to make mine.

I lean back against the wall, ignoring the sharp bite of cold against my skin.

The carvings are still there, waiting like ghosts.

I don’t count them. I already know the number.

I lived every one of those days clawing at the dark.

That boy is gone. What’s left is a man who remembers everything and forgets nothing.

The creak of the door from down the hall brings me to my feet.

Instinct overrides everything else. My legs move before my thoughts do, body pulling upright and tense, shoulders squared even before I’ve placed the sound.

The chain around my ankle drags hard against the bolt in the floor, the sharp clink echoing around the narrow space like a warning bell.

The light from the hall spills in first—dim, yellow, oily.

Then a shadow crosses it, wide and heavy.

The figure steps into view, framed by the rusted bars of my cage, and I know exactly who I’m looking at the moment I see that scar .

The long, jagged line stretches from his left cheekbone to the edge of his jaw, a twisted pink ridge over sun-darkened skin.

I remember putting it there, after a battle that was supposed to be to death, but he yelled for a forfeit.

It’s only because of the dishonor of killing a man with no fight that he is still alive.

Hiragi Daichi grins the moment he sees recognition spark behind my eyes—his thick neck straining against the collar of a charcoal-black combat shirt, muscles packed tight beneath stretched fabric, the long scar I gave him years ago still carved deep into his cheek like a brand.

His eyes are dark and small beneath a heavy brow, glittering with the satisfaction of old revenge, and a row of gold-capped teeth flashes behind his cracked lips as he leans into the bars, savoring every second.

“Well,” he says, voice thick and full of amusement, “if it isn’t the prodigal little prince himself.”

He steps right up to the bars and wraps both hands around them, leaning in like this is just a casual visit between old friends. The metal groans under the strain of his grip, knuckles scarred and slightly swollen—he’s still brawling for approval, it seems.

I don’t move. My gaze stays pinned to his face, not the brute frame or the new tattoos crawling up his neck. Just that scar. My scar. The one that’s still doing my talking for me.

“Didn’t recognize you without your leash,” I say, my back falling back against the wall, as I relax my fighting stance.“Last time I saw you, you were bleeding into the dirt.”

He laughs again, louder this time, leaning back from the bars with a theatrical shake of his head. “Same mouth, I see. You always were a cocky little shit, Sho-chan. Still mouthing off from the bottom of a hole.”

My jaw flexes, but I keep the rest of me still.

“You’ve gotten bigger,” I remark, eyes scanning his thick arms and broad chest. “Slower too, probably. Or maybe you’ve exchanged the art of the samurai for the art of the sumo. No shame in sumo-fighting, really—it takes a certain skill as well.”

Hiragi’s smile falters for half a second, the corner of his lip twitching before he smooths it out again. His eyes narrow slightly beneath the shelf of his brow, and when he speaks, his voice is lower, more deliberate.

“Careful, kintama , I might sit on you just to shut that smart mouth up.” He taps the bars with two thick fingers, the sound dull and controlled, like the warning beat of a war drum. “Besides, all these years I have been training with father.”

“That’s cute. He lets you call him father now?” I say, pushing myself off the wall and stepping close enough that the light hits my face. “Must be nice to finally get the approval of the man who saved you from that gutter.”

His smile widens, but there’s something underneath it now. A flicker of heat in his eyes, some old bitterness still burning despite all these years. “You still talk like you’re above it all. Like your hands aren’t as filthy as the rest of us.”

“I don’t deal in flesh. I don’t deal in children. I don’t send needy little brats to do my kills,” I murmur. “I don’t think. I am better than you..”

Hiragi laughs again, but this time it’s sharp and humorless, like broken glass in the throat.

“You think I care what I look like to you?” he asks, stepping closer so we’re nose-to-nose, bars the only thing between us.

“I’m the one with power now. You’re the one chained like a dog, dying like the fucking animal you are. ”

“Funny,” I say, smirking as I lean in just slightly, “from where I’m standing, the only animal here is you.”

His fist slams into the bars so hard it makes the steel ring. The sound vibrates up through my chest, and I get the same warm feeling I had when we were kids. Saying all the wrong things that hit the right nerve.

Hiragi’s chest rises and falls once, heavy with frustration. He stares at me, and for a moment, I see exactly what he’s thinking. He wants to crack my skull open. Wants to hear me beg. But he won’t. Not yet. Not without permission.

“If you weren’t already up for the slaughter,” he growls through clenched teeth.

He reaches behind his back and pulls out a thick pair of industrial-grade handcuffs—oversized, reinforced, the kind they use on men they expect to thrash until they bleed.

He spins them once by the chain, then holds them through the bars with the lock already clicked open.

“Hands.”

I don’t hesitate. I step forward and slide both hands through the open space between the bars, wrists turned up.

“Don’t lock them too tight Hiragi,” I mock. “Daddy will be mad at you for injuring his favorite.”

His jaw flexes, and for a moment I can see the urge to tighten them until something cracks. But he doesn’t. He snaps the cuffs into place—tight enough to bruise, but not enough to break skin—then yanks the chain hard, dragging me forward against the bars with a metallic screech.

He crouches down and unlocks the shackles around my ankles, the metal clanking as it hits the stone floor. The cell door groans as he pulls it open, the rusted hinges protesting.