Page 52 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

“Let’s take a walk,” he mutters.

He hauls me through the underground passage and up the stairs toward the main house.

The hallway is narrow, the floors creaking beneath our steps as we move through the underground corridors.

Once we climb the stairs, the house greets us with a stillness I remember too well.

The Yakuza headquarters isn't some fortress made of steel and bulletproof glass. It’s a commune of old, sprawling Japanese-style homes built on tradition, pride, and intimidation.

The outer structures still wear their age in the weathered wood and black tiled roofs, nestled behind stone walls lined with pine.

We step into the open air, the sun falling through the spaces between buildings in fractured slants of gold.

Nothing has changed. The path of dark, flat stones still winds through the manicured garden.

The koi pond bubbles quietly to the right of the courtyard, its glassy surface broken only by the lazy flick of a tail beneath.

It smells like cedar and dust and faint incense—just like it did when I was a child. And yet, everything feels smaller.

Familiar, but hollow.

We pass the servant’s quarters, the outer dojo, and the tea house where I once knelt in full uniform, bleeding from the lip while Father read out the history of our ancestors, and warned me of the fleeting power of the Yakuza.

I half expect to see myself at every corner—training barefoot in the gravel, polishing blades I wasn’t yet allowed to wield, running laps until my lungs burned .

As we approach the main house, I glance to the left out of habit, just to see the one stop of beauty in this entire compound.

The flowerbed. Once overflowing with wild roses, thick and unkempt and beautiful in their defiance.

My mother’s roses. She planted them when I was six.

She said they were for protection, that the thorns kept bad spirits from entering the house.

They were the only thing in this place that felt like softness. Like rebellion.

They’re gone now.

In their place are rows of carefully maintained cherry blossoms. Pruned. Uniform. Pink petals curled like they’re too delicate for the ground they grow from.

More traditional, I suppose.

I should feel something. Grief, maybe. Anger. But I don’t. Just a cold press in the center of my chest. A hollow ache that’s been there so long I barely notice it anymore.

Before I can linger, Hiragi kicks me forward hard, the toe of his boot slamming into the back of my knee. I stumble, catch myself, and snap my head around.

“Keep walking,” he says, lips curling in amusement. “We don’t have time for nostalgia, Sho-chan . Daddy wants to see his fallen son.”

The wooden floorboards of the genkan creak beneath our feet as he drags me over the threshold into the main house.

And across the room, I see her.

She’s already kneeling in perfect seiza at the center of the tatami mat floor, the traditional Japanese way of formal sitting.

Her back straight, her hands folded gracefully in her lap.

Her crimson furisode robe has been exchanged for a simpler garment—dark indigo silk, plain but elegant, the kind worn by shrine maidens or obedient daughters.

Her hair is pulled tightly back from her face, not in a bun or braid, but wrapped into a knot at the nape of her neck, exposing the graceful line of her jaw and the healing red line beneath her left eye.

The room is a perfect square lined with paper walls, lacquered beams, and cold stares. The sliding doors are drawn open to reveal an inner garden beyond the house—raked gravel, bamboo fencing, and a still pond that reflects nothing but shadow.

My father sits cross-legged at the head of the room on an elevated platform, his robes a rich, matte black, untouched by dust or time. He watches Nadia with the expression of a man admiring an antique—valuable, elegant, but ultimately disposable.

“Sho,” he booms. “Thank you for joining us. It’s been too long since all the families were together.”

Haragi bows, but I stay up straight, only falling to my knees when an idle guard kicks me in my hip.

“Show your father respect,” someone snarls. I meet the cold gaze of Ryuunosuke Kato—towering, tattooed, and infamous for making his children fight to the death. I spit at his feet. “Yes.”

Haragi yanks my hair back. “I’ll kill you.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” my father snaps. “Killing a man with his hands tied is dishonorable.”

Kenshiro Mori, master archer and stickler for tradition, nods. “Most dishonorable. ”

Haragi throws me to the floor. As I steady myself, I scan the room—every family is here.

Tanabe, burn-scarred and deceptively jolly. Suda, skeletal poison master. Hanamura, dressed in silk and dripping madness. Nakagawa, the youngest, all black gloves and Western steel.

And at the center, my father—the emperor among sick fucks and killers.

All six stare at Nadia with different versions of the same hunger—curiosity, malice, and doubt twisted together behind barely concealed smiles. They don’t see her as human. Not yet. They see her as spectacle, as leverage, as bait in whatever game my father is staging.

My father made a fatal mistake, bringing me to a room full of my enemies all at once.

Sure, the first time I killed the heads of all the six families I did so slowly.

It took me two years, but right now, everyone besides my beloved queen is going to meet their maker.

It's just not fair that I won’t be able to savor this moment.

“Teki-darake no heya ni watashi o ireru nante, daitandesu ne,” How bold of you to put me in a room full of enemies. I hum, clicking my tongue at the irony of this moment. “You think I won’t kill you all now.”

Kenshiro Miro laughs boisterously. “The boy thinks because Bhon trained him that he can fight like him! Nenchō-sha o sonkei suru!” Respect your elders!

“Watashi no jidai no shōnen-tachi wa, sono yōna tsumiwookasu to shita o kira rerudarou!” Boys from my era would have their tongues cut out for committing such a sin! Tanabe screams red in the face .

“Come on this isn’t fair, father,” I say, dragging myself into an upright position on my knees. “You are going to put me against all these old fucks, and Haragi? Don’t I deserve a better challenge?”

“You deserve death,” he hisses, the lines on his face are etched with disappointment, as he moves to fix the collar of his traditional dress. “But my future wife would never forgive me. Right Nadia?”

Nadia doesn’t lift her head.

She stays bowed, composed, not a single muscle twitching beneath that elegant, lethal frame of hers. Her voice slices clean through the room, soft but firm—each word wrapped in silk and blade.

“Yes, Takeda-sama,” she says, still looking at the floor. “ I am honored by your mercy on my account.”

I stare at her. Nothing. Not even a glance.

My gut twists, tight and bitter. She doesn’t look at me. Won’t. And I don’t know what burns worse—that she’s refusing to meet my eye in front of him… or that I don’t know if it’s strategy or surrender. I can only assume she does this to keep Mia and me alive while we’re in my father’s clutches.

Takeda’s smug silence stretches across the room like a shadow. I can feel him gloating without even having to look. The others—those wrinkled, brittle relics who call themselves the Yakuza council—they murmur in approval, like jackals waiting for the weakest of the pack to bleed.

I drag in a breath through my nose. My knees ache against the tatami, but I ignore the pain. I’m used to it. What I’m not used to is the cold that’s spreading through my chest, creeping like rot under my ribs .

Takeda turns to the council, his voice steeped in arrogance. “You see? Even the daughter of the Bratva shows proper deference, after a proper lesson in torture. Unlike the bastard I raised.”

My mind races with the possibility because if Nadia only has the red mark of the knife from a few days ago, that torture lesson must have been done on someone else—hopefully just a threat before he did it to her. A warning before he turned his attention to me or worse, Mia.

I clench my jaw so hard it aches. My nails dig into my palms, biting into the tender skin, and I force myself to keep my head down. Not in respect. Not in defeat. But because I know if I look up—if I so much as twitch—someone’s going to die, and I don’t know if I can afford that right now.

“You have the Bratva, father,” I say through gritted teeth. “You have me in chains. You really need a child as well?”

He inhales sharply, only to exhale in such a boisterous manner, my body shakes as I remember those moments as a child when the last set of lashings hit my spine. I was always good at knowing when he felt his point was made.

“You’re right. I don’t need Mia,” he smiles, all yellow teeth and soulless eyes. “I could sell her to Mori. He loves new toys for target practice."

“No,” Nadia rushes out. “You promised me for her. Release her. A queen’s ransom. That is what you said.”

My father leans forward, spit flying out of his mouth as he speaks. “You think a whore like you is worth the ransom of a queen?”

The room erupts in laughter and I can see the anger rise in Nadia’s body as she sits up on her heels, back straight for the first time since I entered this room.

“What am I worth to you, Takeda-sama?” she asks, her voice so calm it makes the hair on my arms rise. A whisper, yes—but the kind right before a storm levels a city.

He laughs harder, like she’s just proven his point. His face reddens, breath wheezing in from too many years of smoke and sin. When he finally steadies himself, he leans in, grin sickening and smug.

“A nickel,” he says.

The corners of Nadia’s mouth curl, just barely, as she finally turns—just her head—to glance at me over her shoulder. That smile is not sweet. It’s the kind that comes before someone gets ruined.

“Five is a fitting number, don’t you think, Sho?”

“The perfect number, Hime.”

Before the final syllable leaves my lips, five pins gleam in her fingers and vanish—flung like silver fangs across the room.

Three bodies slump forward, blood already blooming across their silk. The laughter dies with them.

“Now, I believe my future husband said he wants your head,” Nadia says to my father as she stands to her feet. “I believe we are here to collect.”