Page 53 of Brutal Union (Ruthless Mafia Kings #8)

SHO

How many times have I said I love this woman? Because I swear no number will be enough.

Three bodies collapse in perfect unison, a sickening harmony of choking gasps and slumping silk.

Tanabe's eyes are still twitching, lips quivering like they’re trying to form one last insult as the blood pools beneath his chin.

Suda falls face-first into his tea, and Hanamura doesn’t even get that dignity—his skull cracks loudly against the corner of the table as he drops like a sack of meat.

Silence punches through the room.

The remaining councilmen freeze, mouths parted in half-spoken protests. The guards, maybe two dozen in all, reach for their weapons. And my father?—

He doesn’t move.

His eyes are locked on Nadia, as if he's trying to decide whether to laugh, scream, or slit her throat.

I move before anyone else can .

Chains still biting into my wrists, I shift my weight and surge forward, catching the closest guard by surprise. My shoulder smashes into his gut, driving him back. His katana clatters to the ground. I roll, scoop it up with my bound hands, and spin to meet the next one charging me.

Steel meets steel with a ringing crack. My arms burn. My grin spreads.

“Come and get it assholes!” I growl, kicking a blade out from under one of their boots and slashing upward. “This will be your one chance to kill me!”

Nadia rips her robe for better movement, a smile on her face as she steps out of the fabric, “Do you have to be so cocky?”

“I am just letting them know how special of an opportunity this is?” I wink back, swinging my chains into the skull of a guard who is charging at me at full speed.

A shriek cuts behind me—Nadia’s bare feet slam into the face of a man who got too close. She’s graceful chaos, her indigo attire is split high to give her full range as she ducks under a wild swing and slits a throat with a blade pulled from her thigh holster. Blood sprays her cheek like war paint.

God, she’s beautiful.

Steel sings past my ear as I duck and drive an elbow into the ribs of one idiot too slow to block.

His sword drops—I catch it mid-air, spin, and hurl it into the thigh of another.

He screams. I kick him backward into a third guy just in time to steal the short blade from his belt and bury it in someone else’s neck.

“Where the hell’d you get the knife?” I yell, whipping around to block a strike from the left and turning the attacker’s own blade into his gut. “Hairpins I get, but who’s the dumb bastard that armed you?”

Nadia giggles as she flips a guard over her shoulder and stomps his wrist until it snaps like a breadstick. “Aoi snuck it in this morning.”

Of course she did.

I roll beneath a high swing, pop up behind two Yakuza thugs, and knock their skulls together hard enough to hear bone crunch. I land across from Nadia just as she grabs one of the council members by the lapels and headbutts him so hard his neck audibly cracks over her shoulder.

“In Aoi we trust,” I rasp, snatching a fallen wakizashi a short Japanese sword and slicing through a guard’s hamstring. “I assume she has Mia.”

“And Ashley?” Nadia’s voice cuts through the chaos like the knives in her hands—sweet and deadly, with an edge of something else.

My blade hooks another man’s sword, sends it spinning, and I bury my boot into his chest, sending him flying. “Jealous?”

“I just don’t understand why we’re risking our lives for a random girl.”

“Because that ‘random girl’ is probably ten,” I grunt, swinging behind a guard and snapping his arm so the bone juts through his suit. “And we couldn’t grab her during the auction.”

“Oh.” Nadia’s cheeks flush—just for a second—before she pivots and drives her heel into a guard’s jaw, spinning with enough force to rip the blade from his hand.

I catch it midair and grin. “You were jealous. ”

“Shut up,” she grunts, ducking under a spear thrust and driving her knife into the guy’s armpit. “I just meant to say Ashley and Mia should be on a plane to Bali with Aoi right now to meet up with my brother.”

“Good,” I nod, wiping the sweat from my brow. “One less killing spree to go on.”

Nadia chuckles smugly. “Don’t tell me this one is enough?”

I see Haragi’s swift movements out of the corner of my eye—massive, precise, like a bear with a vendetta. He doesn’t charge. No, that’s not his style. He prowls. His black eyes are locked on Nadia, but I step in his path.

“Don’t even think about it, sumo boy,” I snarl.

He cracks his neck. “You want to die first? Be my guest.”

Haragi barrels toward me, and I barely sidestep in time, his fist grazing the air where my head was a second ago. I twist behind a guard’s corpse, snatch a fallen spear from the ground, and swing it upward. Haragi catches it mid-strike and snaps the shaft in two like it’s nothing.

Before I can react, his shoulder slams into my ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me sprawling. I land hard beside another corpse—Suda’s, maybe. Doesn’t matter. What matters is the tanto still tucked in his sash. I rip it free just as Haragi charges again.

“You think dying for him will make him see you?” I rasp, as I move out of his grasp. “It won’t.”

“I will have my rightful place,” he snarls, lunging just as I duck low and slash upward, catching him across the bicep. It’s shallow, but it staggers him .

He snarls, grabs for my throat, and lifts me clean off the floor. My feet scramble for purchase, the world narrowing to the burn in my lungs and the weight of his grip crushing my windpipe.

“You don’t have a rightful place, Haragi,” I cough, jerking against his grip. “You are a tool. A loyal soldier. You and I aren’t so different--”

I twist, fingers scrabbling along the floor until they close around the broken blade of a councilman’s dagger.

Haragi cuts me off, slamming me against the floor. “I will be King, Sho. The minute you’re gone he will turn to me.”

“He would never,” I gasp. “You are not blood.”

Without thinking, I jam it into the soft part of Haragi’s neck. Blood erupts against my face, hot and thick. He drops me instantly, clutching at the wound, eyes wide and wet with shock.

For a second, I just kneel there, chest heaving, staring at the man who could have been a brother to me, who did everything for the approval of a man who wasn’t ever going to give it.

It didn’t have to end like this. But he chose the wrong side like they all do.

He gurgles, sways, then crumples to the floor with a final, shuddering breath.

I wipe my face with the back of my arm and grab a katana from the blood-slick tiles beside him. Nadia steps over a body to meet me, her lips curled into a grin that’s all heat and violence.

“Took you long enough,” she says, flicking blood from her knife .

“Hey, not everyone has unlimited hair pins like you,” I wipe my brow, and let out a small shudder.

I grab the katana off the ground and rise to my feet, blood dripping from my fingers, my eyes locked on his. There are two guards left on either side of my father in a room full of dead bodies, one looks no older than fifteen.

“You do not have to die for him,” I announce, slicing the katana through the air, spraying blood across the floor. “I will let you live.”

The boy hesitates, breath ragged, sword trembling in his grip. He can’t be more than twenty—green eyes wide with fear, maybe regret. He looks around, sees nothing but bodies. Nadia stands poised behind him, her blade glinting red, eyes locked and unblinking.

“Do not be cowards!” my father bellows from the dais, voice echoing like a war drum. “Die like warriors!”

The boy screams and charges.

I step into the strike, dodge low, and slam the hilt of my katana into his jaw. His sword clatters to the ground. In a single motion, I grab his wrist, twist until he falls to his knees, and raise my blade high. He looks up at me—terrified.

“I told you,” I whisper, “I’d let you live.”

And then I bring the sword down—clean, fast—severing his hand at the wrist.

He shrieks, falling backward, cradling the stump, blood spraying across the polished floor as he kicks away from me in terror.

“Take that,” I snap, eyes narrowed on his newly formed stump, “as a reminder to choose your leaders more wisely. ”

Behind me, I hear the wet sound of a blade sinking into flesh. A gurgle follows. I glance over my shoulder to see Nadia standing over the final guard, blood dripping from her knife as his body spasms, then stills.

Takeda remains at the head of it, calm as ever, the only man left untouched.

He rises slowly from his throne, adjusting the sleeves of his black kimono, as he descends the dais with practiced calm, not an ounce of fear in his posture. At his side is a sheathed katana, lacquered black with a golden dragon curling around the hilt.

He draws the blade in one smooth, reverent motion. The steel hums in the air. He brings the katana up and assumes jōdan-no-kamae—high stance, blade raised above his head, tip angled forward, body squared with mine.

My pulse doesn’t spike. I’ve trained for this moment my entire life.

“Well?” he calls down. “Are you going to kill me like a man, boy? Or will you hide behind your whore and let her do it for you?”

I raise my katana and begin walking toward him, boots echoing through the chamber. “I’ll kill you myself, Oyaji,” I say flatly. “But I already know what the future holds.”

I stop a few steps away from him and assume the same high stance with my blade as high as the chain between my handcuffs will let me and I angle the tip forward.

He looks at me with a humorous smile. “And what does the future say? ”

“That I will take your head for using that language on my future wife,” I say, voice echoing throughout the room.

His expression darkens, and for the first time, I see it—that flicker of rage. “Then I suppose that would make her a widower,” he snarls, and lunges.

The clang of steel rings out as he crashes into me, blade-to-blade. He’s still fast—strong—but I’ve fought him in my mind a thousand times. Every form. Every weakness. Every lie. We break apart and circle. He comes in low, I parry and snap the flat of my blade across his ribs. He grunts, surprised.

“Anata ni wa kono shōgō wa fusawashikunai,” you are not worthy of this title. I hiss, striking again—low then high. He blocks, but barely.

“Omae wa kono ichizoku no nawokegasudarou. Omae wa kyōdai-tachi to onajiku amaenbōda. Kusatta hahaoya to onajiku.” You will disgrace this family's name.

You are just as spoiled as your brothers.

Just like your rotten mother. He growls and lunges again, slashing toward my neck.

I duck under, pivot behind him, and rake my blade across his back. Not deep. Just enough.

“You trained children to be killers,” I spit, landing a blow to his thigh, forcing him to drop to one knee. “You are afraid of true men, that seems soft to me.”

He roars, sweeping wide and catching my shoulder. Pain flashes hot, but I twist with it and elbow him in the jaw. He stumbles, and I kick him hard in the chest, sending him crashing onto his back.

“You don’t know how to lead without killing everything around you,” I say, breathing hard, blood dripping from my arm. “You break. You poison. You steal. You are the most dishonorable man I know.”

He scrambles to his feet, swinging wildly. I dodge, drive my foot into his ribs, and knock the sword from his hand. It skitters across the floor, ringing once before going still.

I press my blade to his throat, breathing steady now. I’ve waited my whole life for this moment, but it doesn’t feel like victory.

“You could’ve built something,” I whisper, pressing harder. “But all you did was destroy. And still—still I gave you the chance to walk away.”

He coughs, lip bleeding. “Because deep down, you wanted my approval.”

I lean close, my face inches from his. “No,” I say, voice cold as steel. “I wanted to prove I never needed it.”

Then I swing.

Not for his neck.

Not yet.

Just enough to carve a deep, punishing cut across his chest that forces him to stagger back.

The dark silk of his kimono sliced open and soaked with red. He stumbles back a step, then another, breath hitching as he grips his side. The arrogance is gone. But his eyes still burn with that same fire—the fire of a man who thought he’d never bleed.

I don’t give him time to recover.

My blade slashes across his thigh, clean and fast. He buckles to one knee with a grunt, panting, sweat dripping from his jaw .

“You think this is how you prove something?” he spits, lifting his gaze to mine. “Killing me makes you a king?”

“No,” I answer, circling slowly, blade glinting in the low light. “It makes me your fucking God. There is no heaven for tyrants, father.”

He tries to rise, and I slam my boot into his chest, sending him sprawling flat on his back. His sword lies ten feet away, forgotten. He coughs, blood bubbling at the edge of his lips. He’s still breathing, still glaring—still trying to win a war he already lost.

I stand over him, katana raised, my heart pounding not with fear—but with relief that this moment is finally here.

“You were never worthy of the Yakuza,” I whisper, raising the katana high. “And as you die you will not be worthy of the same heaven that holds my mother. Your spirit dies here. ”

“Sho-” He sputters but it is too late.

One clean swing. The blade cuts through flesh, bone, silk. His head rolls once, then settles, eyes frozen wide in disbelief.

Blood pools across the polished floor, spreading around his lifeless body like a halo in reverse. I lower the blade slowly, chest heaving.

I look over my shoulder.

Nadia stands a few feet away, a smile so wide and bright you’d think she’d see heaven and not me killing my own father. Her blade is lowered. Her shoulders are squared.

And when our eyes meet, she runs into my arms, and whispers, “I am so proud of you.”