Page 23 of Brutal Unionn

I slide on the pants—they hug my hips with dangerous precision—and tug the tank over my head. It settles into place like it was sewn onto me. I swipe a pair of his socks from the drawer—gray, thick, still warm from the drawer heater.

Even without the boots or the jacket, I already feel lethal again.

I grab my phone off the bed and fire off a message.

NADIA: No underwear?

The reply comes back instantly.

ASSHOLE: I don’t think you will be needing to wear it for the foreseeable future.

I roll my eyes so hard it’s a miracle they don’t fall out of my skull.

“Cocky little shit,” I mutter, but my fingers tighten around the phone, a wicked smile pulling at the edge of my mouth.

He’s not wrong. And that’s the problem.

I pull on the boots, zipping them up, and looking at how perfect they look on my feet. I throw on the leather jacket last. It’s heavier than it looks, like it could be bulletproof, or hold an absurd amount of weapons.

Fucking Sho. He knows me too well.

6

NADIA

“You could’ve letme know you didn’t need clothes,” Aleksandr grumbles, tossing the bag of freshly bought outfits into a trash can as we walk.

Normally, I’d donate them or hand them off to someone unhoused, but we’ve got fifteen minutes to make it to a meeting with the Yakuza—not exactly prime time for charity.

“I didn’t know the clothes were going to bedeliveredto me,” I counter, brushing a wrinkle from my jacket as we step off the curb onto polished stone.

“He got your size right,” Aleksandr mutters.

“Don’t mention it,” I growl.

We arrive at a sleek glass tower rising from the heart of Marunouchi, Tokyo’s financial district. Aleksandr steps ahead of me and opens the door, smoothing the front of his suit with practiced precision. Always immaculate—jet-black hair slicked back without a strand out of place, posture sharpas a blade. He looks like our father, down to the hard jaw and the broad, built frame. Massive. Imposing. But never messy.

Where I’m chaos, Aleksandr is order. He thrives on control—numbers, structure, the kind of quiet legitimacy that keeps the Mafia breathing on paper. Violence doesn’t thrill him the way it does me. He doesn’t chase blood. He weighs it, calculates it, and only acts when every other option is exhausted. For him, killing is a line item—not a craving.

He adjusts his cufflinks before following me inside. Not because they’re crooked, but because he always needs to be doing something. A nervous tick he swears isn’t nervousness.

Nikolai—our older brother—used to be the one I was closest to. But after he betrayed me, everything shifted. Aleksandr and I bonded in the aftermath. He doesn’t try to control me like Nik did. He balances me. Calms me without trying to tame me.

Together, Aleksandr and I are two sides of the same empire.

The air in Marunouchi smells like money and ambition—crisp, calculated, and layered with the quiet tension of men who carry secrets in custom suits. This isn’t the Tokyo tourists see. No street vendors. No neon. Just mirrored towers, luxury sedans, and the heavy hush of real power.

Marunouchi is the empire’s mask.

All clean lines and corporate elegance on the surface. But beneath? Unwritten deals. Threats passed quietly between elevator rides. Money funneled through offshore accounts, security firms that don’t ask questions, and boardrooms where silence is currency.

For the Yakuza, this place isn’t just neutral ground—it’stheater. The illusion of legitimacy in the most orderly city in the world.

We walk up to the doorman. He is a lean man, with no tattoos, a sleek expensive black suit and bleached blonde hair. What screams Yakuza about him is the fact that he is wearing sunglasses inside like a fucking Bond villian.

“Omae wa akai yoru o mite iru ka?”Are you seeing the red night?He questions, tilting his head to the side, and resting both hands on top of each other in front of his belt, close enough to any weapon he may draw.

I place both of my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket, feeling the hilt of my knife in the secret compartment of my jacket that I discovered on my way here.