Page 39 of Brutal Unionn

“That’s too many words to still qualify as coffee,” I mutter, finally turning to face him.

He’s holding out a chipped green mug, steam curling lazily into the air. The scent of cheap instant coffee coils around my senses, bitter and burnt. I take the mug and set it beside me on the floor.

“Thank you,” I mutter.

Sho lowers himself onto the edge of the bed with a hiss, sipping from his own cup like he’s got all the time in the world and there isn’t a man who is hunting me down.

“Want to tell me what you’re doing?” he asks, tone mild but tight.

I lift the second gun, check the chamber, flick the safety on. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re trying to get yourself killed,” he says sharply. “You’re still bleeding. You smell like smoke. You haven’t slept since the explosion three hours ago, and now you’re assembling a small armory.”

“I’m not giving him the first shot,” I say, quieter now. My eyes meet his. “If he wants war, he’s going to bleed for it.”

“You can’t go to war right now,” Sho huffs, a bored look of annoyance on his face.

I slam the pistol onto the table with more force than necessary, pushing to my feet—too fast. Pain lances through my side, white-hot and immediate. I suck in a breath and wince.

“Would you rather I give them time to finish the job?” I snap, biting down on the pain.

“I’d rather you take one damn day to heal,” he fires back, eyes narrowing. “You flinch every time you move. You should be in a hospital?—”

“No hospital.”

The words come out sharp, final. His jaw tightens.

“Then sit down,” he says, his voice low, controlled. “For the next twenty-four hours. No guns. No plans. No vengeance. You lost blood. You need food and rest.”

“Sho—”

“I’ll handle it,” he says, cutting me off with a look that makes me pause. “No one’s going to touch you. I won’t let them.”

My fingers curl around the chipped mug on the floor.The heat seeps into my palms, grounding me, even as the words claw their way up my throat.

“You can’t kill my brother.” It feels wrong saying it aloud, like it’s not even mine. Like it’s a request I know neither of us can follow, but I can’t just kill Nikolai because a stranger told me he wants me dead. I want him to look me in the eye and tell me that he tried to kill his little sister with an assassin like a coward.

Sho swallows. “I won’t.”

The silence between us sharpens into something heavy. Then, softly—“Just let me take care of you. One day. Then you can go back to being the deadly, terrifying warrior princess I’m so madly obsessed with.”

I exhale, slowly lowering myself back to the floor. My body screams in protest, pain flaring like electricity along my ribs.

“One day,” I say, glaring at him. “And I’m only agreeing because it feels like I’m dying.”

He grins. “Good. Dying makes you reasonable.”

I lift the mug to my lips—and immediately recoil. “What the hell is this?”

“Powdered sugar,” he says, far too proud of himself.

He shrugs, sipping his own cup. “Yeah, and no sugar in your coffee is borderline sociopathic. Someone should really lock you up.”

___________

Hours later, I’m sprawled across the bed, propped up against the headboard with a pillow tucked behind my back and my side still aching. Sho sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed,eyes locked on the screen like it’s a high-stakes mission instead ofLove Island UK.

“She’s obsessed with that guy,” he says, mouth half-full of dumpling, gesturing with his chopsticks, “but the second the new girls came in, he brought one of them to the hideaway.”