Page 64 of Brutal Unionn

I hesitate. My lungs feel shallow. “Three months ago.”

A silence follows. It stretches too long.

“I fucked you three months ago,” he says. The words leave his mouth without hesitation. He isn’t asking. He’s stating fact. The kind that breaks things. A short, humorless chuckle follows, but it doesn’t sound amused. It sounds tired. Hollow.

“Sho—back then, we were just?—”

“Just what?” he cuts in, his voice louder now, more direct. “Because we weren’t friends, and we weren’t enemies. So what were we?”

I swallow. I try to find something solid to stand on, but my thoughts feel loose and slipping through my hands.

“Sho, stop. Just talk to me.”

“Fine,” he growls. “Talk tome, Nadia. Say something. Tell me the truth.”

The heat in his voice scorches through the phone, and I flinch at the sharpness of it, at the way it pierces through my chest. I don’t look around the room—I can’t. I’m not here anymore. I’m with him, wherever he is. Feeling him come apart. Because of me.

“Because from where I’m standing,” he continues, his voice snapping like tension wire, “it looks like the Bratva made a deal with the very people who’ve tried to kill me. Who’vehunted me across three continents. Whotorturedthe boy I used to be until there was nothing left.”

He breathes hard, but doesn’t stop.

“And you said nothing. You didn’t warn me. You didn’t try to protect me. You didn’t eventellme. You're silent. You’re still fucking silent.”

“I never said I did that,” I snap, my breath coming out in sharp gusts of air.

“You didn’t need to, Nadia. You hesitated,” he whispers. “You hesitated, and I felt it. In my fucking chest. I felt it”

My pulse drums in my ears, a rush of panic slicing through me. I grip the desk to steady myself, the wood groaning under the pressure.

“Did you ever love me, Nadia?” Sho asks, voice low. The gravel in his throat makes him sound fucking wrecked. “Or was that just another weapon in your arsenal?”

The words splinter something deep inside me.

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know. I’ve never felt love. I’ve felt control. Hunger. Power. Obsession. Unyielding loyalty. Companionship. I’ve felt the ecstasy of bloodshed and the high of victory. But love? That’s a language I never learned. No one ever taught me. No one ever stayed long enough. I don’t even know what love would feel like, but I can’t lose him. I can’t feel this everlasting pain in my chest.

I can’t call what I have with Sho love, but I know he was the first person to see the monster inside of me and still want to touch it. But I don’t know if that’s love. Or just something close enough to trick me.

Sho exhales shakily on the other end. “Ilovedyou, Nadia. Even when you had a blade to my throat. Even when I knew you could end me with a word. I never lied. I never betrayed you.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I whisper, like if I say it softly enough it’ll be true. “Sho, please. We’ll figure it out.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“Youcan?—”

He laughs again, louder this time, crueler. “Don’t say that. Don’t you fuckingsay that.”

My heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest.

“I meant what I said in the basement,” he continues, voice steady now—too steady. “If you wanted me, you’d have to come get me yourself. But don’t bother anymore.”

“Sho—”

“This is over.” His voice goes ice-cold. “I’m as good as dead to you now. That’s what you wanted, right? To kill me? To sentence me to a life of torture.”

I gasp, the words not leaving my lips.

The empty chuckle that crawls across the speaker and laces through my flesh makes me want to scream. “You got your wish, Hime.”