A Silent Reckoning: Sinner's Empire by Nikita Slater (ereader iphone .txt) 📗

and sipping from his glass. “You have exceeded all expectations. You’ll do great things, Jozef. Remember us while you’re out there, injecting fresh blood throughout an antiquated underworld.”

A smile stretched Jozef’s lips at his uncle’s praise. It was rare that Krystoff expressed himself in this way and Jozef was cognizant of the generosity his uncle was showing. He’d had to humble himself to admit he wanted Jozef back, and to further humble himself by admitting his pride in his nephew.

Yet, Krystoff was the type of man who could appear both humble and very much in control at the same time. As though his words were a gift given, not dragged through a mire of bitterness.

“I hope that we can continue to work together, building both of our interests,” Krystoff continued. “You’re still the best in the business, and I have several lucrative opportunities to explore.”

Jozef dipped his head in a nod. We are at your disposal, but our rate has gone up.

Krystoff chuckled. “Of course it has. I didn’t expect otherwise my boy.”

The two spoke at length about the jobs Krystoff wanted to commission out to Jozef and his team. Jozef was grateful that his uncle didn’t intend to hold a grudge against either himself or Shaun. The older man loved his family, but he was a hard man. If he chose to condemn the couple, they could’ve faced a difficult road to independence.

Chapter Fourteen

Leeza’s heels tapped against the garden stones in a hushed patter as she made her way back to the cottage, her home on the Koba estates. She wasn’t in a hurry to get back; not after the look Adam had given her. He hadn’t wanted to come to the mansion for supper, but Krystoff had made the invitation mandatory.

Adam hated the power Krystoff wielded over the family. Adam was often overridden as the head of his and Leeza’s house.

Krystoff took a personal hand in the lives of his daughter and grandson. Unfortunately, Krystoff didn’t bother to look close enough to see the horrors that went on inside the cottage, which was tucked away on the eastern edge of the estate. After her humiliating marriage to the Koba accountant, Leeza hadn’t bothered to educate Krystoff. Not because she didn’t think he would care. He would. If he knew what crimes Adam committed against the oldest daughter of the Koba empire, Adam would have become food for the rose garden years ago.

No, the reason Leeza kept the humiliation of her marriage a secret was to spite the man who’d cold-bloodedly married her off to a man she hated. It wasn’t the only reason, but whenever she was forced to kneel at the feet of her husband, her hands stretched across the bedroom floor, his belt raining welts across her skin, she thought of Krystoff. She thought of the way she’d tearfully gone to him begging him to let her marry another, of his refusal and the heat of his fury as he tried to discover who her lover was.

He would be horrified if he saw his daughter at the mercy of the sadistic accountant. It was this twisted thought that’d gotten her through the first gut-wrenching years of her marriage, the rapes and the beatings.

Leeza still didn’t know the exact reason behind her marriage. Though Krystoff could be a brutally cold man, when it came to his children, he had the occasional soft spot. She’d been shocked when he’d called her into his office to inform her of her upcoming nuptials to a man who was nearly two decades older than herself. She’d been twenty-one.

Though she’d known of Adam, she hadn’t said more than two words to the man. At the time of their marriage, she’d thought perhaps he’d secretly coveted her, but that had proven to be untrue. It hadn’t taken him long to show his disdain toward the eldest Koba daughter. Once, she’d asked him why he married her, but his answer had been a sneered, “You wouldn’t understand.”

As the years passed, she grew stronger in both mind and spirit. While Adam broke her body, thinking she was his cowed wife, she’d been moulding her mind into a machine. A machine that could take the pain, internalize it and twist it to her own purposes. The beatings grew progressively more severe as Leeza became more resilient, until Adam was forced to look elsewhere for his disgusting pleasures. He still occasionally used Leeza, but not often. He couldn’t risk marking her in a permanent way that might give their game away.

Perhaps he knew where her mind had gone. He certainly must’ve wondered why she’d never gone to Krystoff. Maybe he thought she was too cowed. She didn’t know because they rarely had a conversation that consisted of more than the weather, what cook was preparing for dinner, and Leeza’s shopping schedule.

Adam simply didn’t care about Leeza as more than a path for his ambitious and failed climb to power, and an occasional object for his lust. Even that had faded. Her lack of reaction made him feel inadequate so he looked elsewhere to relieve his perverse pleasures.

Once Leeza realized that her husband had no interest in her day-to-day life, the world opened up to her. She was able to go to the gun range and teach herself how to shoot. She hired instructors to teach her krav maga, taekwondo and aikido. She went shopping for weapons as often as she went shopping for clothes. In the privacy of their cottage garage, she’d taught herself how to make pipe bombs and makeshift grenades.

Leeza despised her husband, but he was the reason she was able to attain such a level of freedom. She didn’t want to give up the freedom, which meant she had no choice but to stay married to a monster.

She waved at her security man, Igor, who was standing guard at her front door. He acted as her personal bodyguard when she left the estate.

“Nice evening, ma’am?”

“It was lovely, thank you,” she said with a