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

his jacket pocket and handed it to Shaun. “Two tickets to Montréal; one for you and one for your mother. The plane takes off in five hours.”

Shaun grasped the envelope, staring blankly at it while blinking back a fresh wave of tears. What had she thought was going to happen? That the authorities would forget the crimes Jozef committed and release him so he could marry her? It was ridiculous. Even if he somehow got out, Shaun had a life to get back to. She hadn’t worked every moment of every day for the past sixteen years just to walk away now. She was a surgeon, and her career was her life.

“You don’t have to worry, we’ll take the flight.” She gave Havel a half-smile and reached for the door. “Thank you…” she wasn’t sure why she was thanking him. It took her a moment to settle on the reason. She was thanking him for being the family Jozef needed, for taking care of the man she loved when she couldn’t.

“He’ll be fine,” Havel said as she got out of the car. She turned to look at him. He lowered his sunglasses, showing her the earnestness in his eyes. “Jozef has many friends inside the system, both behind bars and on the other side. He is elite in the underworld. He won’t be harmed.”

Shaun nodded and closed the door. As she stepped back to the curb, the SUV pulled away. When she turned to go into the hotel, she caught sight of a man watching her. He had undercover policeman written all over him. He was tall, broad-shouldered, perfectly manicured hair, jeans, leather jacket, sunglasses. Not handsome, but not ugly. Non-descript. Yet something about him made him stand out more than Shaun thought he’d want to if he was surveilling her.

She wondered if he recognized Jozef’s second-in-command, then decided she didn’t care. She was leaving all this behind. And though she might leave half her heart in Prague, she would be going home to the things she loved.

As Shaun began scrubbing her hands and arms in the big metal sink next to her OR, she forced the memories back into the tidy little box in her mind where she kept all of her memories of Prague. They were a year old, starting to get fuzzy. They didn’t matter. The only memory that mattered was Jozef’s face, and she saved it for when she went to bed every night. She fell asleep with his image keeping her safe.

One of the RNs helped Shaun with her gloves, gown, mask and goggles. Pushing all thoughts of her time in the Ukraine and Czech Republic out of her head, she walked into the operating room with confidence, determined to give her patient a few more years of life.

Chapter Three

Jozef accepted the bag that was handed to him from across the desk. He glanced inside. It contained clothes, a phone, his watch and wallet. He pulled Shaun’s gold chain from the bag, holding the heart in the palm of his hand before closing his fist and turning away. He changed in the dingy prison guest washroom, then emerged to join the officer who would walk him off the premises.

He signed the release log and stepped through the doors into the open air. His first breath after spending a year in prison was sweet. Freedom. It didn’t matter that the prisoners got to spend an hour in the yard, working out and socializing. Prison air was more restrictive than the air breathed by a free man.

Jozef didn’t know if he could call himself truly free. He was being released because palms had been greased, certain politicians had been threatened and, ultimately, they hadn’t wanted Jozef on the inside. He wreaked havoc, killing the top Vory and liquidating their assets all while locked behind bars.

He’d worked his way to the top, determined to be the one man every single person in the Eastern European underworld feared. His name would be whispered like the bogeyman. With each death, Jozef sent his team of men out to ensure a smooth transition to his organization. Any resistance was dealt with swiftly and brutally. No one knew what he planned, and everyone was afraid. Jozef was shaking up the entire continent and, though he was behind bars, he’d become untouchable.

It had taken Jozef a few months to sort out his reasons for systematically taking out one Vory after another and forcing their followers to bow to him. At first, he believed he was building an army so when he discovered who had betrayed him, he would be able to execute them with ease. But after many hours of internal introspection, time that was easy to come by during his incarceration, Jozef realized he was doing it for her.

For Shaun.

Before Shaun, he hadn’t cared if he lived or died. That day in the hospital when he’d given himself up to the police, he would have happily finished the whole thing in a shootout that ended in his death, except he had to stay alive. What if she needed him? What if the person who poisoned her tried again? He had to live long enough to give the order that she be watched at all times. Then he had to live long enough to ensure his orders were carried out.

Eventually, he realized he had to live long enough to see her face again. Happy and healthy. Only the reports coming into him indicated she wasn’t happy or healthy. After returning to Montréal, she became a near recluse, refusing to leave her home. She’d admitted to her counsellor, whose records Jozef was easily able to access through a hacker on his payroll, that she was floating through life, unable to concentrate. Nightmares haunted her nights and anxiety had turned her days unbearable.

When she finally returned to her work at the hospital, she allowed it to consume her. The only two places she went were the hospital and her home. Occasionally she would go