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

the orgasms to Shaun. She deserved them and he loved watching the concentration on her face as she fought her way toward the shining peak.

As she collapsed back against the mirror, Jozef tossed the washcloth in the sink and picked her up. She didn’t complain this time as he carried her to the bed. He set her down and sprawled out next to her. She rolled to face the city lights, her favourite position.

Jozef wrapped an arm around her, their hands twined over her beating heart. They fell asleep together, the city below casting a warm glow over their naked bodies.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“I’ve seen that man before…” Shaun trailed off as she stared after the man who’d abruptly turned away and left the bustling Christmas market.

Karl glared after the man. “When?”

Shaun racked her brain until she came up with the answer. “Here, in Prague, a year ago. I saw him watching me when Havel came to my hotel to talk to me, right before I left for Canada. I pegged him for law enforcement.”

“Good eye,” Karl grunted. “He’s Interpol.”

Shaun gaped at the place where the man had been standing. “How do you know?”

Karl looked at her. “We have eyes on everyone who thinks they have eyes on our boy.”

“Jozef?”

Karl nodded. “Interpol is interested because Jozef often crosses international lines when on the job. While our officials are corrupt as hell and unwilling to pin anything on Jozef, especially after the chaos he caused in prison, Interpol would love to get their hands on him. Charge him for some of the shit he’s done while out of country.”

“Why don’t they, if they know he’s committing crimes?” she asked, idly picking up a beautiful tree ornament from one of the craft tables and turning it over in her mittened hands.

Karl grinned at Shaun. “Jozef is too good to pin anything on. He never leaves evidence. Only once, and he paid for it.”

“When he kidnapped me.”

Karl nodded his agreement but didn’t say anything. Suddenly the day, and Shaun’s special outing to buy Christmas gifts, seemed less joyful. She was taken back to the tiny basement, where Jozef had demanded she save a man’s life, only to turn around and take that life. He’d left fingerprints on a bucket.

And he’d allowed Shaun to live. Perhaps his biggest mistake, although she knew he didn’t see it that way.

“You said Jozef caused chaos in the prison.” Shaun handed the shopkeeper a handful of Koruna, still unsure of the conversion on the currency. The shopkeeper looked startled and then started making change. While Shaun waited, she asked, “What did he do?”

Karl cleared his throat and shook his head. “You know I don’t participate in idle gossip.”

Shaun glared at him. “It’s not idle curiosity. I think it’s important for me to know for my understanding of the mafia.”

“I’m not buying it,” Karl countered, reaching out to take her change from the shopkeeper who was watching them curiously.

“Okay, if you insist, then it’s idle gossip,” Shaun admitted. “But as the daughter of the woman you are trying to have familiar relations with, I insist you tell me. What did Jozef do while he was in prison? Did he… did he hurt anyone?”

Karl ignored her question, instead turning an alarming shade of red and sputtering the words, “Familiar relations?”

Shaun was a little worried about Karl’s diet if his system couldn’t handle the shock of a fairly innocent question. If he was going to date her mother, Shaun would have to insist on him going to his doctor for a health check. Fatima’s heart couldn’t handle another man in her life passing too young.

“I have it on good authority….” Her nighttime guard, who wasn’t afraid of idle gossip, had told her, “… that you spent four hours in my mother’s apartment on Tuesday night after you got off shift. I’m sure she convinced you to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie, but what were you two doing with the rest of the time?”

Karl was staring at her like she was about to whip a chainsaw out of her purse and take him out at the knees. She covered her mouth so he wouldn’t see her giggling.

“We were talking.” Karl’s voice was a mixture of lofty defensiveness and horror. Shaun suspected if he could’ve run away, he would be streaking through the Christmas market to escape her questions.

As if on cue to save his sensibilities, a voice piped up from behind them. “Shaun, is that you?”

Shaun turned on the spot while Karl went on the defensive, his hand going beneath his jacket, no doubt landing on the butt of his gun.

He relaxed almost immediately as they both recognized Dasha Koba.

Shaun took a speechless moment to remember how perfect the other woman was, no matter where she went. She wore a fur hat perched on top of her long, loose chestnut curls. A grey fur coat was wrapped loosely around her body, while a calf length cherry red pencil skirt peeked from beneath the edge of the coat. She wore soft grey leather gloves and high-heeled leather boots.

Shaun was engulfed by Dasha’s perfume as the older woman seized Shaun’s arms and pulled her in for a hug, kissing both of her cheeks.

“It’s so wonderful to see you,” Dasha said brightly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Uh….” Shaun accepted the hug, kissing Dasha on both cheeks, as was expected. “I’ve missed you too.”

It was a lie, and Shaun felt guilty for telling it. She’d actually forgotten about Dasha, Krystoff and Leeza. They had drifted to the periphery as her life was filled with settling herself and her mother into Jozef’s apartment building and purchasing necessities. Of course, she knew the Koba family still existed, but aside from Saskia, she didn’t see or spend time with them. She suspected Jozef was acting as a buffer.

Despite his insistence that he wasn’t at war with his family, there was a gulf between them, one that Jozef didn’t bother to try and bridge. He seemed content building a life for himself and