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

bugged when he saw her. “You’re supposed to be at the mansion, Ms. Koba-Horáček.”

“Is that so?” she snapped in annoyance. “Well, I’m not. I’m here to see my mom. Now step aside or shoot me.”

She walked past him and shoved the door open. Of course, he didn’t stop her. If there was one thing hammered into the heads of all staff on the Koba payroll, it was to never touch the women. No matter what was happening, they were not allowed to lay hands on family members. Leeza took advantage of Rassoul’s momentary confusion.

He recovered quickly, stepping into the room behind her. It was too late. She pulled the gun and turned, shooting him in the head. The other guard followed quickly behind, but failed to identify Leeza as the attacker, instead waving his gun around the room.

She shot him, too.

Before his body hit the floor, her gun was back in the holster and she was facing her mother.

Her gun had a silencer that muffled the shots, but she could still be discovered by hospital staff if she didn’t move quickly. Besides, once the explosion happened, the hospital would go into lockdown within minutes. Leeza couldn’t be inside when that happened.

“Wake up,” she said sharply, slapping Dasha’s cheek.

Her mother’s eyelids crinkled, as though she were swimming toward the surface. Leeza slapped her again then took hold of her shoulders and shook her. Dasha cried out in pain as her injury was jarred.

While Dasha was waking up, Leeza rushed to the window, which thankfully had a perfect view of the parking lot. She could see her vehicle, parked illegally against the curb. The windows were tinted so she wasn’t worried about anyone seeing Kristoph, but she hated leaving him.

He was still deeply asleep so wouldn’t wake up.

“Leeza?” Dasha’s thready voice came from the bed.

Leeza rushed back and glanced quickly over her mother. “Get up, we have to move.”

“What… what’s happening?” Dasha asked, trying to push herself up.

When she put weight on her injured arm it buckled, and she fell back against the pillows. Leeza took hold of Dasha’s good arm and jerked her into a sitting position. She looked at the lines that were attached to Dasha, probably giving her lifesaving fluids, painkillers and antibiotics.

Leeza would have to sever the connection, but she had to wait until the explosion distracted the hospital staff.

“You have to be ready to run,” Leeza said to Dasha. “We’re leaving the second I say.”

“Where’s your father?” Dasha’s voice sounded unusually harsh, like she’d swallowed a handful of nails.

Leeza wanted to shout that Krystoff was not her father, that she knew everything, but now was not the time. That confrontation would come later when they were both safely away from Prague.

“He’s going to kill Jozef,” Leeza said instead and watched as her mother blanched. “Jozef has a strike team on its way here, which means we need to get out.”

She glanced out the window again in time to see a man hurling himself away from a vehicle just before it exploded. Leeza blinked in surprise. She’d built the bomb herself and had been relatively confident that it would work, but she hadn’t expected such a large explosion. She was alternately impressed with herself and a little freaked out.

“Time to go,” she said urgently, turning back to Dasha.

Dasha nodded, bit her lip and pushed herself up off the bed. She wobbled but she didn’t go down. Dasha was a strong woman, so Leeza knew she would do her level best to keep up.

Leeza peeled the tape away from Dasha’s arm and jerked the needle out. When she pulled the heart monitor off, the machine started beeping like crazy. Leeza ignored it, pulling her coat off and dragging it over her mother.

“Let’s go.” She wrapped an arm around her mother and pulled her toward the door.

“Rassoul!” Dasha reached for her bodyguard when she saw him on the floor.

Leeza pulled her upright. She gripped her mother by the shoulders and shoved her into the wall next to the door.

“I’m leaving now, whether you come with me or not. Jozef wants you dead and I want you alive, but I will leave you if you don’t do what I say. I have to think about my son.”

Dasha stared at Leeza as if she’d never seen her before, then nodded.

“Okay, let’s go,” she whispered, licking her dry lips.

Leeza opened the door and peeked into the corridor. There was no one at the nurse’s desk, which meant they were likely staring out a window, trying to figure out what’d happened in the parking lot.

“Run,” Leeza growled, dragging Dasha into the corridor.

Both women ran full tilt down the hallway. Leeza slammed her hand into the stairway door and flung it open, shoving Dasha inside. Dasha reached for the wall to steady herself, but Leeza gripped her around the waist and ran down the stairs, propping her mother up as much as she could.

Leeza flung the door open just as an alarm bell inside the hospital went off, signaling lockdown.

They ran toward Leeza’s car, directly through a crowd of bystanders watching the flames of the recent explosion.

“Hey, are you okay?” someone shouted after them.

Leeza ignored the person and used her key fob to unlock the door of her car. She opened the passenger door and stuck her head inside. Kristoph was sound asleep in his child seat, his small chest rising and falling.

She took a deep breath in relief, the tension in her chest easing a little.

She dropped her mother into the passenger seat, lifting Dasha’s legs inside before slamming the door shut.

She hurtled around to the driver’s side and was about to open the door when a security guard came running toward her. She reached for her gun but froze when he started speaking.

“You’ll have to move your vehicle, ma’am,” he told her. “The fire department will want to park here.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize,” she said sweetly. “Of course, I’ll move. Is everything okay?”

He shook his head in exasperation. “It looks like