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

her breath and sparked tears in her eyes. He continued to hold her, his expression turning from annoyance at having someone nearly knock him over to admiration as his eyes ran up and down Shaun’s body.

The man was incorrigible, the playboy of the neurology department. Tall, smoothly handsome and talented. He’d slept with every female nurse who would let him, most of the female doctors and even a few patients. He considered himself an ethical man, so he poached other doctors’ patients to fill his dating pool, never his own.

He’d asked Shaun out no less than a dozen times and if his expression was anything to go by, she was about to be asked out again. She sighed internally, preparing a polite but decisive refusal. If she was anything less than absolutely sure, he would push until she became annoyed. She didn’t want to risk her professional relationship with the man, especially because they occasionally worked the OR together.

“Simon.” She smiled at him.

“Hey, how’s it going, Doc?” He dropped his hands from her arms.

Shaun took a step back to put some space between them. “I’m good. You?”

She hoped he didn’t want to talk long, she wanted nothing more than to see what her mom was cooking for dinner, crack a bottle of Merlot and cuddle with her cat, Fitzy, on her comfortable couch. It was the same thing she did almost every night, but she appreciated the mundane predictable pattern her life had taken.

“I’m good, really good.” His gaze crawled over her, prompting her to cross her arms over her chest.

Once, a long time ago, she’d agreed to a date. He’d spent the night talking about himself and doing with his hands what his eyes were doing now. She’d made an excuse and walked out of the restaurant. If she hadn’t had to continue working with the man, she would have told him exactly what she thought of his handsiness and followed it up with an ice-cold glass of water in his lap for emphasis.

“Hey, you think maybe you’d want to…” His voice drifted off as his gaze fixed on something over Shaun’s shoulder.

Shaun glanced behind her and her vision filled with a leather jacket stretched over a broad chest, tattoos peeking out from the neckline of his T-shirt. Her heart started pumping blood through her body faster and faster until she felt faint. She hardly dared to breathe as she slowly turned on the spot and tipped her head back, her gaze travelling the tattooed throat to the perfectly chiseled features and the scar across his lips. Her heart stopped entirely.

Jozef.

Standing right there, in her hospital.

It couldn’t be true. She saw him every single day, but he was never real. She would blink and he would go away, disappearing like the figment of her imagination he was. Tears filled her eyes as she waited for him to fade away, leaving her with the hollow loneliness that always followed.

Only he didn’t disappear. He continued to block her path, his scent invading her nose, his beautiful dark blue eyes on her face.

His expression gave nothing away. He looked bigger, more muscular than he had a year ago. His face was harder, more lined.

He was real. Oh god, he was actually there.

Shaun couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know who you are, but you can’t be in here,” Simon interjected, moving to stand beside Shaun, his shoulder brushing hers. “This area is for staff only.”

Jozef’s eyes followed the movement and settled on the man standing next to Shaun. Touching her. Shaun tried to ease away from the doctor, but he just shuffled along with her, clearly trying to project a united front.

“You’ll have to leave, or we’ll call security,” Simon continued, oblivious of the very real threat to his life.

Shaun wanted to say something, to step between the two men. She could lie and tell Simon Jozef was her boyfriend, that she’d told him to come to the hospital, anything to ease the tension, but the words wouldn’t come. They were frozen in her throat, along with her breath. She was struggling for air, her world spinning, her entire being focused on the man who had taken her every waking thought, and some of her sleeping ones, for the past year.

Simon frowned and eased himself further into Shaun’s comfort zone, his arm going around her lower back. “You have ten seconds to leave this floor or we’ll call security.”

Jozef’s eyes followed every move Simon made, landing on the hand wrapped around her hip. Shaun knew what was coming. She didn’t know how Simon couldn’t sense the deadly rage rapidly overtaking the hulking man standing in front of them.

Jozef moved so fast it was like watching lightning strike. He shoved Simon against the wall, pulling his gun from the holster under his jacket and pressing the muzzle to Simon’s head. The movement sent Shaun tumbling back and she had to catch herself before she fell to the floor.

“No!” Shaun gasped, righting herself and grabbing Jozef’s arm, trying to pull him away from the other doctor. Dark spots were floating through her vision and she knew she had to try to breathe through her constricted airway or risk passing out. A very dangerous thing to do around a man like Jozef.

Jozef turned his head to stare down at Shaun. His gaze softened and he allowed her to see some of the emotion raging inside. He couldn’t tell her, but she knew, from that look, that he still loved her, and he’d come to Montréal to collect her. Then his pointed gaze fell to her hip where Simon had touched her. Jozef didn’t give a shit about security arresting him, he cared about another man touching Shaun.

Shaun’s heart sang while her brain screamed in panic. Not again, she couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t be the victim of another kidnapping. She couldn’t watch as another colleague died violently.

“Please don’t hurt him, he didn’t do anything,” Shaun managed to gasp, sucking air into starved lungs, begging for Simon’s life,