A Silent Reckoning: Sinner's Empire by Nikita Slater (world best books to read .TXT) 📕

knowing how easily Jozef could and would pull the trigger if she didn’t stop him. The life of a man he never met would mean nothing to him. But as much as Simon was a terrible date, he didn’t deserve to die and the hospital needed him. “Please, Jozef, for me.”

Jozef’s eyes narrowed and she realized she’d said the wrong thing. His finger tightened on the trigger. Shaun slid her hand up his arm, shivering at the sensation of his supple leather jacket, the muscle of his bicep hard beneath the material.

“I don’t care about him,” she reassured Jozef, ignoring the throat clearing from the man pinned to the wall. “But I don’t want you to kill him either. Please, put the gun away.”

She knew she’d gotten through to him when he dipped his head slightly, his shoulders relaxing. Shaun relaxed too and was unprepared for the strike when it came.

Jozef swung his gun hand back and hit Simon in the temple with a sickening crunch. Shaun gasped as Jozef wrapped an arm around her waist and swung her away from her falling colleague.

Shaun immediately reached for the fallen man, her fingers seeking the bloody wound, but Jozef dragged her back and walked swiftly down the corridor, his gun still in his hand. Shaun was forced to straighten and follow him or risk falling on her face. She twisted in his grasp trying to see if Simon was moving, but his body lay limp on the cold hospital tiles.

Jozef shoved the door to the stairwell open and pushed Shaun inside. She yanked on her arm and when he refused to release her, she gripped the door handle before he could haul her down the stairs.

“No!” she yelled. “We’re not doing this again.”

Jozef let her arm go and swung around to face her. She flinched and cowered against the door as his gun hand came up. He might care about her still, but that didn’t make him predictable. Jozef was called vztekl´y pes, feral dog, for a reason. He was vicious and unpredictable, ready to strike at any moment.

Jozef followed her gaze to the gun and quickly shoved it into the holster under his jacket before holding his hands up to show they were empty. He hadn’t forgotten his promise. He wouldn’t turn the gun on her.

Shaun collapsed, her legs folding underneath her. She reached for the wall as she fell but missed. Jozef’s warm grasp wrapped around her instead as he controlled her fall, crouching next to her. She was panicking; she couldn’t breathe. The harder she tried to pull air in, the worse it felt.

Tears gathered in her eyes as she struggled to pull in the oxygen she desperately needed.

Shaun pressed her forehead to her knees, squeezing her body into as tight a space as she could. It had taken months of counselling, once a week, but she’d finally managed to put the panic attacks behind her.

They’d started shortly after arriving in Canada. The first one had been triggered by her first visit to a place outside of her home. She’d decided to go for a walk and had slipped into a Starbucks for a coffee. The crowd, the sounds, everything amplified in her head until she was positive she would die if she didn’t leave. She’d run home, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face. She’d managed to calm herself eventually, but the incident had prompted her to seek a therapist. She couldn’t risk having an attack while her hands were in a patient’s brain.

Luckily, the attacks rarely came when she was in the hospital. They mostly happened when she felt vulnerable, or if something reminded her of the violence she’d experienced. Once, when her mother dropped a book and it hit the floor with a bang, Shaun had such a bad panic attack Fatima had called the Healthline for advice.

Now, here she was, sitting on the cold concrete floor in the stairwell of the hospital, the author of her waking nightmare crouched in front of her. Every feeling of terror surfaced, mixing with the longing she felt each and every night as she went to bed and dreamed of him. His hard sexy body, his beautiful eyes, his elegant and brutal hands as he touched her.

Jozef took her head in his hands and forced her to look up at him. She had to blink several times before his face stopped swimming in her vision. Slowly he dropped his hands, making sure she followed them with her eyes.

You need to breathe.

She wanted to laugh bitterly, but no sound came out. No shit she needed to breathe. What did he think she was trying to do? Die of spontaneous asphyxiation so he couldn’t terrorize her anymore?

“How….?” It was all she could manage, but he seemed to understand.

I was released from prison yesterday. I came straight here.

His admission ignited a spark of heat in her chest, like a glowing fireball that had resided inside her since they were last together but had gone dormant during their time apart. Now it was coming to life. For him.

He’d come for her. Once, he’d told her he would come for her if she ever tried to leave him. Now he was here, in her city. He was risking his life and his freedom.

It’s time to go, S-H-A-U-N. He signed each letter of her name, not something he often did. Jozef was spare with his words, probably years of trying to make the most of people’s attention when he had it. By spelling her name, he was making this personal. He was here for her and he wasn’t going to let her go.

Chapter Five

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Shaun’s eyes followed Jozef’s hands as he told her to keep breathing. Shaun wanted to warn him that he needed to get out of there before hospital security arrived, then she remembered he would be far deadlier than any security who showed up. She should urge him to leave before he hurt someone else.

Instead, he sat with