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

someone was following her, watching her. When she looked up, she saw Jozef. Everywhere she went she saw him. Standing in line at the grocery store, sitting in the waiting room at her dentist’s office, even once at a playground while she was playing with her cousin’s children. Every time she stepped foot in the hospital, she saw him. Whenever she picked up an implement in the operating room, she would turn her head to the side, expecting to see the barrel of a gun.

Of course, it was never Jozef. Her counsellor assured her that the hallucinations were normal. They were a manifestation of her fears. Her fear of being kidnapped again, held at gunpoint, forced to take part in a sham engagement. The counsellor was partly right. Shaun feared all those things, but what she feared most was never seeing Jozef again. Her heart had broken when she’d opened her eyes to strangers in the hospital in Prague.

The first word out of her mouth had been his name. That was when she’d discovered the men surrounding her were police.

“You’re safe now, ma’am,” one had kindly reassured her, touching her arm. She’d jerked it away, still confused and upset. “Jozef Koba has been arrested. You won’t have to see him again.”

Over the following week, Shaun had been reunited with her mother and forced to answer question after question. She’d been too upset by the poisoning and Jozef’s arrest to pay much attention to what was going on around her. Thankfully, the hospital staff had become protective of Shaun once they realized she was the missing doctor from Luhansk. They kept the investigators at bay and allowed only the guests Shaun wanted to see into her hospital room.

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to leave the country unless she made some kind of statement about her ordeal, Shaun had sat down with the two lead investigators and given them a statement. She’d told them everything that she could remember surrounding her kidnapping from the hospital and the murder of Danilo Melnychuk. Though guilt ate at her, she couldn’t do Danilo the injustice of lying. Her heart might belong to a killer, but she could still tell right from wrong.

Though the police officers were happy with her statement regarding the actual kidnapping, they were less happy when it came to her lack of details about the Koba family. This was the only time Shaun had lied. She told them the truth about her engagement to Jozef but refused to tell them that her cooperation was forced. She also refused to give any details about the family. Though the entire Koba clan had certainly been complicit in her kidnapping, they were not involved in Danilo’s murder, which meant she could protect them by muddying the truth of her time with them.

She told the men pressuring her into giving up more details, that she’d been locked in a room for almost her entire stay with Jozef. She hadn’t known where she was, and she never saw single member of his family. Only Jozef. None of it was true.

Shaun played the Stockholm card. She didn’t go overboard by professing her love, but she allowed the police to think a bond had formed between Shaun and Jozef due to the shared experience and his care of her. They tried to keep her for questioning, even going so far as to ask for her passport, for safekeeping they said. Shaun knew better. She knew it was time to leave the country.

Her saviour had come in the form of an unlikely source.

Havel had met her outside of the hotel where Fatima was staying. He’d opened the door to one of the family’s black SUVs and stood silently until she got in. Shaun had halfway expected to find Jozef, but the vehicle was empty except for the driver. Havel got in beside her.

Shaun stiffened and reached for the other door. Havel terrified her more than any other member of the Koba organization. He was big, gruff and liked his weapons way too much. He’d argued with Jozef when Jozef had hesitated in killing her. He’d called her a ‘job’ and Shaun hadn’t been able to bring herself to forgive him, though he was completely loyal to Jozef, and wouldn’t harm her unless ordered to by Jozef. This fact didn’t make Shaun feel any less uneasy in his presence.

Havel put his hand on her arm to stop her from climbing out of the car. He wasn’t exactly restraining her, but silently asking her to stay. Shaun took a deep breath and turned to Havel, asking him the one thing she’d been dying to ask since waking up in the hospital and finding out she’d been poisoned.

“How is Jozef?”

She’d found out he’d been in prison for a week, having been arrested at the hospital.

“He’ll be fine,” Havel assured her, then his gaze sharpened, and he added, “You know he did it for you?”

Shaun nodded. “I figured it out. Taking me to the hospital was a risk. He had to have known I’d be recognized and he’d be linked to the kidnapping.”

Havel’s shoulders seemed to relax. “Smart girl.”

“Doctor,” Shaun automatically corrected. “Do you think he’ll actually be convicted?”

Havel dipped his big bald head in a nod. “Yes. Interpol has become involved and they’ve been salivating over him for years. He travels, works on a global level, which makes him more exposed to authorities.”

Shaun’s stomach took a dive at hearing that Jozef would likely do hard time. She quickly ran her fingers under her eyes, drying them before the tears could fall. Now was the time for strength, not falling apart. She would do that when she got home.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

Havel’s eyes softened as he looked at her. Perhaps he was seeing the desperate love for Jozef that was twisting Shaun up inside. Though she didn’t like Havel, she trusted him. They were bound by their love for the same man.

“You can leave.” Havel pulled an envelope from