Page 56 of Sin of Silence

Finally, he stopped, lifted his head and gave her a cold look. A look meant to tell her everything he couldn’t and wouldn’t say.

“Coward,” she accused him scathingly. “You don’t want to say it because then you have to own it. You’re hiding behind your lack of voice. If you want to turn me into a mindless fixture, then tell me the rules. Stop making it seem like you care about what happens to me and then crush my hopes in the next breath. I’m done with it, and I’m done with you.”

She shoved him hard enough that he moved this time. When she tried to storm past him, he grabbed her arm in a grip so tight it told her she’d scored a point with her cruel words. She’d meant them, though. He was hiding behind his lack of voice, refusing to give her the unvarnished truth while allowing his actions to speak for him. Which was dangerous for a man in his position. He was a killer, and if he wanted his actions to do the talking, they weren’t going to say anything good.

“Give me a phone call and we can talk about my position in your life.”

He released her arm and turned away from her in disgust.

“I’ll be in the garden,” she told him dejectedly.

He allowed her to leave the oppressiveness of their shared rooms. She made her way quickly out to the gardens, which she’d been visiting more and more often during her time at the mansion. It gave her reprieves from her host and his family. Jozef was so intense and they rarely agreed on anything. If they actually somehow made it to the marriage stage of their false relationship, they were likely going to kill each other before they made it to the honeymoon.

Shaun was so distracted as she wandered through the garden, she almost stumbled over Krystoff who was on his hands and knees, half buried in a rose bush. “Mr. Koba!” she exclaimed as she accidentally kicked his rubber boot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.”

He slowly unfolded himself from the bush and looked up at Shaun. She couldn’t see his expression, as the sun was shining in her eyes. He climbed to his feet. “Nonsense, I was half-hidden. You couldn’t have known I’d be down here.”

The moment felt awkward for Shaun. This was the man who held her life in his hands, the man who was directing her to marry his nephew. Sometimes he seemed like the powerhouse he was; the head of a powerful crime family. He could freeze a person with a single glance. His commands were followed to the letter by a household used to following where this man led. Yet, in moments like this, he seemed human. If they’d been in Canada, he might be a retiree, puttering around his garden, building a hobby to keep himself occupied in his retirement.

Shaun didn’t fool herself for one moment that Krystoff Koba might be considered a harmless retiree. “Do you work out here often? I thought you had gardeners,” she ventured, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness.

He smiled and pulled his gloves off, slapping them against his work pants and sending up small puffs of dust. “Indeed, we do. But I enjoy the quiet solitude,” he said agreeably. “I try to come out here as often as I can. Please, will you sit with me?”

He nodded toward a stone bench nestled amidst the bushes. Shaun allowed him to take her arm and lead her to the bench. He helped her sit, like an old-fashioned suitor, before taking his place at her side. Together they sat in companionable silence, gazing out across one of the most beautiful gardens Shaun had ever experienced. It was lush and green with splashes of colour from the strategically placed rose bushes. Most were red, but some were white and pink.

“How’s your finger?” she asked, glancing at him.

He held his hand up to show her and she took it, setting it in her lap to examine the bandage. He’d transitioned from her care to his regular physician. The bandage was clean and Krystoff couldn’t be in too much pain or he wouldn’t be in the garden. She let his hand go, satisfied he was healing.

It seemed incongruous but oddly comforting to sit with Krystoff. He was such a formidable character. She could easily imagine his hands soaked in the blood of his enemies, then going out to his garden to meditate on the miracle of life. The dichotomy of violence and peace was strangely appealing to Shaun.

“The operating room is my garden,” she murmured. When Krystoff glanced at her, she added, “I find peace when my hands are buried in someone else’s body. The blood flowing beneath my fingertips, the power of their life force at my mercy. The knowledge that I am the only person in the world who can fix them in that moment. I choose whether they live or die. It’s intoxicating.”

Shaun had never spoken that way before, had barely allowed herself to have the thought, yet sitting next to Krystoff, she felt that the mafia world finally made a strange sort of sense to her. There were studies done that suggested surgeons were among the top ten most psychopathic professions. It took a certain amount of ego and lack of fear to dig around in someone else’s body. Doctors played god with their patients, and while Shaun didn’t think she was a psychopath, she was no different than the average surgeon. She got a rush from the power of preserving life.

“There is happiness to be found in the release of that power, too,” Krystoff said quietly. “Of deciding when to stop and find a new path.”

Shaun looked at him sharply. Was he talking about his situation or Shaun’s? Perhaps he was telling her that she could find equal happiness in giving up her chosen profession to live under the umbrella of the Koba family, married to his vicious nephew.

“I don’t agree,” she replied flatly. “When you spend a lifetime working toward one shining goal, a new path feels like misery.”

“Misery is better than death.”

Shaun sighed her annoyance. Krystoff sounded just like his nephew. They were all telling her to settle down, to forget her old life, but how did she forget the career she’d spent their entire life driving toward and the loving family that had supported her every step of the way?

“I don’t think so,” Shaun disagreed. When Krystoff looked up sharply, she was quick to add. “Don’t worry, I don’t have a death wish. I’m just getting sick of being told by this family that my life is being decided for me and it would be best to just settle down and forget my past life. You wouldn’t be saying any of this if I was a man.”

Her words were bold, and she briefly wanted to recall them. What was she doing mouthing off to a guy who called entire countries allies? The man who made massive life-altering decisions as though he was choosing a tie. He could easily decide she was too much of a pain in the ass to keep around and order her killed and buried under one of his rose bushes.

Instead, he chuckled and said just as bluntly, “If you were a man, you would be dead.”

His words sent a chill through Shaun. He was right. The ease in which Jozef put a bullet in Danilo’s head told her that the Kobas had no problem killing innocent men. She was very lucky that she was not only a woman, but a woman Jozef found attractive. It was likely the only thing that had saved her life.

Krystoff reached for her hand and squeezed. “You are part of the family now; you have nothing to worry about from us.” He turned on the bench to study her, his sharp blue eyes seeing far more than Shaun was comfortable with. “You helped my grandson when he broke his arm. This is not something I will forget.”

Shaun felt the significance of the moment. The Godfather of Prague was basically telling her he owed her one. Since she didn’t think she could ask him to forget the whole marriage plan and send her home, she wasn’t sure what his protection would mean for her.

“I didn’t do anything but diagnose an easy break. How is he doing? I haven’t spoken to Leeza since yesterday.”

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