Page 28 of A Silent Reckoning

Leeza still didn’t know the exact reason behind her marriage. Though Krystoff could be a brutally cold man, when it came to his children, he had the occasional soft spot. She’d been shocked when he’d called her into his office to inform her of her upcoming nuptials to a man who was nearly two decades older than herself. She’d been twenty-one.

Though she’d known of Adam, she hadn’t said more than two words to the man. At the time of their marriage, she’d thought perhaps he’d secretly coveted her, but that had proven to be untrue. It hadn’t taken him long to show his disdain toward the eldest Koba daughter. Once, she’d asked him why he married her, but his answer had been a sneered, “You wouldn’t understand.”

As the years passed, she grew stronger in both mind and spirit. While Adam broke her body, thinking she was his cowed wife, she’d been moulding her mind into a machine. A machine that could take the pain, internalize it and twist it to her own purposes. The beatings grew progressively more severe as Leeza became more resilient, until Adam was forced to look elsewhere for his disgusting pleasures. He still occasionally used Leeza, but not often. He couldn’t risk marking her in a permanent way that might give their game away.

Perhaps he knew where her mind had gone. He certainly must’ve wondered why she’d never gone to Krystoff. Maybe he thought she was too cowed. She didn’t know because they rarely had a conversation that consisted of more than the weather, what cook was preparing for dinner, and Leeza’s shopping schedule.

Adam simply didn’t care about Leeza as more than a path for his ambitious and failed climb to power, and an occasional object for his lust. Even that had faded. Her lack of reaction made him feel inadequate so he looked elsewhere to relieve his perverse pleasures.

Once Leeza realized that her husband had no interest in her day-to-day life, the world opened up to her. She was able to go to the gun range and teach herself how to shoot. She hired instructors to teach her krav maga, taekwondo and aikido. She went shopping for weapons as often as she went shopping for clothes. In the privacy of their cottage garage, she’d taught herself how to make pipe bombs and makeshift grenades.

Leeza despised her husband, but he was the reason she was able to attain such a level of freedom. She didn’t want to give up the freedom, which meant she had no choice but to stay married to a monster.

She waved at her security man, Igor, who was standing guard at her front door. He acted as her personal bodyguard when she left the estate.

“Nice evening, ma’am?”

“It was lovely, thank you,” she said with a smile.

He unlocked and opened the door for Leeza, waving her in. She told him to have a good night and locked the door behind her. There was a note on the dining room table, instructing her to meet Adam in the master bedroom. The room she no longer shared with him. A mutual decision as neither of them enjoyed sharing a bed.

She sighed her annoyance, hand on her hip as she considered ignoring his summons. He would come for her if she didn’t show up in his room, but she could easily defend herself. Though she wouldn’t, it helped to imagine all the ways she could kill her husband if he wandered into her bedroom.

She closed her eyes and rubbed at the stab of pain between her eyes. She rarely regretted her marriage but spending an evening in the presence of Jozef and Shaun had tried her hard-earned patience. The two were very obviously in love, and though it was clear Shaun still had major reservations over her future husband, her feelings for him wasn’t one of them. Shaun was beautiful and gracious, always saying and doing the correct thing. The warmth in her smile and gaze was all for Jozef.

Jozef revolved around Shaun the way the earth revolved around the sun. He checked on her constantly, touched her when she was close and watched her surroundings like a hawk. Where he was vigilant with the care and safety of his entire family, his feelings for Shaun went to a whole other level.

Leeza had never been a jealous person. She didn’t care if the people around her were fucking, loving, living. It was none of her business. But when she looked at Shaun and Jozef she felt a tug of longing. She wanted that elusive feeling they had captured. The feeling she had experienced with only one other.

Never with Adam.

Even before she’d found out he was a disgusting pig of a man, she’d hated him. That feeling had grown to a raging inferno until it finally broke her. Now she felt nothing except for her son.

As she climbed the stairs, she considered what she would wear. He preferred her in something rich and sexy but also demure. He liked lace and silk in white or cream colours. He liked innocence. Something she’d had the satisfaction of denying him on their wedding night. She’d been punished terribly, a taste of their future as man and wife, but it had been her secret pleasure to deny him the one thing he wanted most—her virginity.

She closed the door to her bedroom and crossed to the closet, her hands going to the buttons of her shirt. She kicked off her high heels and ran her hand over a row of lingerie, choosing a black teddy that made her feel sexy. It had crisscross ties up both sides, giving peek-a-boos of the flawless skin beneath.

She wore the teddy with long black stockings and black panties with the same crisscross pattern. As a last bit of defiance before sliding into her black heels and pulling on a robe, she sprayed herself with Roja Dove, a heady perfume that was the opposite of everything Adam wanted in a woman.

As she walked down the hall toward his room, she stopped. Gingerly turning the knob on Kristoph’s door, she slipped inside. She didn’t want to wake her son, nor did she want Adam to know she’d delayed her route to his room. He would beat her extra hard for the way she was dressed, but he would make her bleed if he found out she hadn’t scurried to him straight away.

She sat carefully on the edge of her son’s bed, a small smile curving her lips. He was such a beautiful child when he slept. When he was awake, he was in constant motion, usually breaking, spilling and causing general mayhem. She loved every moment, but she especially loved these moments.

She brushed the hair from his forehead and bent to kiss him, pulling his blanket higher against his neck. Winter was coming and there was already a chill in the air. Soon she would have to wear stockings with her skirts and place her heeled feet carefully against the cobblestones as she made her way to the mansion.

“I love you so much,medvíde.”

Kristoph loved the nickname his mother had given him because of his obsession with stuffed bears.

She made the sign for love, lifting her forefinger, thumb and pinkie while folding the other two down. Then she pressed her index finger to her lips, kissed her finger and placed it against his nose. It was a technique that helped calm him when he was having a meltdown. It meant that his mama loved him, and she was fine with him making as much chaos as he needed to let the world know he was alive and healthy.

Kristoph was the only good to come out of her marriage. If it weren’t for her son, she might have killed herself years ago, back when she was still fragile, still breakable. Kristoph had saved her, and she would do the same for him by protecting him for the rest of her life. Nothing would touch her son while she was still alive.

She had no idea how Adam felt about Kristoph. He ignored the boy, only showing anger when the child was too loud. Otherwise, Adam rarely focused on the boy in either a negative or a positive way. Something that Leeza was extremely grateful for. If Adam had laid a single hand on her son, Leeza would’ve had to kill him.

She stood and adjusted her robe tighter around her body. She checked on Kristoph’s teddy bear nightlight, dimming it, and then slipping from the room, gently closing the door.

Walking swiftly to Adam’s room, she knocked and waited.

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