Page 68 of A Silent Reckoning

Karl grinned at Shaun. “Jozef is too good to pin anything on. He never leaves evidence. Only once, and he paid for it.”

“When he kidnapped me.”

Karl nodded his agreement but didn’t say anything. Suddenly the day, and Shaun’s special outing to buy Christmas gifts, seemed less joyful. She was taken back to the tiny basement, where Jozef had demanded she save a man’s life, only to turn around and take that life. He’d left fingerprints on a bucket.

And he’d allowed Shaun to live. Perhaps his biggest mistake, although she knew he didn’t see it that way.

“You said Jozef caused chaos in the prison.” Shaun handed the shopkeeper a handful of Koruna, still unsure of the conversion on the currency. The shopkeeper looked startled and then started making change. While Shaun waited, she asked, “What did he do?”

Karl cleared his throat and shook his head. “You know I don’t participate in idle gossip.”

Shaun glared at him. “It’s not idle curiosity. I think it’s important for me to know for my understanding of the mafia.”

“I’m not buying it,” Karl countered, reaching out to take her change from the shopkeeper who was watching them curiously.

“Okay, if you insist, then it’s idle gossip,” Shaun admitted. “But as the daughter of the woman you are trying to have familiar relations with, I insist you tell me. What did Jozef do while he was in prison? Did he… did he hurt anyone?”

Karl ignored her question, instead turning an alarming shade of red and sputtering the words, “Familiar relations?”

Shaun was a little worried about Karl’s diet if his system couldn’t handle the shock of a fairly innocent question. If he was going to date her mother, Shaun would have to insist on him going to his doctor for a health check. Fatima’s heart couldn’t handle another man in her life passing too young.

“I have it on good authority….” Her nighttime guard, who wasn’t afraid of idle gossip, had told her, “… that you spent four hours in my mother’s apartment on Tuesday night after you got off shift. I’m sure she convinced you to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie, but what were you two doing with the rest of the time?”

Karl was staring at her like she was about to whip a chainsaw out of her purse and take him out at the knees. She covered her mouth so he wouldn’t see her giggling.

“We were talking.” Karl’s voice was a mixture of lofty defensiveness and horror. Shaun suspected if he could’ve run away, he would be streaking through the Christmas market to escape her questions.

As if on cue to save his sensibilities, a voice piped up from behind them. “Shaun, is that you?”

Shaun turned on the spot while Karl went on the defensive, his hand going beneath his jacket, no doubt landing on the butt of his gun.

He relaxed almost immediately as they both recognized Dasha Koba.

Shaun took a speechless moment to remember how perfect the other woman was, no matter where she went. She wore a fur hat perched on top of her long, loose chestnut curls. A grey fur coat was wrapped loosely around her body, while a calf length cherry red pencil skirt peeked from beneath the edge of the coat. She wore soft grey leather gloves and high-heeled leather boots.

Shaun was engulfed by Dasha’s perfume as the older woman seized Shaun’s arms and pulled her in for a hug, kissing both of her cheeks.

“It’s so wonderful to see you,” Dasha said brightly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Uh….” Shaun accepted the hug, kissing Dasha on both cheeks, as was expected. “I’ve missed you too.”

It was a lie, and Shaun felt guilty for telling it. She’d actually forgotten about Dasha, Krystoff and Leeza. They had drifted to the periphery as her life was filled with settling herself and her mother into Jozef’s apartment building and purchasing necessities. Of course, she knew the Koba family still existed, but aside from Saskia, she didn’t see or spend time with them. She suspected Jozef was acting as a buffer.

Despite his insistence that he wasn’t at war with his family, there was a gulf between them, one that Jozef didn’t bother to try and bridge. He seemed content building a life for himself and his fiancé outside of his family’s influence.

“Please, you must have lunch with me,” Dasha insisted, pulling her arm through Shaun’s and then turning until they faced away from Karl.

“Well….” Shaun hesitated.

She’d come to the Christmas market to spend some time alone outside of the apartment and find some gifts for her loved ones. Now it looked like she was being commandeered.

“Oh please,” Dasha begged. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Consider it my Christmas gift to spend a little time with my soon-to-be niece. You can tell me all about your wedding plans.”

Shaun wanted to laugh, but held it in. So far, the wedding plans consisted of Jozef insisting they would be married soon while Shaun was insisting she needed more time. Jozef was too busy to set a date and stick to it and Shaun was taking advantage of his distraction by never mentioning her upcoming nuptials.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry him. She wanted to marry him whole-heartedly and without reservations, which wasn’t possible yet. Though he was impatient to make their union official, Jozef cared enough about her wants and needs to give her more time, which was how she’d managed to avoid the alter. She suspected when her time finally ran out, and Jozef was ready to act, she’d find herself in a church and married in short order.

“Alright,” Shaun gave in gracefully. “I’ll have lunch with you.”

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