Page 104 of Goodnight, Sinners

She had all the symptoms she’d seen in others. Of course, her symptoms, especially in the early stages, could have mimicked the flu, but Dasha knew better. The cramping sealed her diagnosis.

Jozef was serving up a dish of poetic justice, and she had to admire him for the effort.

For five long days of slow poisoning, she forced herself to go through the motions of living. She got up with the other inmates, forced herself to eat, drink, walk around the yard, and sleep. She wanted to sleep so badly that by the time she was allowed in her cell, she collapsed on her bed, cradling her stomach. Occasionally she would have to rush to the toilet, vomit and diarrhea stinking up her small cell.

Now, she was too weak to pretend.

Her thoughts were becoming fragmented. She couldn’t concentrate. Could only lay still until she was forced to rise and join her fellow inmates in their daily ritual.

Yesterday… maybe… a female guard had stuck her head in and asked Dasha, her voice laced with concern, if she needed medical attention. Dasha had refused and had gone to bed. She couldn’t be sure what Jozef’s endgame was, but she suspected it wouldn’t be poison. This was the first step in a larger plan for her, all designed to torture before death.

Even her placement in the Czech women’s prison system was unusual. She’d been apprehended by Interpol. She should have been extradited to the country where they would lay charges against her. She wasn’t sure where they’d intended for her to go, but she knew Jozef had pulled strings to keep her close.

She’d failed in her mission to take out the doctor, but she was at peace with it. Jozef had simply been better, and as his adoptive mother, she was proud of his cunning. She wished better for him than the spineless woman he’d attached himself to, but Dasha couldn’t do anything about that now. She had no doubt she would soon join Krystoff in the family crypt.

She frowned at the wall opposite of where she was lying on her cot. She hoped Jozef would inter her ashes alongside her husband’s urn. Perhaps she should write him a letter? Beg him to allow her final wishes. She didn’t think he was spiteful enough to deny her a simple death wish.

She didn’t know for sure, though. Shaun had turned him into a beast. He was as vicious as ever, but his protective instincts had focused on one person, his hostage. The woman who should’ve died but didn’t. So many times, she should’ve died.

Jozef should’ve put a bullet in her the first day he met her. Then later, Krystoff should have rectified the situation, killed the girl himself. Instead, he’d allowed Jozef to keep her, allowed his attachment to grow. Dasha had paid the members of her hometown mafia, the Kiev boys, to come take care of the situation. Jozef had taken care of them instead, murdering them all in the dark alley where they’d grabbed Shaun. Dasha had paid Giselle to cause a scene at the club, hoping to drive Shaun from the building. Her plan had worked until Jozef caught up with his precious woman. Dasha had been forced to resort to her old fallback of poison. Again, the girl had escaped. She always escaped.

Maybe it was their fate to end this way. Shaun had replaced Dasha in the mansion and Jozef had replaced Krystoff. The next generation of Koba.

Dasha let out a scream of pain as her guts twisted, causing her to seize in agony. She clutched her stomach and turned her face into the pillow. It wouldn’t be long now until the prison guards would be forced to do something. Once they transferred her, she would be dead.

“Stay with me, Krysto…”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Your mother is here,Jozef signed, crouching next to the bed.

Shaun looked at him, tears bright in her eyes. She hadn’t stopped crying in almost two days. She tried to tell herself to snap out of it, to stop feeling sorry for herself. But she couldn’t. Of everything that had happened to her in the past few years, this felt the worst. It was the final straw. She couldn’t take anymore.

“I don’t want to see her.”

Jozef frowned, thunderclouds growing in his eyes.

You turned her away yesterday, which we allowed since you need time to heal, but you will not turn her away today. You need your mother, and you will see her.

He was the epitome of patience when it came to Shaun and her feelings, but he wasn’t going to allow Shaun to push her mother away. She could already see it on his face. He thought she needed her mother, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

She pushed herself up on the bed, feeling dizzy and nauseous. She hadn’t left the bed since coming home from the fertility clinic. She’d refused to eat or… she lifted her T-shirt and sniffed… shower.

Jozef watched her, his deep blue eyes a combination of impatience and concern. She got it. He wanted to make things better for her, but he couldn’t fix this.

She knew she was being selfish. He was just as involved in her prognosis as she was. He must have feelings about being a father… yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Not yet. She didn’t think she could handle his grief as well as her own.

Despite that, it was time to get out of bed and start living again.

“I’ll take a shower and meet her in the breakfast room.” Shaun loved that room. At this time of day, it would be filled with sunlight and would have a clear view of the back of the estate.

Jozef took her hands and helped her to her feet, holding her steady as a wave of dizziness hit her.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, then stepped against him, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry I’ve been so miserable.”

He gave her a long, hard hug that made her feel a hundred times better, then took her face in his hands and tipped it up. He shook his head and kissed her before taking her hand and leading her into the washroom.

He turned the shower on for her, adjusting the temperature the way she liked it, hot enough to burn a few layers of skin off. Turning back to her, he hooked his fingers in the hem of her T-shirt and lifted it.

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