Page 48 of Goodnight, Sinners

“Meds.” He set a plastic bag with three pill bottles between them.

Dasha picked them up. Dasha hadn’t been able to buy her own medications, so Nikolay had been getting them for her. If the bottles were sealed, she would take them. If not, then she would suffer.

“Any news?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

She was desperate for any tidbits. Not just because she wanted to know what was going on in her enemy’s camp, but because she wasn’t used to hiding out while life went on around her, without her. Dasha had always been the planner, the one with her finger in every pie. Going dark was a new and frightening situation for her. Though she was fiercely independent, she missed her family.

“They’re hiding someone… or something,” Nikolay said, annoyance colouring his tones. “One of the guest suites is being used, but no one knows who. Only Shaun, Jozef and a nurse are allowed in the room. I think they might be hiding someone who was injured during the attack.”

Dasha perked up. “Krystoff?” Though she knew better, she couldn’t help the hope that rang through her voice.

Nikolay shook his head, his gaze on the dingy carpet. “He’s gone. I saw his body.”

A shaft of pain sliced through her, and it was everything she could do to keep the emotion to herself. Every day was a fresh wound, a fresh reminder that the man she loved, the life she loved, was gone. And every day the pain rushed through her like a tidal wave of suffocation. She wanted to scream and cry and throw her meagre possessions. Instead, she pulled the pain deep into her soul and let it fester, let it drive her.

“They’ve finished moving into the mansion.” She said flatly. Not really a question. She knew it was happening, knew that Jozef would have to take the physical seat of power, along with the figurative mantle. The Koba estate went back 300 years. Generations of people, generations of mafia had lived there.

“Yes.”

Nikolay’s answers were short and pointed. She suspected he knew how she felt about him. Though she tried to hide her feelings, disdain was one that always managed to slip through the cracks.

She wasn’t entirely sure what his motive for helping her was. Could be he thought she would give him a leadership position if she took the organization back. What he didn’t realize was that she had no interest in the organization. She wanted to take out the source of all her pain, then she wanted to die.

Simple, basic, bloody.

She had been stripped down to the basics. No home, no family, no money, nothing. She would leave this earth a much different person than she arrived. Death would allow her the peace that her constantly moving brain had never found. She would welcome it.

“I saw Shaun at the hospital today.”

Nikolay looked at her sharply.

“Don’t worry, neither she nor her bodyguards saw me.”

“I should have warned you,” he said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his thighs, slouching his shoulders. “She’s doing a surgery there next week.”

“What?” Dasha sat up straighter. “You should have told me sooner. This is a prime opportunity.”

Nikolay knew what Dasha wanted, though he was pushing her to bide her time until he could build an army and help place her at the head of the family again. She allowed his brief fantasy, though her goals differed from his.

“They don’t tell me much,” he admitted. “I didn’t know she was going until she’d already left the mansion.”

Nikolay had mentioned before that he thought he was being treated differently. She’d assured him it was his imagination and he would be safe inside the organization, spying for her. In reality, she was sure Jozef suspected Nikolay of something. In the fifteen years since Jozef had formed his infamous team of mercenaries, he’d kept them close. They worked like a machine. When the head moved, so did the arms and legs. But Nikolay was being left out of the loop. It was a concern, one that perhaps if Nikolay were smarter, he would see.

It didn’t matter to Dasha. She was more interested in the comings and goings of the family, not the intricate details of Jozef’s work life. She hoped once she was finished with Nikolay, Jozef would take care of him for her. She didn’t like getting her hands bloody… with one exception.

“Get me the date and time of that surgery,” she told him, then stood and walked to the door, pointedly opening it and staring at him until he got up and left.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Shaun sat on the balcony of her suite, gazing blindly toward the garden and sipping at her first cup of morning coffee. She wore a heavy sweater with a coat over top and a pair of knit gloves, in concession to the wintery weather. She looked the picture of contentment, but images could be deceiving. Inside, her brain whirred like a squirrel on speed, racing on a hamster wheel.

Her thoughts bounced from her dislike of living in the mansion, to her upcoming surgery, to the dull ache in her chest when she thought of Jozef. The ache was bittersweet. The moments they snatched for themselves were amazing. They came together in a combination of explosive sex, laughter, and signed conversations.

The evening before, Jozef had surprised her with a picnic on the living room floor of their suite. It had everything, from a checkered blanket, to chocolate covered strawberries and champagne on ice. There was an envelope next to the champagne with her name embossed on it.

“What’s the occasion?” she asked.

Not that I need an occasion to give my lovely fiancé a gift, but it’s Christmas,he signed.

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