Page 69 of Goodnight, Sinners

He nodded. “Dasha Koba has been known to us for a long time. Since before she became a Koba, in fact. Her father was not only high up in the Bratva, but he was also a government official. Dasha has danced the line between the two worlds since she was a child. She has become the driving force behind her father’s political decisions. She chose her own husband from among the most powerful men in Eastern Europe.”

That was a shock to Shaun. As far as she knew, Dasha had been given to her husband in marriage and they had suffered an unhappy relationship for years before reconciling. If what Moreau was telling her was correct, then Dasha had been responsible for her own marriage. She had made the decision based on her own politics. It was a stunning revelation. Rather than a victim, Dasha had been the queen, moving everyone else around the board like chess pieces.

“How do you know?” she asked, but she didn’t really need to. Everything she’d seen and experienced at Dasha’s hands led Shaun to believe Moreau’s version of the older woman.

“Her father was extremely forthcoming about the entire family when we picked him up for his involvement in a prostitution ring.”

Shaun wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Please tell me that man is rotting in prison somewhere.”

Moreau gave her that pitying look that told her he thought she was hopelessly naïve. Perhaps she was. After her time spent with Jozef and among the Kobas, she really shouldn’t be shocked by anything anymore.

“He didn’t make it long in the system. He tried to flip on some of his colleagues. They found out.”

Shaun was both fascinated and horrified by what she was hearing. It was a glimpse into Dasha’s life, which helped explain why she was the way she was. It sounded like she was as calculating and corrupt as her father.

Shaun glanced at Cooper who was looking at her curiously through the window, a slight frown on his face.

Shaun held the phone up and wiggled it, holding up one finger to show she would be another minute. He nodded and turned away.

“What do you want from me?” Shaun asked again. “Cooper won’t stay out there forever.”

“We want you to help us bring in Dasha Koba. We have information that she may be in the city. It’s a fair assumption that she might come after you again. She seems single-mindedly focused on your demise.”

A shiver went straight through Shaun. She was certain if he was correct and Dasha was hanging around Prague that it would be a matter of time before she got Shaun alone again. She had a knack for creating situations to her advantage.

“And what happens if she comes after me. You guys bust the door down and arrest her? How do you intend to do this without my bodyguards noticing? They don’t stray far from my side.” She stared at Cooper through the door. His pose was deceptively relaxed, but she knew if she called out to him, he’d be in the office in seconds.

“We can take care of that,” Moreau assured her. “All we need you to do is to get her talking.”

Shaun remembered the last time Dasha confronted her. The other woman hadn’t spoken during the entire attack. Shaun shook her head. “She won’t talk to me. She’ll get me alone and do her best to kill me.”

Shaun felt nauseas as memories flooded her. The poisoning, the stabbing in the washroom. Dasha was brutally efficient. She wouldn’t waste time talking.

“Flatter her intelligence,” he suggested.

Shaun shook her head. “She won’t talk to me.”

Moreau frowned. “You’ll have to find a way. It’s her or Jozef, Dr. Patterson, and we’d rather take the aunt. She’s had her fingers in the Bratva for so long, directing first her father’s activities, then her husband’s, that she would be very valuable to us. However, if we can’t bring her in, we’ll go after the next best person, her nephew.”

Now the Frenchman was negotiating, trying to play on Shaun’s desire to keep Jozef out of prison. She was about to tell him to go fuck himself, but Moreau decided on a different tactic.

“What do you think Jozef will do to his aunt if he gets his hands on her before we do?”

A shiver snaked down Shaun’s spine. The image of Jozef’s uncle, shattered and dying on the floor of their apartment. That was nothing compared to what Jozef would likely do to the woman who’d orchestrated the entire situation. She didn’t want him to have to live with that; to live with being responsible for the death of the woman who raised him.

Moreau went in for the kill. “We can protect her. She will remain in custody for the rest of her life, but if she cooperates with us and gives us the information we need, we can make the rest of her life very comfortable.”

Shaun bit her lip. He had her. And he’d been correct in his first assessment of her, she was a compassionate idiot. She was going to work with this man, work with Interpol, because it would save Jozef from a lot of pain.

“Alright,” she said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Chapter Thirty

Saskia’s ears were covered with the bright blue mufflers she used when she was shooting. She’d been shooting more than usual, trying to release some of the tension that had been building up over the loss of control of her life.

She was going back to school again, but if she’d thought her father went ridiculously overboard on the protection detail, Jozef was on a whole other level. He wanted the entire campus crawling with their people, protecting her and, in her opinion, keeping her prisoner.

In the house, she felt like a stranger. It looked the same, but it wasn’t. Her parents were gone, her sister was gone, and in their place was Jozef and Shaun. She loved and respected her cousin, but she knew he was hunting her mother.

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