Page 91 of Goodnight, Sinners

Along with Ivan, the heads of seven families were present, each responsible for their own region of control. Also present were the two men who’d met with Jozef on the day of his uncle’s funeral: Alexei Ivanov and Yuri Antonovich.

Jozef was handed a glass of his favourite brand of vodka and a cigar. He accepted them, though he set the cigar aside. As he took a drink from the crystal glass, one of the family heads, Stellan Jovanovich, took the seat next to him.

“How is my nephew?” Stellan greeted Jozef, sitting in the plush chair next to the younger man.

Jozef contemplated Stellan before answering. Finally, he signed,for the moment, A-D-A-M remains unharmed.

A nearby footman translated.

“Pity.” Stellan lit his cigar while another footman discreetly opened a set of French doors.

He offered Jozef another cigar, which Jozef declined. Jozef had always detested smoking, had tried to convince his uncle to quit for his health. Ironic, considering it had been Jozef who’d ended Krystoff’s life, not cancer.

What do you want for your nephew?Jozef asked curiously.

Stellan thought about it. “I don’t wish to repossess the boy, if that’s what you mean. He was a fuck-up here on Russian soil, and from the reports we received from Krystoff, he was the same in Czechia.”

Jozef had been shocked to learn, upon reading Krystoff’s file on Adam, that the man was a rather prolific serial killer. Jozef was under no illusion that they weren’t all serial killers. Every man in the room had either killed, or had killed, multiple people in their lifetimes. But that was in the name of business. Adam divined a kind of sexual pleasure from his kills. He chose his victims from the weak, the helpless, society’s undesirables. Women who wouldn’t be missed.

From the pictures of their bodies, each one attached to a police report that had landed in Krystoff’s possession, Jozef could tell that Adam had played with his victims for hours before releasing them from their lives. He bruised and broke them without spilling a single drop of blood before strangling them to death. Disgusting and depraved were too kind to describe the monster who’d been allowed to marry Jozef’s cousin.

It was after he read the file that Jozef realized he couldn’t kill his cousin. She was as much a victim as the other women. Years of abuse were documented in the reports. But what Jozef hadn’t understood was Krystoff’s motive for marrying his eldest daughter to such a monster. At least, he hadn’t understood until he learned that Krystoff was not her father.

Jozef suspected that, while Krystoff had forgiven his wife for being unfaithful, he hadn’t been able to forgive Leeza, his supposed first born, for being illegitimate. It was twisted logic, but Jozef knew how his uncle's mind worked. Knew how petty the man could be.

Now, sitting among the Bratva’s elite, Jozef felt as though he belonged. He felt no fear because he knew he was an asset. Every step of his life had been in service of reaching this point. He could never have imagined it would be through the death of his uncle at his own hand, but he knew that one day he would sit in this spot.

He spoke to the men surrounding him as equals, with confidence. He had trade that they wanted. He had an elite team of mercenaries that they wanted. He had control of an entire country. He would live and work among these men. He was home.

* * *

Shaun spent her afternoon ensconced with three of the wives of the men who were meeting with Jozef. The conversation was stilted at first, but gradually the curiosity of the other women outweighed their reserve of the stranger in their midst.

“And you work?” Tatiana Ivanov asked in Russian. “As a doctor?”

The women looked so shocked by the notion that Shaun had to hide a giggle. She nodded solemnly, as though agreeing that it was definitely strange for a woman of her position to be working.

Shaun answered in Russian, choosing her words carefully. “I do. I recently took a position with the Prague General Hospital.”

The women looked at each other.

Tatiana, the spokeswoman for the three asked, “You work with people’s brains? Is that correct?”

“Da,” Shaun agreed. “I am a neurologist.”

“Perhaps you can help my little Niki. There’s something wrong with his brain. He’s not quite right.”

“Uh… is his problem behavioural or physiological?”

“You tell me!” The woman threw her hands up in the air. “He wants nothing to do with the family business. He spends all of his time with his musician friends playing his silly guitar. He says he wants to be famous, to play heavy metal. What is that I ask you? He is definitely damaged in the brain.”

Shaun caught the amused eye of Yelena.

“I don’t think your son needs Mrs. Koba’s attention,” Yelena said softly, hiding her smirk. “Perhaps he needs his father’s attention more.”

“That is another issue,” Tatiana grumbled. “Alexei is hardly ever home. He goes out to the clubs and says it is business. Ridiculous. Who needs to do business with the thumping music and the dancing whores?”

Shaun choked on her drink, a vodka soda.

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