Jozef watched her as she worked it out in her head. She was going to have to marry the man who'd kidnapped her, threatened and hit her, and then almost shot her. The man who went against every ethical belief she held as a doctor. She would essentially become his property. Nausea nearly sent her back to her knees. She gripped the doorframe.
He slapped her arm again, and when she looked at him, he signed, answer.
She shivered and whispered, “Okay, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter Seven
Kiev, Ukraine: One day later
Jozef didn’t have a lot of time to plan the rescue of his uncle. Gustav, the man they had beaten for information, had told them where to find the kidnapped head of the Koba family and who was holding him. A rival mafia family located in Kiev, headed by Vasiliy Stanovich, were holding the Koba patriarch in their family estate, located in Kiev.
Once Jozef had identified Krystoff’s kidnappers, he was able to quickly research the family. Ferret out their weaknesses and a likely reason behind the abduction. The current global economy hadn’t been kind to the Stanovich family, as they hadn’t updated technology and techniques to move with the changing times. They were living in the past, hoping to make bank off the old ways; drug sales and extortion. As their family gradually sank into the lower ranks of the Vory, the head of the family had gone to Krystoff three years ago for help and had been refused. Jozef suspected the family took Krystoff for either revenge or to force his hand.
Jozef found a significant weakness in the Stanovich’s armour. A drug-addicted son who liked to brag about his family’s exploits when he was drinking. Havel had gotten the kid drunk and questioned him, in the guise of friendly curiosity, while pumping up the kid’s ego. Pavel had spilled everything, including the fact that Krystoff was soon to be moved. Apparently, Vasiliy had grown impatient with Aunt Dasha’s hedging.
Jozef needed to launch the rescue before Krystoff was moved again or killed. He increased the map size on his laptop and tapped his fingertip against the screen. Havel nodded and scratched his chin. “Never been inside the place, but knowing Vasiliy, we can expect some kind of security detail.”
This was consistent with the information they’d gotten out of Pavel. The kid was being held in a separate room, sleeping off a vicious hangover. It was possible he wouldn’t figure out that he was being held hostage until Jozef’s uncle was returned to the family.
The kid was useless though. Vasiliy didn’t care about his son and would probably thank them for doing him the favour of murdering the kid, who was an embarrassment to his organization. Only the mother seemed to like him, and her voice only counted for so much. But they could use Pavel as a message if they had to, even if it was a weak one.
First, they would attempt to get Krystoff out of the building, and if that didn’t work, they’d go to plan B: mail pieces of Pavel to his mother until she badgered her husband into saving the kid.
Jozef opened another photograph and blew up a picture of the Vasiliy family home. He turned to Havel and gave him a rundown on his plan so far. Together the two men worked on their team strategy, Jozef signing to Havel, while Havel spoke out loud. Havel understood sign language, having worked with Jozef since he was old enough to take on the role of family enforcer, but Havel was more comfortable with spoken language.
Jozef thought of Doctor Shaun Patterson. Thirty-four years old, with a cat and a mother. She would be comfortable using only sign language with him, the way she had when he’d seen her on the street with the boy. It was something he hadn’t realized he craved until that moment in the van when she’d turned to him and signed, please don’t kill me.
After their confrontation in the woods, he’d handcuffed her in the van and driven back to the house to pick up the others. They’d made the long eight-hour drive to where Krystoff was being held and then spent twelve hours holed up with a loyal contact in Kiev as they prepared to hit the Stanovich estate. Shaun was locked in another room, alone, except for the occasional check-in by their host’s sister, Mara. According to Mara, Shaun had barely spoken, except to ask for her freedom, and, when that failed, to ask where Jozef was.
He tried to extinguish the spark that fired inside him when she asked after him. She didn’t care about him. She’d seen him kill twice; she was terrified of him. What she knew of him was that he was the man who had decided to keep her alive. He was her only chance at salvation, which was why she was asking after him. She wanted to make sure he hadn’t abandoned her to a bunch of lethal strangers who might kill her the moment he was gone. He needed to remember that Shaun didn’t care and couldn’t care about him. He was lonely and using their tenuous connection to imagine deeper feelings.
Feelings weren’t allowed in the mafia. At least not when it came to outsiders. Feelings were reserved for family, for those who Jozef was loyal to. Not for a doctor he’d been forced to pick up. She was nothing. She didn’t matter, and neither did the flicker of hope he felt every time he looked at her. His desire when she looked at him from beneath her strikingly long black lashes. The feeling in his chest every time she, an outsider, understood what he was saying.
Once they were married, she would no longer be an outsider. She would be his. To hold, to explore these feelings with, to talk to until he was satisfied.
As if echoing his thoughts, Havel said quietly, “Your uncle won’t like that you kept the woman alive.”
Jozef didn’t respond at first, giving his second-in-command a cold look. Then he signed, she will become my wife.
“You think Krystoff won’t have your wife killed if he thinks she might risk the family business?”
Jozef growled but didn’t contradict Havel. His man was right. Krystoff would put the organization first, before himself, before his love for his nephew.
She will be part of this family, Jozef insisted.
Havel shrugged. “I just want you to think about this, before you make any decisions. Once you free the old man, he will be responsible for making the big decisions once more, including what happens to your girl.”
Jozef looked at Havel sharply. Was he suggesting they not rescue Krystoff? But that would be impossible, it would be disloyal. As far as Jozef knew, Havel was fiercely loyal to the Koba organization.
Then Havel veered away from Jozef’s suspicions.
“If you go ahead and marry the girl without Krystoff’s permission, you’ll risk being exiled from the family and you’re too powerful to be left alive. If you decided to split, you could easily take half the organization with you.”
Ah, Havel was worried on Jozef’s behalf. He wasn’t proposing disloyalty to the head of the family, but caution. Jozef stood and squeezed Havel’s shoulder, then dropped his hand. I will not do anything to jeopardize my position. I will gain my uncle’s permission before I marry the woman.
“And if he denies you?”
It was a very likely possibility.
He will not.
Rescuing Krystoff Koba went as smoothly as Jozef could have hoped, and he had his team to thank for that. Jozef and his men, Havel, Terek, Halil and Nikolay had worked together as a unit for years and operated like a well-oiled machine. They didn’t need words to complete an operation. Their uncanny bond and unfailing work ethic made them nearly invincible. Krystoff would frequently hire them out as a team to do mercenary work in neighboring countries. They had become known as the fiercest mobsters in Eastern Europe.