“You intend that we leave tonight?”
She felt the air stir behind her as Jozef answered the question. She desperately wanted to turn and look, to watch the graceful movements his strong hands were making, but she stayed concentrated on her job. Judging from the older man’s next words, Jozef’s response had been an affirmative.
“All of us, or will you leave anyone in the city to keep an eye on Vasiliy?”
Again, she felt, rather than saw, Jozef communicate with his uncle.
“Ah, yes, Havel is a good choice. Trustworthy and measured. He will make sure things here are settled. Have him follow us home in a few days. By then we should have prepared a response to this action taken by my enemy.”
Shaun glanced up at her patient and he looked down at her. She didn’t like that they were talking business in front of her. She was supposed to be a bystander ‒ just a stranger who'd gotten caught up in their drama. If they weren’t afraid to discuss important matters in front of her, then that meant she was either family, or collateral damage. And she certainly wasn’t family yet.
“You will tell our hosts to lay low until the dust settles. We can’t be positive that Vasiliy won’t come after anyone who helped with my rescue, though I am still unsure of his motives. If he wanted me dead, then he would have done it while he had me under his control. He had to know that you would come for me.” Her patient spoke almost as if he was speaking to himself. His gaze seemed far away, and she didn’t think Jozef was responding, though she couldn’t be positive since she couldn’t see him from her position.
“Perhaps he wanted you to die a slower death,” she muttered.
The older man didn’t pretend not to hear her. “Why do you say that, girl?”
“My name is Doctor Shaun Patterson, not girl,” she said crisply and straightened her spine as she looked up at him. “And if this infection was left for even one more day, you would be looking at gangrene and blood poisoning. An extremely painful way to die.”
He waved his good hand through the air negligently. “These people do not think this way. If they were to have me killed, they would do it quickly, and yes painfully. They did not intend for me to die, even if that was the outcome of their stupidity. No, they intended to hold me only and threaten my family.”
Jozef made a short growling sound that made Shaun turn around to glance at him. He was signing at his uncle with movements that were so rapid she was having trouble catching them all.
“Don’t talk that way, boy,” the other man said sharply. “I trust all members of my family, especially you. I never once doubted your loyalty while I spent a week locked in that cell. In fact, I simply counted the hours until you arrived. There was no doubt in my mind that you would come for me.”
She glanced back down, finishing the bandage and securing it with medical tape. Had Jozef just implicated himself? But why? Especially when it was clear he had nothing to do with his uncle’s abduction. She stayed silent, watching their exchange, trying to pick up as much as she could from the strange one-sided conversation.
“This is not a path we will go down, my boy. We are a solid family and I will not doubt a single member. Vasiliy must have another motive for making such a stupid move. You will find out the truth and we will move forward with his punishment.” He paused, watching as Jozef bowed his head in acquiesce. Then his gaze moved to Shaun. “What about this girl, what is her purpose for being here?”
Jozef explained to his uncle that she had been needed to patch up their detainee so Jozef and his team could ascertain his Uncle’s whereabouts. Shaun was grateful when she realized Jozef wasn’t telling his uncle that she’d failed to revive the man in the basement.
When Jozef finished speaking, his uncle looked at her for a long time. When his gaze turned from thoughtful to regretful, Shaun realized which side of collateral damage she was about to land on. It was what she feared would happen. She was a loose end that needed tying up. She dropped her head, tears rushing to her eyes.
“You have helped me, and I am grateful,” he said to her, leaning back in his chair and resting his bandaged hand on his lap. “Jozef will make it quick.”
At least he didn’t do her the disservice of pretending he wasn’t ordering her execution. Shaun lifted angry eyes to his. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t thank you, I’m not quite ready to die.”
The older man tipped his head and gave her a cool half smile. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have the instinct to live.”
Shaun opened her mouth to tell him he could go fuck himself, when Jozef’s hand dropped heavily onto her shoulder, pinning her in place. She glanced back at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at his uncle, and, though he wasn’t speaking, or even signing, whatever he was communicating to the other man seemed to be eloquent enough that words weren’t required.
“You wish to keep this woman?” he asked, surprise lingering in his voice.
He looked at Shaun, his eyes running from the top of her wild curls, down her body to her sneaker-clad feet. She shuffled them under her stool, feeling almost naked after that heavy perusal.
“You’ve never asked me for anything.” The words had an edge of wonder. “Not once in all these years.”
Finally, after several more seconds passed, he reached out and picked up Shaun’s hand, holding it briefly in his good hand, and squeezing. “Welcome to the family, Ms. Patterson, I am Krystoff Koba.”
Chapter Nine
“Your aunt will want to plan the wedding.”
Jozef’s uncle looked over at him, the glint in his eye somewhere between serious and teasing. Jozef’s aunt was well known for her love of parties. She would insist on planning every detail of the wedding right down to the brand of toilet paper rolls in the guest washrooms.
Jozef glanced down at his fiancé of only a few hours. She was sound asleep, occupying the seat between Jozef and his uncle. Her head was resting on Jozef’s shoulder, the tiny huffs of breath escaping her lips skittering across his skin and the puff of hair on top of her head tickling his neck. He wanted to touch the tiny black curls, see what they felt like, what the skin of her cheek felt like, but he couldn’t. Attachment was weakness. If Jozef showed tenderness toward this woman, others might decide she could be used as a weapon.
Jozef might love and admire his uncle, but he knew better than to trust the head of the Koba family.
“Your women friends will hate her,” Krystoff commented, pushing his tired body down in his seat and closing his eyes. “They will be jealous of the foreigner who has managed to capture your attention. Your work will be cut out for you with this one.”
He was referring to Jozef’s various lovers. As the enforcer for the Koba family, Jozef came into his fair share of feminine attention. He was not one to say no to a quick fuck, but he didn’t particularly care for any of them. Never enough to fuck more than a handful of times. His last lover had lasted longer than the others but had ultimately bored him. Giselle had been a fun distraction, but he’d cut her loose months ago.
Krystoff turned his head to look at Shaun, his gaze trailing her features in the dim lighting of the back of their car. Though it was the middle of the night, they were driving back to Prague. The patriarch of the Koba family had been away from his post for long enough.