Saskia dropped into the ornate chair sitting opposite the couch and reached for a cucumber sandwich, stuffing it into her mouth before pulling her legs up underneath her and getting comfy. “The menu for Jozef and Shaun’s engagement party is hardly top-secret business.”
Dasha glared at her daughter as she cleared the samples off the table. “I can hear your sarcasm, daughter, and I don’t like it. You need to do something with your life rather than wander the house looking for mischief.”
Saskia straightened in her chair and glared fiercely at her mother. “University isn’t a waste of time!”
“This family is where you should focus.” Dasha stood regally. It looked like magic to Shaun, the way she simply stood up from the rather low couch in her four-inch stilettos, the epitome of grace. “You spend far too much time with your head in the clouds and not enough on building the family business.”
“You want me to help run drugs and weapons?” Saskia snapped, fire in her eyes. “Sure, mother, just tell me when and where. I’ll be sure to bring my most bedazzled Uzi for protection.”
As mother and daughter bickered, Shaun was given the impression that this was not a new argument. Saskia clearly wanted something she wasn’t getting in the mansion and Shaun suspected it was an education.
“This free ride won’t last forever. You must watch your tongue and act like part of the family if you wish to continue the benefits of such luxury living,” Dasha lectured.
Saskia jumped up from her chair, her short compact body rising with a burst of energy. “I don’t want it to last forever! You’re the ones who keep me here like some kind of prisoner.”
As soon as the word ‘prisoner’ flew out of her mouth, Saskia gasped and smacked her palm over her lips, her gaze going to Shaun.
Dasha took advantage of the momentary silence by saying coolly, “I’ll see you both at dinner. Saskia, I expect you to keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Dasha walked away, her steel tipped heels tapping against the hardwood flooring as she walked, her long flowing scarf exiting the room after her as though the accessory was choreographed perfectly to her every movement.
“Are you okay?” Shaun asked quietly.
Saskia was standing with her fists and teeth clenched, staring at the doorway where her mother had just disappeared. She looked at Shaun in confusion then seemed to snap to the present. Her expression smoothed out and she reached for another sandwich before dropping back into her chair.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, then said more clearly, “I’m sorry I made that comment about being a prisoner. I’ve been told sometimes I can be insensitive.”
Shaun smiled kindly at her. “I think you’re genuine, not insensitive. You say what you think. I knew you didn’t trust me the moment I walked in the dining room, yet here we are, chatting like friends.”
Saskia narrowed her eyes. “I still don’t trust you.”
Shaun laughed and reached for a sandwich, feeling more comfortable with the youngest Koba than she had in Dasha’s presence. She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up on the couch.
“So what do you want to study in University?”
Saskia shrugged, her shoulders slumping.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand,” Shaun assured her, eating the surprisingly delicious sandwich. Who knew cucumber and mayo on bread would taste decent? “I’m not a bad person to run some ideas by since I have eight years of University experience. I can probably answer any questions you might have.”
Saskia glanced up, her face a heartbreaking mixture of hope and despair. This really was a dream she wanted but couldn’t bring herself to hope for because her family didn’t approve. Once again, the strangeness of the alternate world she was inhabiting hit Shaun. The Kobas were fine with Jozef committing murder and kidnapping, but they didn’t approve of their youngest daughter furthering her education.
“I was thinking about linguistics. I’m really good at learning new languages and understanding the origins of words. I love reading books in other languages, so my brain stays sharp.” She glanced at Shaun under her lashes. “I guess it’s not as important as being a doctor…”
“Are you kidding?” Shaun jumped in enthusiastically. “Language is so important. Honestly, learning multiple languages is a huge achievement that you should be proud of. Language is just as important as medicine. My job would be much more difficult if I couldn’t communicate with my patients. I once had a patient who was brand new to Canada come into Emergency while I was on shift, presenting with acute appendicitis. He was from Syria and he couldn’t speak a word of English. His eleven-year-old daughter translated for us. Without her we wouldn’t have known he had a deadly allergy to propofol, a common general anesthetic. We could’ve killed him during the surgery if she hadn’t been there to help us.”
Saskia’s eyes were round as she absorbed the story. “Was… was he okay?”
Shaun smiled. “Yes, very much so, and the hospital staff got to know his entire family while he was recovering.” She stopped speaking verbally and started using sign language. Translators are extremely important people. They work with the U-N, Doctors Without Borders, the W-H-O. They are invaluable. There are so many wonderful things you can do with a degree in linguistics.
Saskia grinned from ear-to-ear and signed, I want to do it. I’d love to travel around the world doing translation work for important organizations. She glanced shyly away. Sort of like what you do with Doctors Without Borders.
Shaun’s heart swelled and she felt as though she was forging a genuine friendship with the younger woman. “There are plenty of translators working with Doctors Without Borders. It would be an excellent choice.”
Saskia’s look of hope melted away as quick as it came. Only instead of the carefully cultivated scowl she usually wore, she now looked crestfallen. “My parents will never go for it. They want me to marry into the life and have babies. Like Leeza. They look to us to spread the Koba genes.”
“And you don’t want that sort of life?” Shaun asked gently.
Saskia blanched, her face going pale. She looked visibly shaken which Shaun thought was an extreme reaction for a pretty basic question.
Concerned, Shaun asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course I am.” She stiffened her shoulders and hardened her gaze. “I will do as my parents ask. My duty is to the family.”
Saskia’s statement sent a chill through Shaun. The Koba family went beyond just tight knit. Their obsession with family bordered on cult-like. As far as she knew, anyone with even a drop of Koba blood lived either in the house or on the grounds. She’d found out the day before that two of the men on Jozef’s team were cousins to the family and several members of security were distantly related. She wasn’t surprised that someone holding the position of daughter to the boss would be closely monitored, her life mapped out for her. Like royalty, only Saskia was mafia royalty.
It was a grim insight into Shaun’s own future and any possible children she might have with Jozef. This thought sent her mind spinning into an abyss of emotion. The idea of having Jozef’s child made her feel inexplicably happy, yet she barely knew him. She couldn’t trust him to do the right thing when it came to children. She didn’t want to raise a family in the Koba household, under the thumb of mobsters. A group of people who would have thought nothing of her execution. Yet, she might already be pregnant.
“Everything okay over there?” There was an edge of sarcasm to Saskia’s tone.
“I’m fine, thank you.” She tried to shake off the feeling of someone walking across her grave and focused back on the conversation at hand. “If you really want to go to university you should push for it.”
“How?” Saskia asked skeptically. “Have you tried asking my parents for something you know they won’t approve of? It’s worse than just a no. They’ll have you watched every minute of every day to make sure you don’t take a single step out of line. They’re worse than cookies, or whateve
r the internet uses to ferret out every detail of our lives so they can come at us with personalized advertising, like I ever asked for a unicorn shaped dildo.”
Shaun giggled at the descriptive complaint before sobering. “I’ll help you,” she assured the other woman. “We just need to tell them something they want to hear. I bet your family could use a translator with some of their business associates.”
Saskia’s eyes grew round and she straightened in her seat. “They do use translators sometimes!” she said excitedly, but then her face fell again. “But I don’t want to do that kind of work. It’s not as… important… as the things you do.”
The glow within Shaun began to spread. She really had managed to pick up an ally in this fierce young woman. “You don’t have to work for your family; you just need to convince them to let you go to university. Once they agree, you’ll have four years to pick out your dream job and work on them from the inside. When you graduate, they’ll be so proud of your accomplishments that they’ll have no choice but to let you work wherever you want.”
Saskia looked completely blown away by Shaun’s logic. “That’s brilliant!”
Shaun laughed. “I’ve been known to have a good idea from time to time.”
“No wonder you’re a doctor,” Saskia said emphatically. “You’re a fucking genius.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Over the next several days the mansion was turned upside down as they prepared for the engagement party. Servants clogged the hallways as they moved furniture, carried bolts of cloth, brought in brand new kitchen equipment and hauled armloads of groceries. More staff was hired to cook and serve while still more were hired to help the head gardener and his team make sure the grounds were immaculate.
The entire weeklong process left Shaun speechless. She couldn’t fathom that a party of this opulence and magnitude was being pulled together so quickly. The amount of resources going into an event meant to celebrate the engagement of two people who only met a few weeks ago was simply stunning. Yet no one seemed concerned about the bride and groom’s lack of history together.
“More flowers arrived.”
Shaun turned from where she was standing next to a long serving table in the massive ball room. Dasha had tasked her with making sure it was in the correct place. Shaun had no idea what the correct placement might be, but if there was anything she’d learned about Dasha since arriving in Prague, it was that a person simply nodded and quietly excused themselves to immediately go do whatever it was Dasha asked for. Life was pleasanter, it seemed, when Dasha was happy. Shaun liked to think of her as a loving, pleasantly kind matriarch who could turn into a fire-breathing dragon in the blink of an eye if she wasn’t happy about something.
Leeza stood hesitantly in the entrance of the ballroom holding a massive bouquet of flowers. Unlike the other flowers arriving, these were big and bright, much prettier than the carefully chosen bouquets from Dasha’s personal florist. Displays had been pouring in all week; black roses dipped in some kind of liquid gold, which made them look like they were dripping. The arrangements were set high on pedestals all around the perimeter of the ballroom. Shaun hadn’t known roses could come in black, but was quickly learning that if Dasha wanted something, she always got it. Shaun was told the roses were native to Turkey and extremely expensive.
According to Saskia, Dasha set up a flower donation fund for anyone who couldn’t attend the engagement party. They sent money into the florist, which paid for an arrangement of Dasha’s choice. Shaun didn’t understand the system, since the Kobas could easily afford the flowers themselves. The super-rich baffled her. Whoever had sent this display hadn’t gotten the colour coordination memo.
“Thank you.” Shaun approached Leeza carefully. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words since Leeza had pointed a gun at her. Shaun supposed it was only natural that their budding relationship would become stilted after such a thing. She reached out to take the card from the flowers.
She glanced at the card and started laughing. “This has to be a joke.”
“Who’s it from?” Leeza asked, setting the heavy arrangement down on the nearest table.
A servant gave the flowers a scandalized look and whisked them out of the carefully decorated black and gold room before Dasha could see them. Shaun didn’t blame the staff member for his concern. She’d seen things that week that would make a drill sergeant flinch, and now had a new respect for anyone who worked on the Koba grounds.
“The card says it’s from Buckingham palace,” Shaun said with another laugh. “It says, best wishes on your upcoming nuptials. Yours Sincerely, the Duke and Duchess of Wales.”
“Yes,” Leeza said with a knowing nod. “Mom went to boarding school with a few royals. The families occasionally hunted together when my grandparents were in England.”
Shaun felt dizzy and reached for the nearest chair. “Who exactly is coming to this party?”
Leeza’s face creased in understanding and she took the chair next to Shaun, reaching for her hand. Shaun stiffened at the contact, the image of a gun in that delicate hand haunting her. Then she shook the thought away and forced herself to relax. Leeza was just trying to put her at ease, like she’d done the first day Shaun spent in the mansion.
“You really don’t want to know,” Leeza assured Shaun, humour in her accented tones. “It doesn’t matter though. They’re still people, with or without their money. Their shit still stinks, just like the rest of us.”
Shaun laughed out loud, covering her mouth with her hand. “I don’t think you can put yourself in the ‘un-monied’ category with the rest of us.”
Leeza grinned. “Yeah, well, my shit smells like roses, so I guess we know which side of the aisle I’m on.”
“The groom’s, definitely the groom’s,” Shaun quipped and they both dissolved into laughter.
Shaun was wiping tears from her eyes when a child came running into the ballroom as though his pants were on fire, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Shaun was startled for a moment until he flung himself at Leeza, climbing onto her lap and wrapping his chubby arms around her neck. Still smiling, Leeza hugged him back, holding him against her chest.
She tipped him back in her arms, smoothed the hair on his forehead and kissed him. He squirmed but didn’t try to leave. Leeza’s eyes met Shaun’s and she said proudly, “This is my son, Kristoph.”
Shaun reached out a hand to the little boy. “Pleased to meet you.”
He straightened on his mother’s lap and reached out to take Shaun’s hand, squeezing it in a surprisingly grownup handshake. His eyes slid past her, focusing on something behind her. Shaun remembered that he was autistic. He had a head full of shaggy hair, the same shade as his mother's. His face was heartbreakingly beautiful, with large golden eyes and round cheeks flushed with colour.
Leeza hugged the child protectively against her chest. “He’s mostly non-verbal, like Jozef. He speaks sometimes, but never to strangers.”
“It’s fine,” Shaun assured her. “Is he alright?”
Leeza held him away from her chest and spoke to the child in Czech. It almost seemed jarring to hear the language, despite that they lived in the Czech Republic. Since coming to the mansion, Shaun had only heard English spoken.
Shaun enjoyed watching mother and son together. Though they both lived in what could be described as a completely dysfunctional household, considering it existed solely based on mafia affiliations, Leeza and her son clearly had a bond that transcended their surroundings.
Kristoph frowned and clutched his arm against his chest. He started signing with one hand as though born to the language. His movements were so fast and over so quick Shaun didn’t catch what he was saying.
Leeza looked concerned as she gently took his arm, pulling it away from his chest. “I don’t see anything.”
“What did he say?” Shaun asked.
“He says he hurt his arm.”
Shaun noticed a slight mottling of the skin. “Can I have a lo
ok?”
Leeza looked surprised for a moment, then relieved as she remembered Shaun was a doctor. “Please.” Leeza set Kristoph on the ground and gave him a small push toward Shaun.
Shaun gently took both of Kristoph’s arms and pulled them out straight in front of his body. When he didn’t seem distressed, she leaned over for a closer look, running her hand over the skin. He winced and jerked in her hold. One arm was definitely more swollen than the other. “Can you tell me what happened, sweetheart?” she asked him in her professionally calm voice.
He glanced guiltily up at his mother before answering in sign language. This time Shaun was expecting it and was able to understand him. I fell out of a tree I’m not supposed to climb.
Leeza kissed the back of his head. “I’ll let it go this time, especially since it looks like karma got your arm anyway.”
What’s karma? He looked curiously at his mother while Shaun continued to examine him.
“Fate,” Leeza said laughing. “Something that is meant to be.”
Kristoph twisted around to glare up at her. My arm isn’t fate, mama. You should never say bad things like that.
Shaun and Leeza shared a private glance while Leeza tried to soothe his ruffled feathers.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Shaun said to Leeza. “But he does need to go to a clinic. They need to ex-ray this arm and possibly put it in a cast. I suspect he’s suffering from a greenstick fracture.” Leeza blanched and Shaun rushed to reassure her. “It’s very common among children. Their bones are still growing so there is some elasticity to them. Which means when they fall, instead of splintering, the bones will get tiny cracks called hairline fractures. They aren’t nearly as bad as other types of fractures.”
Leeza looked marginally better, but was quick to stand up clutching Kristoph’s good hand. “Thank you, Shaun. You must excuse us though; I must get him to our doctor right away.”
Without waiting for a response, Leeza rushed from the room, her voice ringing in the hallway as she shouted. The sound of her voice echoing back into the ballroom was reminiscent of Dasha. Perhaps that apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
Sin of Silence (Sinner's Empire Book 1) Page 19