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