Sin of Silence (Sinner's Empire #1) - Nikita Slater Page 0,89

all he did was drop a kiss onto her lips before rolling to the side and stretching out next to Shaun. He glanced at her to make sure she was watching before he lifted his hands to sign.

You’re wrong about one thing. No one has the power to force me to marry. Not my uncle, not anyone. I’m marrying you because I want to.

Shaun smiled; she couldn’t help herself. The entire situation was beyond fucked up, but hearing him say that he wanted her, that he was choosing to marry her, somehow made everything a little better.

“Thank you for saying that,” she whispered.

Jozef grabbed her hand and waved it around, Shaun’s wrist flopping in the air. She laughed as he dropped it back onto the bed without ceremony.

I want you to use sign language only, he demanded.

Shaun raised an eyebrow at his highhandedness, then complied. Isn’t it easier for me to speak verbally? We can converse faster and more efficiently.

I don’t care about fast or efficient, he was quick to respond. I prefer to communicate this way. It feels… intimate.

Shaun knew what he meant because she felt it too. Like our own little bubble.

He nodded his agreement, then signed, talk to me, tell me about yourself.

What do you want to know?

Anything, everything. Just talk to me.

He loved to hear about her life and often made this request when they were in bed together.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Jozef rolled against her and covered her mouth with his hand giving her a stern look. She rolled her eyes and shoved his hand away.

Okay, okay, it’ll take me some time to adjust to non-verbal.

It really was going to take Shaun time to adjust. She’d been extremely rusty with her sign language before Jozef grabbed her. Though she was quickly relearning, she wasn’t entirely there yet. She did silly things like stopped breathing while she was signing. If Jozef wanted her to sign as much at it seemed he did, then she was going to have to learn to sign and breathe at the same time or risk passing out. Her mom used to gently make fun of Shaun’s inability to multi-task. She would shake her head and laugh that it seemed appalling that such a promising young doctor couldn’t even walk and chew gum at the same time.

Shaun realized she knew what she wanted to talk about. She would give Jozef what he wanted, insight into her life, while working on a way to reconnect with that life. She would talk about the life she left behind as a way to deal with her grief over losing it. She would talk about her mother.

Shaun pushed herself up into a sitting position and wiggled around on the bed until she was facing a reclining Jozef. She took a deep breath and started signing.

My mom’s name is F-A-T-I-M-A.

He nodded and signed back, I remember, you told me about her in the van.

While he was driving her into the woods to shoot her. Though the memory still made her heart beat faster, she was able to think of it without the icy fingers of terror stealing down her spine. She was impressed that Jozef remembered what she’d told him. At the time, he’d acted as though he hadn’t heard a word.

I’m half Iranian, which most people don’t know about me because I look more like my dad. My mom was born in Iran but moved to Detroit with her family when she was a child. She met my father while he was taking his residency in Detroit. After a few years they moved to Canada and got married. She’s really smart; she’s fierce and compassionate. She’s involved in all kinds of charities…

Chapter Thirty-Two

Their truce lasted less than a day. Shaun had spent a good part of their evening together telling Jozef all about her upbringing and her love for her family. He’d nodded in all the right places, his face softening as he listened to her. He even pulled her in for a hug when she told him of the devastating loss of her father. During their conversation, Jozef looked much less like a gangster and more like a man she would actually date.

So it came as a shock to her when he refused to listen to reason when she requested a phone call to her mother. He stood firm, his face a granite carving as she’d pleaded with him. He was unmoving though.

“But if she knows I’m alive, she’s much more likely to stop looking for me.