Sin of Silence (Sinner's Empire #1) - Nikita Slater Page 0,91

Jozef was so intense and they rarely agreed on anything. If they actually somehow made it to the marriage stage of their false relationship, they were likely going to kill each other before they made it to the honeymoon.

Shaun was so distracted as she wandered through the garden, she almost stumbled over Krystoff who was on his hands and knees, half buried in a rose bush. “Mr. Koba!” she exclaimed as she accidentally kicked his rubber boot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.”

He slowly unfolded himself from the bush and looked up at Shaun. She couldn’t see his expression, as the sun was shining in her eyes. He climbed to his feet. “Nonsense, I was half-hidden. You couldn’t have known I’d be down here.”

The moment felt awkward for Shaun. This was the man who held her life in his hands, the man who was directing her to marry his nephew. Sometimes he seemed like the powerhouse he was; the head of a powerful crime family. He could freeze a person with a single glance. His commands were followed to the letter by a household used to following where this man led. Yet, in moments like this, he seemed human. If they’d been in Canada, he might be a retiree, puttering around his garden, building a hobby to keep himself occupied in his retirement.

Shaun didn’t fool herself for one moment that Krystoff Koba might be considered a harmless retiree. “Do you work out here often? I thought you had gardeners,” she ventured, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness.

He smiled and pulled his gloves off, slapping them against his work pants and sending up small puffs of dust. “Indeed, we do. But I enjoy the quiet solitude,” he said agreeably. “I try to come out here as often as I can. Please, will you sit with me?”

He nodded toward a stone bench nestled amidst the bushes. Shaun allowed him to take her arm and lead her to the bench. He helped her sit, like an old-fashioned suitor, before taking his place at her side. Together they sat in companionable silence, gazing out across one of the most beautiful gardens Shaun had ever experienced. It was lush and green with splashes of colour from the strategically placed rose bushes. Most were red, but some were white and pink.

“How’s your finger?” she asked, glancing at him.

He held his hand up to show her and she took it, setting it in her lap to examine the bandage. He’d transitioned from her care to his regular physician. The bandage was clean and Krystoff couldn’t be in too much pain or he wouldn’t be in the garden. She let his hand go, satisfied he was healing.

It seemed incongruous but oddly comforting to sit with Krystoff. He was such a formidable character. She could easily imagine his hands soaked in the blood of his enemies, then going out to his garden to meditate on the miracle of life. The dichotomy of violence and peace was strangely appealing to Shaun.

“The operating room is my garden,” she murmured. When Krystoff glanced at her, she added, “I find peace when my hands are buried in someone else’s body. The blood flowing beneath my fingertips, the power of their life force at my mercy. The knowledge that I am the only person in the world who can fix them in that moment. I choose whether they live or die. It’s intoxicating.”

Shaun had never spoken that way before, had barely allowed herself to have the thought, yet sitting next to Krystoff, she felt that the mafia world finally made a strange sort of sense to her. There were studies done that suggested surgeons were among the top ten most psychopathic professions. It took a certain amount of ego and lack of fear to dig around in someone else’s body. Doctors played god with their patients, and while Shaun didn’t think she was a psychopath, she was no different than the average surgeon. She got a rush from the power of preserving life.

“There is happiness to be found in the release of that power, too,” Krystoff said quietly. “Of deciding when to stop and find a new path.”

Shaun looked at him sharply. Was he talking about his situation or Shaun’s? Perhaps he was telling her that she could find equal happiness in giving up her chosen profession to live under the umbrella of the Koba family, married to his vicious nephew.

“I don’t agree,” she replied flatly. “When you spend a lifetime working