Jozef didn't have a lot of time to plan the rescue of his uncle. Gustav, the man they had beaten for information, had told them where to find the kidnapped head of the Koba family and who was holding him. A rival mafia family located in Kiev, headed by Vasiliy Stanovich, were holding the Koba patriarch in their family estate. Once Jozef had identified Krystoff's kidnappers, he was able to quickly research the family. Ferret out their weaknesses and a likely reason behind the abduction. The current global economy hadn't been kind to the Stanovich family, as they hadn't updated technology and techniques to move with the changing times. They were living in the past, hoping to make bank off the old ways; drug sales and extortion. As their family gradually sank into the lower ranks of the Vory, the head of the family had gone to Krystoff three years ago for help and had been refused. Jozef suspected the family took Krystoff for either revenge or to force his hand. Jozef found
Shaun was cold, shivering in the dark on a bare mattress in a bare room. She was hungry and she had to urinate. She hadn't gotten the sense from her captors that they intended for her to be miserable. It was more likely that they were too busy to think about her. Still, she was worried that if they forgot for much longer, she would have to start shouting. She'd been attempting to sleep, the sun having long since gone down and the only light now a dim streetlight down the road from where her room was facing. She'd tried the window, but it was bolted shut. She wondered if this room was actually meant for prisoners, given how solid the door and lock were, and her inability to open the window. She closed her eyes, drifting in and out of consciousness. She had no way to tell time, but she suspected she wasn't sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time. It was during one of these brief periods when she was snatching a few minutes of sleep that her door banged open. She ope
"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 fiance 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 frie
"Krystoff!" Dasha's shout echoed through the front hall of the mansion as she rushed down the huge double staircase toward them. Jozef stood next to his uncle with a hand on his arm to steady him. Krystoff was pale with fatigue and the pain of his injury, but he managed a smile for his wife. Shaun stood behind Jozef with two bodyguards at her back. The bodyguards would remain with Krystoff until Jozef could unravel the reason why Vasiliy had taken the head of the Koba family. Jozef wanted to be reasonably sure they wouldn't attack again. Aunt Dasha threw herself into Krystoff's arms. He grunted, wincing as his exhausted and injured body took the brunt of her weight. She burst into tears and sobbed out her anger and fear into his lapel. It was well known that Krystoff and Dasha hadn't been a love match when their families made the alliance thirty years ago. The two had fought as only two bloodthirsty members of mafia royalty could. It wasn't until Dasha h
Jozef opened the door and indicated that Shaun should step through. She did as he asked and quickly stepped away from him. She opened her mouth to thank him for showing her to the guest room, but he stepped in with her, then closed and locked the door behind them. She turned warily as he strode across the room, dragging his leather jacket from his shoulders as he walked. He tossed the jacket on a chair and reached for the buttons on his shirt. It was becoming rapidly clear that they were not in a guest room, as she had thought, but in Jozef's room. A king-size bed occupied the space in front of a large stone fireplace, which was glowing brightly in the cool evening air. Someone had lit a fire in anticipation of Jozef's arrival. There was also a large battered leather chair, a small plush couch, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe in the room. Against the wall was a bookshelf, stuffed full, with several books tossed haphazardly on top. Though the room itself was large, it
Dasha fussed relentlessly until Krystoff finally gathered her against his chest. "Stop, Wife," he murmured against her rich chestnut hair. "I promise, I won't disappear if you stop touching me." Rather than feeling comforted, Dasha burst into tears and sobbed into his shirt while he held her, running his hand over her smooth hair. "I know!" she wailed. "But they cut off your finger, Krysto!" She pushed away from him and paced the length of their bedroom, tears streaming down her face, hands thrown up in the air as she talked and walked. Krystoff took her momentary distraction to sink tiredly onto the mattress of their bed. He nearly groaned out loud at the pleasure of being in his own bed again. A hard, lumpy single mattress on a wooden plank with no pillow or blanket had been the extent of his accommodation for a week. "It could have been much worse, Dasha." "No, it wouldn't have been," she snapped, going from despair to anger in a flash as she pace
Shaun stretched, luxuriating in the feel of soft blankets and silky sheets. She rolled onto her side and curled up, rubbing her cheek against the smooth fabric of the pillow. A delicious scent teased her nose. It was familiar, but she couldn't place it. She buried her head in the pillow and breathed in. It was a masculine scent, like natural body odour mixed with something spicy and leather. It was nice. She frowned. Had she brought a guy home the night before? Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp, staring around in consternation. The light filtering through the curtain-covered windows was dim, and it took her a moment to realize where she was. She was not in her small room with her lumpy bed in Luhansk. The events of the day before rushed at her in flashes. She pressed her spine against the headboard and covered her face with her hands. What had she gotten herself into? Her mother warned her that something might happen if she continued to work wi
Jozef urged Shaun forward with a hand on her back. Her timidness with his family was calling to the protector in him. Together they walked the length of the room toward two empty chairs at the table. Jozef's seat was on the right-hand side of Krystoff, and Shaun's chair was beside Jozef's. As Shaun sat, Jozef pushed her seat in. She clutched the sides of her chair as he pushed and looked up at him, her golden eyes wide and concerned. He took his hands off her seat and took his place beside her. She reached out quickly to pick up the water glass in front of her and took a hasty sip. Jozef noted that her hand was shaking, though she covered it by replacing the glass on the table quickly. He regretted that she was nervous around him, around his entire family, but he didn't blame her. She'd gone through a traumatic few days, something that an innocent woman should never have experienced. But she was handling the situation beautifully, far better than Jozef would've thought. S