A Silent Reckoning: Sinner's Empire Nikita Slater (smart books to read .txt) 📖

head. “No, someone going by the name Phantom. A woman. I seriously considered her offer as I would have been more comfortable allowing my sister to accompany a woman.”

Jozef nodded thoughtfully, then, without another word, turned and stalked toward the trucks, his men falling in with him. While Radik and his sister said their goodbyes, Jozef and Havel came up with a new plan. They now had to figure in an extra body and all the possible variables involved in her existence.

Chapter Thirty

Saskia waited about 30 seconds after she knocked before fitting her key into the cottage door and pushing it open.

“Hello?” she called out.

She waited for an answer, then went inside and closed and locked the door. She hadn’t expected Leeza to be home, but she’d wanted to make sure. She’d decided to cut class and come home early.

Leeza had been acting weird lately and Saskia wanted to get to the bottom of the weirdness. Actually, it hadn’t been just lately that Leeza had been acting strange, but almost two years now. At first Saskia thought it might have something to do with Shaun’s arrival a year ago, but when she’d put her mind to it, she realized it had been going on longer.

Leeza had always been the more serious of the two. As the eldest child of a high-ranking Vory, Leeza had responsibilities.

Saskia wrinkled her nose as she stepped from the entryway into the house. It didn’t feel like a house; it never had, which was why Saskia didn’t often visit. She and her sister weren’t particularly close, which was another reason she didn’t visit.

Saskia tried to tell herself that she didn’t want a relationship with her sister because Leeza was cold and stuffy, but a guilty voice in her head told her that Leeza would probably be open to a closer relationship if Saskia wanted one. Saskia didn’t pursue it though.

There was nine years difference between the two women. Certainly not an impossible number to bridge. Saskia enjoyed her friendship with Shaun, who was fifteen years older than her. But Leeza was different.

Leeza had no interest in furthering any educational or career aspirations. She acted like the perfect wife and mother, but Saskia knew her sister despised her husband. Not from anything Leeza had explicitly said, but from the bruises she took pains to hide, the way she refused to touch, look at or talk to her husband. She didn’t even pretend she loved the man. She simply ignored him, like he was invisible.

It was weird. Leeza clearly wore the pants in her little family, called the shots, but then where were the bruises coming from?

Over the past few years, Leeza had grown even more distance, cooler toward the rest of the family. The only joy she showed was when she was with her son.

Saskia had to admit that Leeza was a good mom. She would lay down her life for her son. He was the only person in the world Leeza was willing to stand up to her father for. If Krystoff made any decisions about his grandson, Leeza would not allow them without approval. She’d threatened to move her family away from the estate if Krystoff tried to override her decisions.

It was odd, but Krystoff was willing to back down. Saskia suspected he only gave in to Leeza’s motherly protectiveness because Kristoph was autistic. He would never take over the organization and was therefore out of contention for the prized top spot.

Perhaps, Krystoff had once intended for Adam to take the position, but Adam had shown himself to be a weak man. Saskia had always thought Adam’s marriage to her sister was strange. Leeza had been prepared to marry into the mafia, to a man of her father’s choosing, but why Adam? Why the accountant?

Did he have something on Krystoff? If so, then why hadn’t Krystoff gotten rid of him? The Koba patriarch was not one to allow threats to him or his family.

Saskia had decided, in light of her friendship with Shaun, and her desire to find the person who poisoned Shaun, she would investigate her own family, starting with her older sister, who had been acting like a zombified weirdo for the past two years.

Saskia searched the first floor. As usual it was cleaned and shined to perfection and smelled like soap and disinfectant. Leeza had a housecleaner in daily until her house smelled permanently like a cleaner’s closet.

Saskia figured anything important wouldn’t be hidden on the first floor, so she went over it quickly, not bothering to linger.

She made her way up to the second floor, the family rooms. She wandered into Kristoph’s room, knowing there would be nothing in there to interest her. Still, she liked seeing her nephew’s things. He was the true innocent in the family and the one thing most of them agreed on. Kristoph must always be protected.

Saskia picked up a teddy bear and pressed it against her nose, enjoying the fluffy sensation against her face. It smelled like little boy, a combination of juice, dirt and baby lotion.

On the rare occasions when Leeza asked Saskia to babysit, Kristoph usually came to her suite. He loved playing with her dolls and stuffed animals. Saskia had passed some truly happy hours sitting on the floor of her suite with her nephew. She wished it could happen more often, but Leeza was protective and didn’t often pass her son off to others. Another departure from the mafia world they lived in, and a reason to admire her sister.

When Leeza and Saskia were growing up, they were raised by a team of nannies. Their mother was present, but like Leeza, she wasn’t a warm woman. The difference between the two was that Leeza knew how to unbend enough to love her child and be present in his life.

“Then why are you so distant from everyone else?” Saskia murmured out loud, dropping the teddy bear onto the bed.

As children they had been close. They had made it their mission to