Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Leeza was angry. Possibly angrier than she’d ever been in her life.
No, not quite that angry. She’d been angriest when she’d burned down the house she’d shared with her ex-husband, but this was a close second.
After a week of searching for clues on Saskia’s whereabouts, Jozef and Havel decided it was best to send Leeza and Shaun home. Shaun had capitulated gracefully - of course she did, she was becoming a good little mafia wifey - but Leeza was livid.
When she said as much on the flight back to Prague, Shaun gently chided her, “There’s a difference between capitulation and graceful retreat.”
“There’s nothing graceful about being packed onto a private jet and sent home like a naughty child,” Leeza sneered, pacing. She shouldn’t take her mood out on her cousin-in-law, but Havel wasn’t there, which left Shaun as her only target.
“There was nothing left for me to do in Pretoria and I find it difficult to concentrate with all those Guard Dog personnel around.”
“They are a noisy bunch,” Leeza admitted, but added, “There’s no reason for me to go home though.”
“Don’t you have children?” Shaun asked, knowing full well it killed Leeza to be away from them.
“My children are fine.” They were being cared for by Shaun’s mother, Fatima, and Havel’s grandmother, Adeline, known affectionately by the family as Babi. Finding Saskia was the more important task. “I’m more useful in South Africa. What am I supposed to do in Prague?”
Shaun’s gaze followed her as she strode back and forth. They needed to buy a bigger plane so she could pace properly.
“We can do the same things in Prague as we can do in Pretoria, only our bossy husbands won’t be around to take over or curtail our search. You know, modern technology spans the globe. You don’t need to be in the same place your sister disappeared to look for her.”
Leeza’s very intelligent cousin-in-law was right. Though she didn’t have to be such a know-it-all about it. As much as Leeza had grown to love Shuan, she didn’t enjoy her annoying, smug tendency toward always being correct.
Leeza sat down across from Shaun, attempting to calm the anxiety threatening to eat her alive at the thought of Saskia in Radik’s clutches. “What do you suggest we do once we’re home?”
Shaun leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially.
“We’re going to start with Saskia and go from there.
Find out who she was talking to, who she was friends with, what she was working on for the Prime Minister.
We’re going to talk to everyone who’s had any contact with her.
From there, we take the information and we pull in every contact we have from around the globe to track her down. ”
Tears gathered in Leeza’s eyes and she nodded, swallowing. “Thank you,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and said again, “Thank you for being the calm one when I can’t seem to keep a single thought straight in my head.”
“You’re scared,” Shaun said reassuringly. “We all are, but you’re closest to Saskia. You know her best. I’m counting on your knowledge of your sister to help us. You might pick up on something the rest of us won’t.”
Leeza let out a breath and nodded. “You’re right. I need to keep my head.”
“You’re doing great.” Shaun smiled kindly.
Leeza didn’t agree but kept it to herself. She could unleash the boiling rage inside her once they found Saskia and she got her hands on Saskia’s captor.
Once they were home, Shaun organized them into tasks.
Shaun would talk to the Prime Minister, as he owed her a favour.
She’d performed life-saving surgery on him a few years earlier, removing a tumor from his brain.
Leeza would check both Saskia’s suite on the Koba estate and her apartment in the city.
Leeza’s search of the estate suite turned up very little. Saskia kept her childhood mementos there including dolls, stuffed animals, pictures, boxes of old DVDs. There were some clothes, but most had been moved to her place in the city.
Leeza used the key Saskia gave her to get into her city apartment. It was her first time using it.
Regret mixed with self-recrimination as she stepped through the door into the small but bright apartment. It was a corner suite, located on the third floor of a four-story building. Though Saskia had lived there for over a year, Leeza had never been to visit.
There was always some reason or other to keep her away. With the children, it was easier to have Saskia visit her at the estate. Saskia never seemed to mind, but now Leeza wondered. Perhaps Saskia was just used to being treated like the least important member of the family, often overlooked.
Tears trickled freely down Leeza’s cheeks as she looked at the cozy, cheerful apartment that seemed to embody her sister.
Saskia was the most important member of the family.
She was an innocent, and she worked hard to keep it that way.
She refused to have anything to do with the crime side of the Koba family, instead educating herself and seeking employment outside of the family.
Now she was gone and Leeza couldn’t tell her how fucking special she was.
“Enough!” It was time to pull herself out of her melancholy. If she wanted to find Saskia, she had to focus. She conducted investigative work for Guard Dog all the time, she knew how to do this.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply until she was calm enough to see the apartment dispassionately. When she raised her eyelids, she noted that there was a plant in desperate need of water, which Leeza remedied as she scanned the rest of area.
There was a TV, a sofa, a small kitchen table with two chairs. A spiral wind chime hung down from a window, casting rainbows of light across the kitchen counters.
Leeza went through the kitchen cupboards and drawers, finding nothing more interesting than a user manual for the stove.
There wasn’t much more to discover in Saskia’s living room.
It was surprisingly sparse for Saskia, but then she’d grown up these past few years.
She wasn’t into dolls and stuffed animals anymore.
Her style was becoming elegant, which was reflected in a few tasteful paintings and a modern bookshelf filled with books on history, languages, and travel.
Leeza moved to the bedroom, smiling at the pink and white patchwork quilt spread across the bed. Their mother had given it to Saskia when she was young, which meant Saskia hadn’t left her childhood entirely behind.
On one wall, there were framed photos of Leeza, Havel and their children, which warmed her.
There were a few of Jozef and Shaun as well.
But it was the single picture on the other side of the room, separate from the others, that stood out starkly to Leeza.
A pang struck her as she looked closer. It was their parents, Dasha and Krystoff.
In it, they looked happy, though much younger than they’d been when they died.
It was probably taken before Saskia was even born.
A small dresser turned up socks, underwear, night clothes and a few knit sweaters.
Leeza turned to the closet next, opening it to find a row of dresses, blouses and trousers neatly hung up. There were rows of shoes on a rack on the floor. A box in the corner of the shelf above the hanging clothes caught Leeza’s eye and she reached for it.
She grunted at the weight of it and quickly deposited it on the bed.
She expected to find schoolbooks or something similar, but when she opened the lid, she discovered a random assortment of knickknacks.
Reaching in, Leeza pulled out a large hardback book.
Sitting on the bed, she checked the title before opening it. Welcome to the Congo,
The book was beautifully illustrated and Leeza found herself eagerly turning pages, running her fingers over bright pictures of rainforests, wild animals, flowers, rivers, and mountains.
Why did Saskia have the book? Did she want to travel to the Congo?
And why wasn’t it on her living room bookshelf with the other travel books?
Flipping to the back, Leeza found a message scrawled across the page in black sharpie.
Soon, my love. Yours, Radik.
Leeza’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach.
Radik was the man who’d taken Saskia. He was also Ayaan’s powerful warlord of a brother.
At the Guard Dog office, there was a very thick file on the brutal mercenary outlining all of his offences against humanity.
Why had he been corresponding with Saskia?
Giving her gifts and calling her his love? Why hadn’t Saskia said anything?
Leeza went through the box carefully, laying out each item on the bed. They looked like gifts someone might purchase for a loved one. There was a silk scarf printed in black, red and yellow horizontal stripes with a logo on it. Leeza googled it and discovered it was the Ugandan flag.
There was a delicate teapot wrapped in paper with four small glass cups with gold lettering on them in a language Leeza couldn’t read. The teapot was beautiful and most likely very expensive.
Each gift seemed to have meaning and the ones Leeza could figure out had connections to several different countries in Africa. It was a puzzle that somehow tied to Radik.
Could he be in love with Saskia? Is that what the gifts were about?
Leeza counted. In total there were twelve items, though she supposed there could be more that weren’t in the box.
She decided to take them with her. She felt guilty invading her sister’s privacy and taking something that clearly had meaning to her, but it was the first lead Leeza had.
The gifts had been stored with loving care, so Leeza carefully replaced each item back in the box.
Was it possible that Saskia was also in love with Radik?
Did they love each other? No, that was a leap too far.
They didn’t know each other. Saskia was frequently shadowed by Koba guards.
Though Jozef had backed off his surveillance of Saskia in the past year, he still knew who she interacted with daily, and Radik was definitely not a regular caller.
There was one person Leeza desperately needed to talk to and she was in charge of security on the Koba estate while the rest of the Guard Dog teams were hunting for Saskia in South Africa.
Holding the box under her arm, Leeza locked up the apartment and drove back to the estate where Shaun met her at the front door.
“I might have something,” Shaun said quickly, leading Leeza into the sitting room.
“Me too,” Leeza said. “Where’s Ayaan?”
Shaun gave her a blank look, then said, “I think she’s on the gun range. Should I call her in?”
“Definitely.”
While they were waiting for Ayaan, Shaun filled Leeza in on her visit to Prime Minister Makovsky’s office.
“Branislav appeared forthcoming with information without actually saying much. He acted appropriately horrified by the death of his executive assistant without being much help. He’s in touch with her family, saying and doing all the right things, but something’s off. ”
“What gives you that impression?” Leeza asked.
Shaun frowned and wandered to the window, looking out at the rose garden. After a long pause, she sighed and shrugged. “It’s a vibe I suppose, though I hate saying that. I should have more concrete evidence before making an accusation.”
Leeza bit back a laugh, not surprised Shaun wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of anything without proof. “I’ll take a vibe if that’s all you’ve got. It’s more than we had before.”
Shaun gave her a tight smile. “It was like he was going through the motions of grief without actually feeling anything for his poor assistant. The woman worked closely with him for the past five years.” She fussed with the curtain, pushing it back further, letting more light into the room.
“He seemed far more concerned for Saskia.” She paused, then added, “No, he wasn’t concerned for her, just concerned that she’s disappeared and no one knows where she is. ”
Leeza frowned. “That sounds pretty normal to me.”
“It does,” Shaun admitted. “But it felt… I don’t know… like he was probing me. Trying to find out if I knew more about Saskia’s whereabouts than I was letting on. He was very adamant that I should call him right away if I hear anything.”
Leeza didn’t know what to make of it. “Do you think he’s involved somehow?”
“I don’t know. He seemed genuinely annoyed that she’s disappeared without a trace.”
Leeza’s lip curled in disgust. “Annoyed but not concerned.”
“Exactly,” Shaun said. “The whole conversation felt off. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“Thanks for meeting with him,” Leeza said. “I know Jozef won’t approve if he finds out.”
Shaun laughed. “When, not if. Jozef always knows when I’ve done something he doesn’t like.” She shrugged and smiled. “It’s good for him to be reminded that I choose to retain my independence in our marriage.”
“Talk like that is going to get you locked in a closet,” Leeza joked. It felt good to release some of the tension that had built up over the past week.
“Who’s getting locked in a closet?” Ayyan asked, striding into the room and snatching up a cookie from the tea tray set out on the coffee table. “What wouldn’t Jozef approve of?”
On Ayaan’s entrance, Leeza’s lighter mood vanished. “I need your help.”
“I’ve already told Jozef, I have no idea where my brother is, nor why he took Saskia. I can only assure you, he wouldn’t hurt her.”
Leeza picked up the box and set it on the sofa next to Ayaan. Taking off the lid, she pulled out Welcome to the Congo and handed it to Ayaan. “Flip to the last page and read the message.”
Ayaan frowned and dusted her hands on her pants before taking the book. Opening it, she loosely flipped through the pages, murmuring, “Lovely,” before going to the last page. She gasped and stood up, dropping the book on the sofa. “Where did you get this?”
“In Saskia’s closet, along with these other gifts.”
Ayaan quickly rifled through the box then yanked her hand out like she’d burnt it. “Oh no….”
“What’s going on?” Shaun asked, concerned.
Leeza asked Ayaan, “Is that his writing? Is this the same Radik I think it is?”
Ayaan nodded. “It’s him. My brother.” Her eyes moved between Leeza and Shaun, panic making them look darker. “He’s not going to let Saskia go.”