Page 79 of Warlord’s Empire

Leeza stopped walking and lifted the phone to look properly at the camera, scrutinizing Saskia’s face. Saskia could see the rose garden on the Koba estate in the background and a longing for home struck her hard. Leeza must be headed to the main house.

“What happened?” Leeza demanded, her tone serious. “You don’t look okay.”

The tears that had been threatening for the last hour, spilled over, trailing down her face. Through hiccoughing sobs and despite her intention of keeping some of the information to herself, she found herself blurting out everything that happened. She also told Leeza about the previous time Radik had a PTSD episode and locked Saskia in the saferoom.

“Wow… just… I’m so sorry that happened, Saskia.” For a response, it was surprisingly reasonable.

“You don’t hate him?” Saskia asked, then swiftly added. “I don’t want you to hate him. It’s not his fault, but I thought…”

Leeza laughed darkly. “You thought I’d be firing up the jet and heading straight to you to serve his head on a platter?”

“Something like that.” Saskia let out a watery laugh. “I’m being stupid.”

“No, you’re not, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was my first impulse.” Leeza took a deep, shaky breath, then said, “I get what he’s going through though. I’ve experienced it myself. When I was on the run, I had nightmares about the guards I shot so I could escape during Jozef’s takeover. They haunted my dreams for a long time and sometimes I still look over my shoulder thinking their angry mothers might be coming after me for revenge.”

“I didn’t know that.” Saskia wiped her tears with her sleeve. “You didn’t say anything.”

Leeza shrugged, sitting on a stone bench in the rose garden. “I didn’t want to worry you and there was nothing you could’ve done. I think a part of me felt like I deserved the nightmares.”

Saskia nodded. “That’s how Radik feels.”

“With his body count, I can imagine it’s probably a lot worse for him.”

Saskia didn’t defend her man. She could only imagine how many people he’d killed, and she didn’t think her imagination would get close to the true number. “Do you wake up in the middle of the night strangling your husband?”

Leeza laughed but quickly swallowed it. “No, but sometimes I wake up screaming and it scares the hell out of him.”

Now Saskia was worried about her sister. “Do you get help for your nightmares?”

“Not really,” Leeza admitted. “Maybe I should.”

“Maybe you should,” Saskia agreed.

They fell silent for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts, then Leeza laughed out loud. “I’m picturing all of us on the payroll at Guard Dog having to go for therapy for the horrible things we’ve seen and done.”

Saskia didn’t join in her sister’s grim humour. Leeza was too close to the truth of the matter. There was a cost to living and working in the underworld and Saskia knew from a young age that cost wasn’t worth it for her.

“Does Havel have PTSD episodes?” Saskia asked.

“No,” Leeza said firmly. “But I really do think he’s a psychopath. He lives for the violence and thrives under intensely stressful conditions.”

“How do you live with him?” Saskia asked, as if her chosen man wasn’t the same kind of psychopath as Leeza’s husband.

“Easily,” Leeza replied with a shrug. “He loves me and the kids more than anything else on the planet and he loves just as hard as he kills. He doesn’t direct his violence toward his family. I always feel safe when I’m with him.”

“Nothing says safety like a killer with a romantic streak,” Saskia said drily.

“Don’t call him that,” Leeza defended.

“What, a killer? But he is. Many times over.”

Leeza frowned. “I know, but it sounds bad when you say it like that. Besides it’s not like we haven’t killed too.”

“I haven’t.” Saskia almost didn’t say it. She didn’t want Leeza to feel worse, and if she was waking up screaming in the night, then she was definitely having feelings about something.

Leeza looked at her blankly for a second. “You really haven’t?”

Saskia shook her head. “Radik says I would’ve killed one of the guys who attacked me in Pretoria when I slashed him with a knife, but Radik finished him, so I think he gets the kill credit.”