The room stayed silent for another long second. Viktor looked disappointed by the logic. Truly disappointed. Like murder had been the preferable outcome.
Finally, he lowered the gun. Stepped back once. His expression flattened into something cold and lethal again.
"Take him." His voice returned to its normal register, quiet, final. The verbal equivalent of a coffin lid shutting. "I’ll deal with him later."
The man started shaking immediately. "No...wait..., this is a misunderstanding... I..." One of Viktor’s men slammed him face-first into the wall hard enough to silence him.
Without ceremony. They dragged him out of the suite while his terrified protests disappeared down the hallway.
Nobody looked concerned for him. Not even slightly. Viktor’s men spread through the apartment instantly afterward, moving the way water floods a room, smooth, silent, invasive. Every corner checked. Every exit secured. Nothing left unaccounted for.
And through all of it, Viktor never looked away from Sienna again. Not once. His gaze stayed fixed on her like he was confirming she was still breathing. Still there. The tension in the room became unbearable under the weight of it.
Then Viktor finally moved toward her. Slowly this time. Carefully. Which somehow frightened her more than the gun had. He crossed to the bed and crouched down in front of her, not towering over her, not cornering her. Sienna noticed that immediately. And somehow that tiny consideration unsettled her more than the violence.
Viktor looked at her face first. Then her eyes. Then the trembling in her hands. Clinical. Controlled. The assessment of a dangerous man checking carefully for damage.
"Hey," His voice changed.
She couldn’t explain it. It was still low, still rough around the edges, still unmistakably Viktor Kessler. But something inside it had softened into something dangerously close to gentleness.
Something that did not belong in a man like him. "You," she breathed. Sienna pushed herself upright too quickly, and the room spun violently around her. She grabbed the bedpost hard until the dizziness settled enough to stand. Barely. Then she looked at him properly.
The gun was tucked back beneath his jacket. The composed, devastatingly dangerous face of a man who had kicked down a door for her without hesitation. The man who had kidnapped her. The man who had just saved her.
The world, Sienna decided, had a deeply sick sense of humor. "You caused me a very unpleasant afternoon," Viktor said calmly as he rose to his full height. "Do you have any idea how many people I had to kill because you ran?"
Despite everything, a weak laugh nearly escaped her. He looked furious enough to burn cities down and somehow still sounded offended by the inconvenience. Because psychopaths were not supposed to be reasonable.
Viktor stepped closer then, his expression hardening again as his eyes swept over her unsteady posture.
"You’re barely standing."
"I’m fine."
"You are swaying."
"I’m standing."
"Barely."
Before she could argue again, Viktor leaned down and lifted her effortlessly into his arms.
Sienna gasped softly, instinctively grabbing his shoulders as the sudden movement made her head spin again.
"You have had your little adventure," he said smoothly, already turning toward the shattered doorway. "Now the adventure is over."
His hold on her tightened possessively.
"Now it’s time to go home with me, baby girl." And then he stormed out of the apartment carrying her like a man transporting something precious enough to kill for.
Viktor lifted her like she weighed nothing.
One arm under her knees, one at her back, the wedding dress cascading over his forearm in rivers of white silk as he carried her out of the apartment building and into the evening air. Sienna’s head fell against his chest.
Her breathing was unsteady, shallow and too fast, the kind that had nothing to do with running.
The drug was spreading. He could feel the heat radiating off her skin even through his jacket.
He got her into the passenger seat of the car, a low, black, built for speed, and closed the door. Walked around to the driver’s side. The first drops of rain hit his shoulders as he reached for the handle.
By the time he pulled out of the parking lot, the sky had made its decision. It poured.
The city blurred through the windshield. Rain hammering the roof, the wipers working hard, the streetlights bleeding long orange trails across the wet road. Viktor drove with one hand on the wheel, the focused calm of a man navigating by instinct.
He was aware of her the way you’re aware of a fire in the room. Peripherally. Constantly. Against his better judgment.
Sienna shifted in the passenger seat. A small sound escaped her, not pain, something else entirely, and her hand moved slowly across the front of the dress. Then to her throat. Then restless again, searching for something to land on.
The drug had found its full depth.
Viktor kept his eyes on the road.
"I don’t feel good." Her voice came out low and unraveled, nothing like the sharp-edged weapon she usually made of it. "I don’t... I don’t know what’s happening. I’m burning."
Her hand found his arm. He said nothing. Drove. Her fingers traced upward. Slow. Deliberate in the boneless, uninhibited way of someone whose filter had been chemically removed.
"I’m burning," she said again, and this time it wasn’t a complaint.
"Sienna."
"Isn’t this what you wanted?" Her head turned toward him, her eyes half-lidded and dark, the wedding dress pushed high on her thighs. Her hand moved lower on his forearm. His wrist. "Make me forget my name."
"Stop." The word came out rougher than he intended. "You’re asking for trouble, baby girl."
"Then give it to me." Her voice dropped to something barely above a whisper. Viktor’s jaw tightened.
"You should be very careful," he said quietly, eyes still forward, "what you wish for." A beat. The muscle in his jaw worked once.
"Because I don’t just make women forget their names. You’d be screaming mine." He glanced at her, one look, fast, the way you glance at the sun. "But not like this. Not while you’re drugged."