The counting machine ran on. Viktor said nothing for a moment. Just looked at the grounds, the gates, the car at the perimeter, the ordinary morning surface of a house that was never ordinary.
"Keep an eye on Sienna." His voice didn’t change register. Same flat, even delivery, he used for everything that mattered. "I don’t want them anywhere near her. Not until I understand what they know."
"Yes, boss." Marco shifted his weight almost imperceptibly. The shift of a man choosing his next words carefully. "But.. about tomorrow."
Viktor looked at him sideways.
"The gala." Marco pressed on, with the specific bravery of a man who had survived this long precisely because he said the things no one else would. "Do you really want to bring her? Into that room? With your family?" He let a beat land. "They will eat her alive, boss."
Viktor took a long pull on the cigarette.
Set it down on the ashtray.
"She is pretty, isn’t she?" He said it with complete serenity. As if Marco had complimented the weather.
Marco blinked.
"Boss. Yes. She is. But pretty is not..." He tried again. "She is not built for our world. She is a student. A library girl. These people, your family, will see her as a weakness. They will use her. They will..."
"She stole my heart," Viktor said simply. Quietly. The way men state facts, they have finished arguing. He moved away from the window, hands in his pockets, and looked at the wall of nothing in particular.
"The very moment I saw her in that library. Before she even knew I existed." Marco was quiet.
"She has me to protect her." Viktor turned. And there was something in his face that Marco, who had known this man for eleven years, had not seen before. Or had not seen pointed at anyone.
"And she has more fire and genuine guts than half the men in this organization." A pause. "More than you, on a slow day."
Marco chose not to respond to that.
"Any progress on Diago’s men?" Viktor moved toward the desk. Back to business. The switch is clean and instant. "What they were doing on our territory. The library specifically."
"No, boss. Not yet." Viktor nodded once.
"Find out." He picked up the file on the desk. Closed it. "Before tomorrow."
He walked to the door. Paused with his hand on the frame.
And then and Marco would think about this later, alone, with a drink Viktor Kessler smiled. Not the controlled, almost-smile he used in rooms full of people who needed to be reminded of something. Not the flat smile that preceded bad news for whoever was receiving it.
A real one. Small and private and aimed at nothing in particular.
Not because of the money on the table behind him. Not because of the territory or the rival organization or the power that had taken him a decade of ruthless, careful work to build.
Because he had gotten married this morning in his hallway. To a girl who had bargained with him over the contract. Who had run through his city in a stolen wedding dress. Who had slapped one of his men and called him Prince Charming and told him she would never beg.
Who had fire enough, he thought, walking out into the corridor with the quiet pride of a man who had found something he hadn’t known he was looking for.
To burn the ocean to the ground.
New wife. New boundaries. New enemies wearing aprons.
Sienna stood in the middle of Viktor Kessler’s hallway with her limited edition black card and her green silk dress and took a long, measured look at her new domestic situation.
The maids moved around her like she was a piece of furniture they hadn’t ordered and weren’t sure where to put. One of them young, sharp-faced, with the energy of someone who had been employee of the month before the new wife showed up, handed her a towel that morning with the precise enthusiasm of someone handing over a parking ticket.
They hate me, Sienna observed internally. Every single one of them.
She could read it like a book. The maids with their too-straight spines and their tight smiles that stopped exactly at the mouth.
The guards who looked through her like she was made of glass had been specifically instructed not to acknowledge.
The general atmosphere of a household that had operated one way for a very long time and had woken up yesterday to find a simple girll in a green dress sitting at the head table eating their boss’s grapes.
They’re jealous, she realized. The maids are jealous, and the men are annoyed, and I have walked into a house full of people who have decided they don’t like me.
She rolled her eyes so hard she briefly saw her own brain. Perfect. Kidnapped, drugged, married against my will, and now I have to deal with workplace politics.
She straightened her spine. Fine.
She had survived Simon. She had survived Lily. She had survived a man with a gun at her non-consensual wedding ceremony. She could survive some passive-aggressive towel distribution.
She walked outside.
The grounds were, objectively, extraordinary.
Of course they are, Sienna thought, shielding her eyes against the morning light. Of course, the man who kidnapped me lives in a place that looks like the cover of Architectural Digest.
She walked slowly, doing what she told herself was simply exploring her new, extremely temporary home.
The garden first. Roses, hedges trimmed to geometric precision, a fountain doing its unbothered fountain thing in the center of a stone courtyard. Pretty. Aggressively pretty.
The kind of pretty that had a groundskeeping budget and wasn’t shy about it.
I hate that it’s beautiful, she thought. I would like it on record that I hate that.
She kept walking.
The car lot next. She counted vehicles the way someone who was definitely not planning anything counts vehicles. Casually. With total innocence.
Six cars. Two SUVs. One sports car that is almost certainly Viktor’s, because of course it is. Exit requires keys or legs.
She kept walking. And then she saw it. The gate.
Large. Iron. The kind of gate that meant business, flanked on both sides by men in black who had clearly skipped the smiling portion of their training. Beyond it, the street. The city. The actual, functioning, non-Viktor-Kessler world.
There it is, something in her chest said. There’s the door.