Chapter 100: Would you marry me out of nowhere

"What’s going on?" Sienna asked, already reaching for a robe, her mind spinning through a dozen worst-case possibilities at once. "What did Don Capri want? Where are you taking me?"

"Just come," Viktor said, already turning toward the hallway. "Play along."

Play along with what, exactly, Sienna had no idea. She barely had time to throw on something presentable before Viktor was ushering her downstairs, into the car, and out into the city, his expression giving nothing away the entire drive.

She studied him carefully from the passenger seat, trying to read some clue in the set of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped once, twice, against the steering wheel, but he remained maddeningly unreadable.

The car finally pulled to a stop near the edge of a wide, open public square, one Sienna vaguely recognized from the city’s older district, fountains and old stone buildings surrounding a courtyard already busy with midday foot traffic.

Viktor stepped out first and came around to open her door, and only once she was standing beside him did she notice the small crowd already beginning to gather, drawn by something they seemed to sense was about to happen, phones lifting in curious anticipation.

"Viktor," Sienna said carefully, unease prickling along the back of her neck. "What exactly is happening right now?"

He didn’t answer. Instead, without a single word of warning, Viktor dropped smoothly down onto one knee in the middle of the open square, right there in front of dozens of strangers, and pulled a small velvet box from inside his jacket.

Sienna’s stomach dropped straight to the ground.

"Marry me," Viktor said, opening the box to reveal a ring, simple but stunning, catching the afternoon light in a way that made the small crowd around them audibly gasp. "But this time, let’s make it real."

Sienna stared down at him, completely frozen, her mind racing to catch up with what was actually happening.

"I want to give you a proper wedding," he continued, his voice steady, his eyes locked on hers with a sincerity that looked, disturbingly, entirely genuine. "The kind you deserve. Not whatever rushed, forced thing happened between us before."

"We’re already married," Sienna said slowly, her voice barely above a whisper, painfully aware of the growing audience now filming every second of this on their phones. "Husband and wife. Legally. You know this."

"I know," Viktor said. "But the first time, there was no proper wedding. No proposal. No real choice given to you at all." He held her gaze steadily. "I want to fix that."

Sienna’s mind raced desperately behind her carefully composed expression, trying to piece together some logical explanation for what was happening.

This made no sense. None of it. He was supposed to be pretending to leave her, staging some believable separation to pull the rug out from under Elena and Aliya’s scheming, to protect his position, to buy them both time while they figured out how to properly deal with the Capris. That had been the plan. That had been what made sense.

Instead, here he was, kneeling in the middle of a crowded public square, proposing to her with a diamond ring and a sincerity that felt far too real to be any kind of performance.

This was stupid. Reckless. It made absolutely no strategic sense whatsoever.

And yet, watching him there, kneeling in front of her, his usual careful composure completely stripped away, replaced by something raw and unguarded that she had rarely seen from him before, Sienna found the careful, logical arguments crumbling apart in her mind one by one.

Please, she thought, staring down at him, her own heart hammering loud and unsteady behind her ribs. Please don’t do this to me. Please don’t make this feel real when I’ve spent so long convincing myself it can’t be.

"Viktor," she started, her voice trembling slightly.

"I..." he started, something flickering across his face that looked almost like vulnerability, an emotion so foreign on him that Sienna barely recognized it. He seemed to search for the right words for a long moment, something clearly building behind his eyes that he wasn’t quite ready to say out loud yet, not here, not in front of all these strangers.

"Alright," Sienna said finally, cutting through the silence before either of them could second-guess it any further. "Let’s get married for real this time."

Something shifted instantly across Viktor’s face, relief and something warmer, something that looked dangerously close to happiness, breaking through the careful mask he usually wore.

He slid the ring onto her finger, the diamond catching the sunlight brilliantly, and the small crowd around them erupted into scattered applause and delighted murmurs, phones still raised, capturing every second of it.

Sienna barely registered any of it, her attention entirely consumed by the strange, unsettled feeling settling deep in her chest, equal parts fear and something dangerously close to hope.

Among the gathered crowd, unseen by either of them in that moment, Aliya stood rigid, her phone raised, recording every single second of the proposal with sharp, furious precision.

"You just had to want to be Mrs. Kessler that badly," she muttered under her breath, her voice low and venomous, watching the ring slide onto Sienna’s finger with open, burning hatred twisting across her carefully composed features.

"You dirty little librarian." Her grip tightened around her phone until her knuckles turned pale. "I will make you pay for this. I promise you that."

She turned sharply on her heel and disappeared back into the crowd, already dialing a number on her phone, already setting some new, dangerous plan into motion, leaving Sienna and Viktor standing together in the middle of the square, entirely unaware of the storm that had just begun quietly gathering against them both.

Viktor pulled Sienna into a warm, steady hug the moment the ring settled fully onto her finger, and around them, the small crowd’s murmurs quickly grew into something louder, more insistent, voices rising up in a playful, chanting rhythm.

"Kiss her! Kiss her!"

Viktor leaned in slowly, close enough that Sienna could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, close enough that her heart immediately picked up its familiar, frantic rhythm.

"I don’t think a kiss was part of the plan," Sienna said quickly, forcing a bright, convincing smile onto her face for the sake of the crowd still watching them closely.

"What plan?" Viktor asked, pulling back just enough to study her expression, something unreadable flickering behind his dark eyes.