Chapter 103: Viktor sent me

"Breakfast," Viktor said, with as much dignity as he could manage, gesturing vaguely at the disaster spread across the counter. "For you."

Sienna glanced around at the mess, at the burnt pan, the scattered eggshells, the small trail of blood now welling up along the side of his finger, and felt something warm and unexpected settle deep in her chest.

"You do know," she said, crossing the kitchen to reach for a towel, "that we have staff who could do this for you, right? Actual trained chefs, even."

"I wanted to do it myself," Viktor said simply, allowing her to take his injured hand without complaint, watching as she wrapped the towel gently around the small cut.

"Why?" Sienna asked, glancing up at him.

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes moving over her face carefully.

"Because I’ve never done anything like this before," he admitted finally. "Cooking for someone. Trying, badly, apparently, to take care of someone." His mouth twitched slightly, something wry and self-deprecating flickering behind his usual composure.

"I wanted to try it with you."

Sienna’s breath caught slightly, the easy humor of the moment shifting into something quieter, more fragile.

"Well," she said finally, clearing her throat, glancing back at the smoking pan on the stove, "you’re doing a truly terrible job of it."

Viktor huffed out a short, surprised laugh, some of the earlier tension easing from his shoulders. "I’m aware," he said.

"Here," Sienna said, releasing his hand and moving toward the stove, nudging him gently aside with her shoulder. "Sit down before you lose an entire finger. I’ll finish this."

"You cook?" Viktor asked, raising an eyebrow, settling onto one of the stools at the counter, still holding the towel loosely around his cut, already forgetting she made the bowl of pasta he snatched from Manuel when they went to Italy.

"Better than you, apparently," Sienna said, already cracking a fresh set of eggs into a clean bowl with practiced, efficient movements. "I lived alone for years before all of this. You learn a few things when there’s no one else around to cook for you."

Viktor watched her quietly for a while, the easy, comfortable silence between them settling into something Sienna hadn’t quite expected to feel this morning, not after everything that had happened the day before, not with so many unanswered questions still hanging heavy between them.

"Marcus is going to keep asking about flower colors," Viktor said eventually, breaking the silence.

"Tell him white and blue is fine," Sienna said, not looking up from the stove. "Since apparently that’s already decided."

"It seemed like something you’d like," Viktor said quietly.

Sienna paused for just a moment, her spatula hovering above the pan, before continuing on as though she hadn’t heard the small, careful admission buried in that sentence.

"It is," she said finally, just as quiet. "It’s perfect, actually."

They fell into an easier rhythm after that, Sienna cooking while Viktor sat nearby, offering commentary that ranged from genuinely helpful to deliberately unhelpful just to make her laugh, the wedding, the danger, the tattooed stranger, and every unanswered question still sitting between them fading, for a little while at least, into something that could almost pass, in this small, messy kitchen, for an ordinary, easy morning between two people who simply liked being near each other.

Sienna knew better than to trust it completely. But for now, watching Viktor Kessler nurse a small kitchen injury while pretending it was nothing, she let herself enjoy it anyway.

Across the city, inside the Capri mansion, the mood could not have been more different.

Aliya paced the length of her father’s study in furious, restless circles, her heels striking hard against the marble floor with every turn.

Her father sat behind his desk, his face nearly purple with rage, having just finished shouting himself hoarse at the head of his own financial team, a man who now stood frozen in the doorway, visibly bracing for the moment Don Capri finally decided words weren’t enough and reached for something heavier instead.

The numbers didn’t lie. Over a hundred million dollars, gone in a single night, funneled into what had looked, right up until the very last moment, like the safest, most lucrative opportunity his new advisors had brought to him in months.

Now Don Capri found himself buried in debt overnight, exposed to men who did not extend patience or forgiveness to those who couldn’t pay what they owed.

He had made the call to Viktor himself, demanding the wedding to Aliya move forward within five days, certain that tying his family’s name officially to the Kesslers would buy him enough protection, enough breathing room, to survive the debtors already beginning to circle.

Instead, Aliya had shoved her phone in his face, playing the video on a violent, endless loop. Viktor, kneeling in the middle of a public square.

Viktor, sliding a ring onto Sienna’s finger. Viktor, kissing her in front of half the city while the crowd cheered around them.

Not divorce papers. A proposal.

"I will not let anyone humiliate you like this," Don Capri growled, slamming his fist against the desk hard enough to rattle the glass sitting on top of it.

"I will kill that arrogant bastard, even if it’s the last thing I do."

"Daddy," Aliya said, her voice trembling with fury, "I want that little bitch. I want to be the one who ends her myself." Her fingers curled into fists at her sides.

"He knows how much I love him. He knows, and he still dared to let her stand between us. I will not spare her. Not this time."

The two of them stood there, fuming in matching, mirrored rage, when a soft knock interrupted the tense silence of the study. Marcus stepped inside a moment later, calm and composed despite the storm clearly brewing in the room.

"What are you doing here?" Don Capri snapped, straightening up sharply.

"Viktor sent me," Marcus said smoothly. "To go over the wedding plans with you."