Chapter 133: My personal doctor

A high, flat tone, cutting clean through the low hum of the corridor, followed instantly by the frantic scrape of feet and raised voices behind the doors charging, clear, and Sienna’s whole body went cold in a way she hadn’t known was possible, colder even than it had been on the runway with his blood soaking through her hands.

Her heart didn’t just stop for a second. It felt like it forgot how to start again entirely, lodged somewhere high in her throat, refusing to move.

"No..." The word barely made it past her lips before Aria’s arms locked around her from the side, holding her upright, holding her there, because every instinct in Sienna’s body was screaming at her to shove through those doors regardless of what she’d find on the other side.

"Breathe," Aria said, low and urgent against her ear, her own voice shaking despite the steadiness she was clearly forcing into it. "Sienna, breathe. Listen... listen, they’re still working. That’s still them working."

The machine’s tone cut off.

Silence, agonizing and endless, stretched for three full seconds before a new sound replaced it the steady, mercifully ordinary beeping of a heart monitor finding its rhythm again.

Sienna’s knees gave out entirely. Aria caught her, lowering them both onto the corridor chairs in an ungainly tangle of limbs, and Sienna simply let the breath she’d been holding tear out of her in a long, broken sob, the relief almost as violent as the fear had been.

They sat there together after that, Sienna crying until there was nothing left in her to cry with, Aria’s arm never once leaving her shoulders.

"Ma’am." Marcus appeared eventually, hovering a respectful distance away, his voice careful. "Should I take you home, at least so you can change? Wash up?"

Sienna didn’t move. Couldn’t. The thought of leaving this hallway, even for an hour, felt unbearable.

"Bring her fresh clothes," Aria said instead, cutting in before Sienna could even form a response. "I’ll get her changed here."

Marcus nodded and murmured an order to one of the waiting men, and it was well into the late afternoon by the time Aria finally coaxed Sienna into a quiet corner to change, gently scrubbing the last of the dried blood from beneath her fingernails with a damp cloth, easing her out of the stiff, ruined jacket and into soft sweatpants and something loose and warm instead.

Sienna let her do it in a daze, barely registering her own hands as Aria guided them through the motions.

They were walking back down the hallway when they found Marcus already deep in conversation with the doctor, his shoulders visibly loosening with each word.

"Opened his eyes about five minutes ago," the doctor was saying. "Vitals are stabilizing well. He’s asking for..."

"Can we see him?" Sienna’s voice came out rougher than she intended, cutting straight through the rest of the sentence.

The doctor glanced at her and nodded.

Something in Sienna’s chest cracked open in an entirely different way this time, not grief, not terror, but a flood of relief so overwhelming it nearly buckled her knees all over again.

She pushed through the door before anyone could say anything else.

Viktor lay propped against the pillows, pale, an IV taped into the back of one hand, dark bruising already blooming along his jaw from the fight, but his eyes were open, and they found her the instant she stepped inside.

"Are you okay?" she asked, barely above a whisper, as if a normal volume might shatter whatever fragile thing was holding him together.

He smiled. Small, tired, but unmistakably him.

She didn’t remember crossing the room. One second she was standing frozen in the doorway, and the next she was seated at his bedside, both hands wrapped tightly around his, as if letting go might undo everything the doctors had just fought to hold together.

"I’m okay," Viktor murmured, voice rough but steady. His eyes drifted briefly past her shoulder. "Can you call Marcus?"

She did, hands trembling slightly even now, and the moment Marcus stepped inside, Viktor’s tone shifted, low and businesslike despite the hospital gown and the tubes still taped to his arm.

"Get everything ready. I want to go home."

"Viktor." Sienna stared at him, certain she’d misheard. "You almost died. You need at least forty-eight hours of observation, and..."

"I have you." Viktor’s mouth curved, something warm slipping in beneath the exhaustion. "My personal doctor."

"That is not... and I’m not a... " Sienna started, indignant, before the words caught somewhere in her throat, worry crowding out the argument entirely.

She wanted to fight him on it. Every rational, medical instinct in her screamed that he needed to stay exactly where he was, monitored, resting, safe.

But she understood, even through the fear still sitting heavy in her chest, exactly why he wouldn’t. A man who ran an empire built on fear and precision could not afford to let the rest of the underworld see him lying weak in a hospital bed for even a day longer than necessary.

Every hour he stayed here was an hour his enemies could use to whisper that Viktor Kessler was vulnerable, that his organization was ripe for the taking.

He couldn’t give them that. Not now. Not after everything.

So she swallowed the argument, pressed her lips into a thin, unhappy line, and squeezed his hand instead, silently promising herself that if he insisted on going home early, she would simply have to keep him alive herself.

Sienna held onto Aria for one last long moment outside the hospital entrance, neither of them quite ready to let go, before finally forcing herself to pull back and slide into the car waiting to take her and Viktor back to the mansion.

The drive passed in a blur of exhaustion, the city sliding by in soft, twilight colors, and by the time they pulled through the gates, the sky had settled into that deep, bruised purple that came just before full dark.

Viktor was carried carefully up to his room, and Marcus lingered long enough to see him settled, checking twice that everything he needed was within reach before finally excusing himself.

The Gallon boys had already dispersed hours earlier, melting back into whatever corners of the city they operated from, leaving only the familiar house guards stationed quietly at their usual posts.

The mansion, for the first time in what felt like days, was quiet.