Chapter 148: Fifteen minutes

Sienna blinked several times. Her head felt strangely heavy. She slowed down. At least she tried to. The car didn’t respond the way she expected. Her foot pressed the brake again. Panic flickered through her chest.

"Come on." She pressed harder. The car slowed slightly, then surged forward again. Sienna’s heart began pounding. She looked around. Cars moved past her on both sides. She needed to pull over. Somewhere safe.

She reached for the steering wheel with both hands. "Just get to the shoulder." Her vision blurred again. The dashboard seemed too far away. She swallowed. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Behind her, the two cars Viktor had assigned to follow her immediately noticed the erratic driving. The lead vehicle accelerated.

"She’s speeding up."

"She’s not driving normally." The second guard reached for his phone.

"Call the boss."

Viktor was halfway through the mansion when his phone rang. He answered immediately.

"What?"

"Boss, something’s wrong with Mrs. Kessler." Every muscle in his body tightened. "What happened?"

"Her car is speeding. She isn’t responding to our signals." Viktor was already moving. "Where?" The guard gave him the location. Viktor didn’t waste another second.

Minutes later, the roar of a motorcycle tore through the gates. He didn’t wait for anyone to stop him. He accelerated onto the highway. His eyes searched the traffic. Then he saw it. Sienna’s car.

Too fast. Too erratic. "Sienna." He twisted the throttle. The motorcycle shot forward. He pulled alongside the sports car and looked through the window. "Sienna!" Nothing. He waved one hand desperately.

"Pull over!" Her head remained tilted forward. She wasn’t looking at him. Viktor’s stomach dropped. Something was terribly wrong. He accelerated again, carefully moving closer.

"Sienna!" Still nothing. The car suddenly drifted toward another lane. A horn blared. Viktor swore. He couldn’t wait any longer. He moved alongside the driver’s door, judging the speed and distance with every second.

It was insane. One mistake and both of them could die. But Sienna wasn’t in control of the car anymore. Viktor reached the passenger’s side.

With one hand gripping the motorcycle, he grabbed the door handle and pulled. The door swung open. "Sienna!" He saw her face. Pale. Her eyes half closed. Unconscious.

"Fuck." He made his move. Viktor hauled himself into the driver’s side, forcing his body between Sienna and the steering wheel long enough to seize control.

The car swerved. Horns screamed around them. He fought the wheel, slammed the brakes, and brought the vehicle to a violent stop on the highway shoulder. For a second, there was only the sound of his breathing.

"Sienna." He turned toward her. Nothing. "Sienna, open your eyes." He touched her cheek. "Baby." Her head lolled slightly toward him. No response. His heart slammed against his ribs.

"What happened to you?" He quickly released her seat belt and checked her breathing. She was breathing. Thank God. A car horn blared behind them.

Viktor looked up. Traffic was beginning to build around the stopped vehicle. "Move!" He shifted into the driver’s seat properly and pulled the car away from the middle of the road.

The guards arrived seconds later. One jumped out and retrieved Viktor’s motorcycle while the other followed closely behind. Viktor kept one hand on the wheel.

The other remained on Sienna’s face. "Stay with me." She didn’t answer. He drove faster.

—

The gates of the Kessler mansion opened before he reached them. Viktor barely waited for the car to stop before throwing open his door.

"Doctor!" His voice thundered across the courtyard. "Call the doctor now!" Men rushed forward. Viktor carefully lifted Sienna from the passenger seat. Her head rested against his chest, completely limp. He carried her inside.

"Get the medical team here immediately." Marcus appeared at the entrance. "What happened?"

"I don’t know." Viktor’s eyes were ice. "Find out." Marcus nodded. "And find Aliya and Marcel." His expression changed. "Both of them?"

"Both." Viktor looked down at Sienna. The softness disappeared from his face. "I kept my promise to my father." His voice dropped. "Marcel has been given more chances than he deserved."

He looked back at Marcus. "That ends now."

"And Aliya?" Viktor’s jaw tightened. "She wanted my attention." He carried Sienna toward the stairs. "She has it."

The mansion erupted into motion behind him. Doors opened. Footsteps thundered across the halls. Phones rang. Orders were shouted. But Viktor heard none of it. His entire world had narrowed to the woman unconscious in his arms, in the bedroom where he gently laid her on the bed.

Viktor’s hands weren’t steady. He hadn’t noticed until he tried to smooth Sienna’s hair back from her forehead and felt his own fingers trembling against her skin.

She didn’t stir. Didn’t even flinch at the touch, and that was the part that scared him. Sienna flinched at everything. A door closing too hard. A raised voice two rooms away. Now his palm was flat against her cheek, and there was nothing. No flicker under her eyelids. No catch in her breath.

"Sienna." He said it low, like maybe if he said it soft enough she’d surface just to tell him to stop hovering. Nothing.

He checked her pulse again. Third time in as many minutes. Found it, counted four beats, lost his place, started over.

Marcus stood by the door with his phone pressed to his ear, voice pitched too calm, the kind of calm that came from years of learning how to sound calm around Viktor specifically. "How far, no, faster than that. I don’t care what he’s got. Now." He hung up.

"Six minutes."

"You said six minutes four minutes ago."

"Boss,"

"Get him here or get me someone who can."

Six minutes became eleven. Eleven became fifteen. Viktor spent every one of them with two fingers pressed under Sienna’s jaw, watching her chest rise, fall, rise, fall, like if he looked awayit might just stop.

When the doctor finally came through the door a thin man, glasses fogged, still in a surgical cap he hadn’t thought to take off Viktor was on him before Marcus could get between them. Fistfuls of collar, the doctor’s feet nearly leaving the floor, his glasses knocked crooked.

"Fifteen minutes," Viktor said, and his voice had gone somewhere quiet and flat that was worse than shouting. "You know what happens in fifteen minutes."