Chapter 216: What are you going to do about Viktor?

Sienna and Aria sat like that for a while, shoulders almost touching. The light above them hummed softly. Outside, somewhere far off, Viktor had read the location. Only then could he let out a breath of relief, and then he sent a message to the guards at the Cross mansion to make sure the place was well guarded.

Then Aria turned her head. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

Sienna looked at her. For a second she did not answer, because the question felt bigger than it sounded, and something about it caught in her chest. A soft smile came onto her face.

"Are you?" she asked back. "I’ll make you something. What will you eat? I’ll cook."

She said it smiling, but underneath the smile was worry, real worry, the kind that had been sitting in her for weeks.

Aria had barely eaten since she came back from the hospital. Sienna had watched her push food around a plate, watched her say she wasn’t hungry, watched the weight slowly leave her face. So the question, small as it was, felt like something worth holding onto.

"It’s almost midnight, Sienna," Aria said.

"I don’t care," Sienna said. "Tell me what you’ll eat. I’ll make it. And we can spend the rest of the night jumping into some system, doing some good work, like old times."

Aria’s eyebrows lifted. "You mean hacking into systems and making money?" she asked, and a smile spread across her face, small at first, then wider, a smile that looked almost too big for how tired her eyes still were.

"You name it," Sienna said. "Anything you want to do, darling."

"Great," Aria said. "I’m craving your classic cheesesteak skillet."

"Great. Coming right up, your majesty." Sienna was already on her feet, brushing her hands against her jeans, moving toward the kitchen before she had even finished the sentence.

Aria smiled after her. Then, at the corner of her eye, a small drop of tears formed, quiet and sudden, the kind that comes not from sadness but from something close to relief.

She wiped it away quickly, with the back of her hand, before it could fall. Then she pushed herself up off the floor and followed Sienna into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, Sienna pulled a ribeye steak from the fridge and set it down on the counter. She slipped on a pair of thin kitchen gloves, picked up a knife, and began slicing the meat into thin strips, her hands moving in slow, careful lines.

The sound of the knife against the board was the only sound in the room for a while, small and steady.

Aria sat on one of the stools by the counter and watched her. She did not say anything at first. She just watched the way Sienna’s hands moved, the way her shoulders were set, the way her eyes stayed fixed on the meat like it was the only thing in the world that needed her attention right now.

"Sienna," Aria said.

Sienna stopped slicing. She looked up and met Aria’s eyes, and something in Aria’s face told her exactly what this was about. She did not need to be told twice.

"I know you are going through a moment," Sienna said, setting the knife down. "Take all the time you need, alright? I’m here for you. You have always been strong for me, helping me solve all my problems.

You don’t have to be strong right now. I want to be the one to be strong for you, for once. I know you’re trying, and I can’t tell you it’s going to be okay, because I don’t know that. But just know you have me. So if you want to cry, yell, scream, go ahead. You don’t have to pretend you’re fine when you’re not."

Her own eyes were wet as she said it, but she did not look away.

Aria looked down at the counter for a second, then back up at her. "I only wanted a hug," she said. "You think too much." A small, sad smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Thank you for not giving up on me."

"Come here," Sienna said.

She walked away from the counter, around to the other side, where Aria was sitting, and wrapped her arms around her. Aria stood and let herself be held.

They stayed like that for a long moment, neither one letting go first, as if they had both been waiting all night for exactly this, without knowing it.

It was Aria who finally pulled back. "You’ll get through this, alright," Sienna said, smiling at her.

"Cheesesteak skillet coming up in twenty minutes," she added, turning back toward the counter, back to slicing the steak into thin strips, then the onions after it, thin half-moons falling away from her knife one after another, and then the cheese, grated into a small soft pile.

The pan hissed when the meat hit it. The kitchen filled with the smell of onions turning gold and meat browning at the edges.

Soon it was ready. They carried their plates to the small table by the window, sat down across from each other, and ate quietly.

"That was good," Aria said, pointing her fork at Sienna’s plate. "Your cooking skills got better." There was a tease in her voice now, small and light, the first real teasing Sienna had heard from her in weeks.

"Glad you like it," Sienna said, smiling. "Shall we get to work?"

They moved to the desk in the study, two screens glowing in the dark room, and sat down side by side the way they always used to, shoulders close, fingers already moving over keys.

Behind the computer, the two of them worked quietly and quickly, pulling up name after name, file after file, until they had found every man who worked under Aria’s father. Aria knew some of these men.

She had grown up seeing their faces at dinners and parties. And as the files opened one by one, she understood something new, something that sat heavy in her stomach, these men had known exactly what her father’s deal with Don Konstantin really was. They had known, and they had said nothing. They had let it happen and looked away.

For that, Sienna and Aria hacked into their accounts, one after another. Then, slowly and carefully, they wired the money out, every account, sending it to the families and citizens who had been infected by the virus these same men had helped create.

"Take all of it," Aria said, watching the numbers move across the screen. "Leave nothing."

"Right on it," Sienna said, her fingers already moving. "And my dad’s as well," Aria added.

Sienna’s hands paused over the keyboard. She turned to look at Aria. "Come on, Aria."

"Do it, Sienna," Aria said, her voice steady now, steadier than it had been all night. "I don’t want any part of that money. That money cost them their life."

Sienna held her gaze for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Why don’t we donate it to the Philly Mercy Orphanage," she said.

"You can take it personally, watch how it’s used, watch it support the kids there. It might give you some peace."

Aria thought about this for a second, her eyes still on the screen, and then nodded. "Yes. That’s a good idea."

They worked in silence after that, the numbers moving from one account to another, until the last of it was gone.

"And what about you?" Aria said after a while, not looking up from her screen. "What are you going to do about Viktor? And your father."

The question landed in the quiet room and stayed there. This was the part Sienna had been trying not to think about all night.

"I don’t know, Aria," Sienna said finally. Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to. "I’m mad at Viktor. Very mad at him. But I love him, Aria. I have grown to madly love him. I’ve grown used to having him in my space, and I miss him when I don’t see him. I..." She stopped there, not able to finish it, the sentence just hanging in the air between them.

"I get it, girl," Aria said, turning to look at her now. "You love him. But he lied to you. So how do we punish him?" A small smile started to form on her face. "We could make him earn your forgiveness. I know my uncle would do anything to fix that." Then she laughed, a real laugh, soft but real. "But we will make him suffer, alright."

Sienna liked the sound of that word, we. It reminded her that whatever happened next, it would always be the two of them against the world. She nodded, a small smile finding its way onto her own tired face.

"And your father," Aria asked, quieter now. "Will you tell him the truth? That you are his daughter?" Sienna paused. Her hands went still on the keyboard.

"I don’t want that man in my life, Aria," she said. "You know me. No. I don’t want his blood-stained money."

"I thought as much," Aria said, and something in her eased, a tightness in her shoulders letting go that Sienna had not even noticed was there.