Chapter 233: Cut from the same cloth

Viktor’s jaw tightened. "I’ll deal with them later," he said. "Right now, Marcel knows something. I want you to bring him here. I want to know exactly what he thinks he knows, and how he dares threaten me with it." His fist curled slowly at his side as he spoke, the knuckles going pale.

Right then, as if summoned by the very mention of his name, Marcel walked in through the far end of the hall. He was not alone. Beside him walked an older man, silver-haired, his expression already set into something cold and superior, an uncle who had never once bothered to hide how much he despised Viktor, and had despised Viktor’s late father even more before him.

This was a man who had believed, for most of his life, that the empire should have passed to him, not to Viktor’s father, and certainly never to Viktor.

"Thank goodness you brought yourself here," Viktor said the moment he saw them, his voice low and controlled for exactly one second before it broke into something else entirely.

He was already moving down the stairs fast, two at a time, closing the distance between them like a man who had stopped thinking the moment he started running.

"How dare you," Viktor said, his hand already closing around Marcel’s collar, dragging him half up onto his toes. "I will kill you if you ever threaten my wife."

Upstairs, Sienna stirred awake to an empty bed, the space beside her still faintly warm but empty. She sat up, blinking against the light, and when she heard the noise carrying up from below, she rose and made her way toward the sound, still in her robe, her hair loose around her shoulders.

She reached the top of the stairs and looked down at the scene unfolding below. "Who is this?" she asked, her voice carrying clean and steady down into the hall.

"A nobody," Viktor said, not loosening his grip on Marcel’s collar.

"Well then," Sienna said, coming down the stairs now, unhurried, "get him out of my house." Her eyes moved from Marcel to the older man standing just behind him. She had once felt something close to sympathy for Marcel, some small, quiet softness for a boy who had grown up under the same cold roof she now lived in.

That sympathy was gone now, burned away the moment she understood what he had really wanted from her all along. He was cut from the same cloth as his mother, she realized. Trouble wrapped in a pleading face.

"That’s not for you to decide," the older man said, his voice thin and sharp, his eyes narrowing as they settled on her. "You really think one word from Viktor makes you his equal?"

"From where I’m standing," Sienna said, meeting his gaze without blinking, "yes."

"The Kessler clan is bigger than this estate," the man said, taking a slow step forward, "and Viktor isn’t the only one with a say. There are uncles. Extended families. People who have stood beside this family for decades, long before you ever walked through that door." He let his eyes travel over her once, dismissive.

"Viktor may recognize your authority. That doesn’t mean the rest of us will."

"Then bring them all here," Sienna said.

Aria had woken as well, drawn out of her room by the noise, and now stood leaning against the wall, watching everything unfold with a small, satisfied smile pulling at her mouth. It was not that she cared much about the details of it all, the uncles, the extended clan, the old arguments about bloodlines and worth.

What she loved was watching Sienna fight back at all, watching her stand there and refuse to shrink, because Aria knew exactly how these people had looked at Sienna from the very beginning, how they had whispered that she was not fit to be Viktor’s wife, let alone fit to sit at the head of the entire Kessler empire.

"Anyone who thinks I don’t belong," Sienna said, her voice ringing clear and even through the hall, her chin lifted, "anyone who wants my authority taken away, can sit at the table and say it to my face."

Viktor turned to look at her, still holding Marcel half off the ground, and something soft moved across his face despite the fury still burning in him, a small, proud smile finding its way there before he could stop it.

"Fine," Marcel said, his voice strained from the collar still bunched tight in Viktor’s fist. "If you’re both so confident, then call a family meeting. Bring back every Kessler with a seat at the main table." He put a hard stress on the word every, his eyes flicking briefly toward Sienna as he said it.

Viktor’s grip loosened, just slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. Not once, in all of this, had Marcel brought up the threat he had made over the phone the night before, that quiet, dangerous suggestion about Sienna and the don. He let go of the collar entirely now, stepping back half a pace, watching Marcel closely.

"So the whole family can decide," Marcel added, straightening his jacket where Viktor had crumpled it, "whether this woman has any right to wield that kind of power at all."

Viktor’s eyes moved from Marcel to the old man, and something settled in his expression, cold and certain. "All right," he said. "Five days. Kessler family council dinner."

"Viktor," the old man said, his voice low, almost a warning, "you’ll regret this."

"I’m not the one who’ll regret this," Viktor said, holding the man’s gaze without blinking.

"Five days," Sienna said, stepping forward now, her voice calm and level. "That should be plenty of time to round up everyone who has a problem with me." She let the words settle, then added, "I’ll be waiting." A short pause, and then, sharper, "Now get out of my house."

Marcel and the old man turned without another word and walked out, their footsteps hard and angry against the marble floor, the front door swinging shut behind them with a heavy sound.

Aria clapped her hands together twice, grinning wide. "That’s the fire, girl. I like it," she said, raising a thumb up.

"Sienna," Viktor said, turning to her, his voice slower now, quieter.

"What is it?" she asked.