Chapter 251: Trust me

Neither of them spoke after that. The road curved. The Don’s car took the turn ahead, and Carina turned after it, keeping her distance.

Viktor leaned forward. His eyes were fixed on that car, on the dark window where Sienna sat with a man who wanted her as a weapon.

"Where is he taking her?" he said. Carina said nothing.

"Where is he taking her?" His voice broke, and he hit the dashboard with his open hand. It made a hard, flat sound. "I let them take her. I stood there, and I let them take her! Tell me where he’s going!"

"I don’t know!" Carina said, and the word came out raw. She took a breath. She loosened her grip on the wheel, just a little.

Then her eyes moved. She saw the sign on the side of the road, and the wall behind it, and the long road curving off to the left.

"But I think I know," she said slowly. "he is heading to the showroom." Viktor turned.

"The what?"

"The showroom."

"What showroom?" He stared at her. "What is there? Why would he take her there?" Carina did not answer. Her hands went white on the wheel.

—

Nobody spoke inside the white car.

The engine hummed. The city slid past the tinted windows in long gray lines. Sienna sat in the middle of the back seat with her mother on one side and the Don on the other, and she felt like a piece of paper folded between two hands.

She kept her eyes on the glass. She could see Viktor’s face there, still. The way he had looked when six men held him down. The way he had said her name. Her jaw tightened.

"Next time," she said, without turning her head, "I go nowhere without my husband. Keep that in mind."

The Don gave a small, easy laugh. "Don’t worry, princess. He is in the car behind us." He said it gently, like a man talking to a child. And of course he noticed everything. He is that kind of man.

"Besides, you are here with your mother and your father. You are safe." Safe. Sienna almost laughed. A short, dry sound rose in her throat, and she swallowed it before it could get out.

Safe. In a car with the man who wants my blood. She said nothing. The silence stretched. Then Helena spoke, very softly.

"Kat." Sienna did not move. "Katty." Helena’s voice trembled, small and lost, like a woman waking from a long dream. "You really are our Katty." She turned to the Don, and her eyes were wide and wet.

"Konstantin, look at her. She is our Katty. Look at her face."

"Yes, my dear." He took her hand and squeezed it, pleased. "She is. And the test will confirm it. You will see."

"My baby," Helena whispered. She leaned across the seat and wrapped both arms around Sienna.

It was a perfect performance. She held on too tightly and then too loosely, like a mother who remembered and forgot in the same breath. Her shoulders shook. Her voice broke in the middle of a word. She looked so confused and so heartbroken that it was almost hard to watch.

The Don watched with a soft, satisfied look. A man like him, who had learned to see through everyone, could not see through this. Helena had spent years making him believe it. She had polished it until it shone.

Sienna did not look at her. She did not lift her arms. She sat stiff as a board, her hands in her lap, her face turned away.

Then, right against her ear, Helena breathed three words. "Please. Play along." Sienna’s eyes flickered.

"I will fix this," Helena whispered, so faintly that the words were more breath than sound. "Trust me. Just this once." She pulled back, wiping her cheek, and settled into her seat like nothing had happened.

Sienna finally understood the fear in her mother’s eyes.

Helena knew how thin the Don’s patience was. She had lived beside it for years. She had seen how he smiled while he waited, and how the smile went away when the waiting was over.

If Sienna did not warm to him, if she stayed cold and hard, he would not wait forever. He would deal with her the way he always dealt with things that refused to follow his plan.

And Sienna knew it too. She had never been good at pretending. Her face always gave her away.

But she also knew this kind of man. The harder she was to please, the harder he would try. And the harder he tried, the further he would go. First the jewels. Then the lab. Then whatever was waiting at the end of this road.

The more I push, the more dangerous he becomes. She took a slow breath. She did not smile. She could not. But she loosened her shoulders by an inch, and her hands relaxed in her lap.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Don saw it. He said nothing, but he looked as if someone had put a coin in his palm.

The car slowed. Sienna felt it in her stomach first, the gentle pull of the brakes. She looked up.

They were turning off the main road onto a narrow lane. Tall walls rose on both sides, gray and blank, with no windows. At the end of the lane stood a gate. It was tall, black, and made of iron bars as thick as her wrist.

"We are here," the Don said. The gate opened. It did not slide. It swung inward, slowly, as if it had been waiting for them. The car rolled through and stopped. A driver opened the door.

The Don stepped out first and straightened his white cuffs. Helena followed him, one hand on the frame, moving like a woman who did not trust her own legs. Sienna came last.

The air outside was cool and smelled of stone. She looked around. A wide yard. High walls. A plain, heavy building at the far end, with a single steel door and no sign. No fountains. No flowers. No white marble. It was nothing like the Ivanou estate.

Behind her, tires crunched on gravel.