Chapter 254: Get me out of here

Don Konstantin watched her go. He smiled slowly, and it was different this time. It was almost real. There was pride in it. Just like me, he thought. Then a second thought slid in behind the first. She thinks death is too kind. She wants them to keep living like this.

He nodded to himself. It made sense to him.

"All right, princess," he called after her. "I hear you. I will have Elena delivered to you. Do what you want with her." He paused. "But Aliya."

His voice went low. "Aliya is mine to punish." Sienna did not turn. She did not answer. The Don looked at Carina, who stood by the wall with her hands folded.

"Carina. Take my wife and daughter home. Make sure they are ready for tonight’s dinner. Give them everything they need." Carina swallowed. "Yes, Don."

Sienna was already at the end of the hall. Viktor was right behind her. Helena hurried after them, her heels clicking, her face carefully blank.

The Don stayed behind. The doors of the lift closed on the red room, on the woman with the cloth, and on the man in white who stood over her, smiling.

Cold air hit Sienna’s face as soon as she stepped outside. She made it across the yard. She made it to the wall, just past the guards, just out of sight of the gate.

Then her knees gave way. She bent over and threw up. Again and again, until her stomach hurt and her eyes streamed and there was nothing left. She gripped the rough stone with both hands. Her whole body shook.

Viktor was there at once. He dropped beside her and held her, one arm around her waist and one hand pushing back her hair. He did not say anything. He just held her steady.

"I’m here," he said at last. "I have you." Sienna shook her head. She could not speak. She felt another hand on her back, light and unsure. It rubbed slow circles between her shoulders, the way a mother does for a sick child.

Helena.

She had knelt on the gravel in her red suit, and she did not seem to care about the dirt. Her eyes were red, and her mask had slipped completely. She looked like what she was: a woman watching her daughter break, unable to fix it.

"Baby," she whispered. "Oh, my baby."

"Please," Sienna said. Her voice was small and rough. "Get me out of here."

"Alright, baby." Viktor’s arm tightened around her. "I have you."

"I’ll get the car," Carina said. She was already walking. She did not run, and she did not look back at the building. Her white dress moved across the gravel like a small flag, and a moment later she was gone around the corner.

Viktor stayed where he was, holding Sienna against his chest. Helena knelt beside them, one hand still on her daughter’s back. Nobody spoke. The wind pushed at the walls, and it smelled of rust and stone.

Then an engine started. Tires crunched, and a car rolled up beside them. Carina leaned across the seat and pushed the back door open.

Viktor lifted Sienna to her feet. She was lighter than he remembered, or he was more afraid than he knew. He guided her to the car with one hand under her elbow and one at her back, and he helped her sit as if she were made of glass.

Helena slid in beside her. Viktor shut the door softly, walked around, and took the seat next to Carina.

The car pulled out through the gate. Nobody said a word.

The road went by in gray strips. The sun had started to lean toward the west, and the light through the windows turned yellow and tired. Four people sat in one small car, and each of them was somewhere else entirely.

Carina drove with both hands on the wheel.

This was nothing new to her. She had seen the Don break people before. She had stood in rooms where men begged, and she had watched him smile while he took everything from them. She had carried his messages. She had done his dirty work, quietly, with her hands folded and her eyes lowered, because that was what a good right hand did.

The cells did not shock her. The gun did not shock her. What worried her was the girl in the back seat.

She had hated Sienna. It was strange to say it now. She had hated her, and not only because Sienna might take her place, her name, and the white dresses. It was something smaller and harder to admit. Sienna still had something Carina had lost a long time ago.

She was still soft in the middle. After everything, she still threw up when she saw a man die. She is still kind, Carina thought. She still has her innocence. And Carina could not stop looking at it in the mirror, like a light she was not allowed to touch.

In the back seat, Helena kept her eyes on her daughter.

She had seen all of this before, and worse. Since the day Konstantin had forced this life on her, the killing, the papers, the silence, she had learned to watch without blinking. She had learned to bury things so deep that they stopped hurting. She could see a man die and set the table an hour later.

But none of that mattered now. She did not care about the Don. She did not care about the plan, or the papers, or even herself.

She cared about one thing. Her daughter’s face, pale against the window. Please, she thought. Please let her be all right.

In the front seat, Viktor stared at the road.

He was a king in his own world. Men moved when he spoke. He had done hard things, and he did not lie to himself about them. But he had principles, and he had lines he did not cross. He knew how this world worked.

He knew that this was how you broke people. You showed them the worst thing you could do, and then you smiled and asked them to dinner. He understood it. He had even used pieces of it himself.

But he had never watched someone he loved go through it.

Sienna, bent over and shaking, with his hand on her back. He would carry that picture for the rest of his life. It had cracked something in him, and he did not think it would close.

Get her out, his mind said, over and over. Get her out of this. Get her out of all of it. The dark world had never felt so dark.

And Sienna sat between all of them with her eyes half shut.