Chapter 28: Viktor chose this dress

Then she smiled. The smile of someone who had just enjoyed themselves. And walked away.

Sienna stood in the gold dress in front of the mirror and stared at the empty doorway. If you plan on staying here.

The nerve, she thought. The absolute, categorical, gold-plated NERVE of this entire house and everyone in it. She took a breath.

Smoothed the front of the dress.

Looked at herself in the mirror one more time, gold fabric, chin up, the face of a woman who had been kidnapped and drugged and married and betrayed and had almost reached a gate and had been kissed against a wall as punishment and had survived all of it without once letting anyone see her actually break.

Fine, she told her reflection. Let’s go see what new disaster is waiting downstairs.

Another Mrs. Kessler. She picked up the small gold clutch that had been left with the dress. Of course there is. Of course.

She walked to the door. Stopped.

If he was already married, she thought, with a cold clarity that was rapidly replacing the tears, I am going to find that gate, and I am going to walk through it, and I don’t care what shoes I’m wearing.

She stepped into the hallway. Started down the stairs.

Gold dress. Chin level. The walk she’d been practicing since day one of this ridiculous situation, the walk that said I belong here, even when every cell in her body was screaming the opposite.

Let’s go meet Mrs. Kessler, she thought grimly. And let’s see exactly what kind of new drama is waiting at the bottom of these stairs.

Because apparently, one kidnapping, one forced marriage, one drugging, one cheating ex-boyfriend, and one gate that was almost within reach. Was not enough.

This week. For Sienna Vale.

The stairs curved downward into the grand hall. Somewhere below, something was waiting.

Sienna descended toward it with the gold dress trailing behind her and the expression of a woman who had run out of surprises to be surprised by.

She was, she would shortly discover, wrong about that.

The hall was empty. Or appeared to be.

Sienna stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked around, and thought well, perhaps Mrs. Kessler had changed her mind and felt the specific relief of a problem that had solved itself without her involvement.

"Fifteen minutes." A pause. "Ten seconds."

Sienna turned.

The woman was seated in the high-backed chair by the window, as she had grown there. Older. Immaculate.

The kind of put-together that required staff and time and the absolute conviction that you deserved both. Her hair was perfect.

Her posture was a statement. Her eyes moved over Sienna with the slow, comprehensive assessment of someone pricing an item at an auction and finding it disappointing.

This, Sienna thought, is Elena Kessler. She knew it the way you know certain things. Instinctively. Completely.

Elena rose from the chair. Crossed the room. Stopped in front of Sienna and let her eyes travel up, down, up again, with the unhurried cruelty of someone who had practiced this particular look until it was an art form.

"Did your parents," she said pleasantly, "not teach you about modesty?" Sienna kept her face still.

"Viktor chose this dress."

Something flickered in Elena’s eyes. Then her hand shot out and grabbed the fabric at Sienna’s neckline, not pulling, just gripping, the grip of a woman making a point about ownership.

"What the hell..." Sienna yanked back.

"Gold on your skin." Elena’s voice was almost thoughtful. Conversational. The tone of someone delivering an aesthetic opinion to a person who hadn’t asked for one. "It’s like draping Versace silk over a stitcher rat."

The room went very quiet.

Did Sienna’s brain just process the sentence? Did this woman just compare me to a stitcher rat while wearing pearls before nine in the morning?

"Get your hands..." Sienna said, very carefully, very clearly, "off of me."

Elena reached for the coffee cup on the side table.

Sienna saw it coming approximately half a second before it happened, that half second being the difference between a direct hit and a glancing drop that caught the edge of her sleeve. The hot liquid splashed, stung, and soaked into the gold fabric in a spreading stain.

Elena looked at it with an expression of theatrical sorrow.

"Such a shame." A small sigh. "Now it matches." Her eyes lifted to Sienna’s face. "A ruined dress. A perfectly good Versace."

Something went very calm inside Sienna. The particular calm that lives on the other side of the point where patience runs out.

Her hand connected with Elena’s cheek.

Clean. Sharp. The exact same instinct that had handled one of Viktor’s men on her first morning was apparently still operational.

Elena’s head turned with the impact. Sienna hit her again. Then she grabbed the teapot.

The contents landed on Elena’s immaculate outfit with a thoroughness that Sienna found, in the moment, deeply satisfying.

"How DARE you..."

"Touch me again," Sienna said, stepping back, chest heaving, the gold dress stained and her eyes absolutely blazing, "and I will show you what real manners look like where I come from."

She turned for the door.

And walked directly into two maids.

Of course, she thought. Of course, they were waiting.

They grabbed her arms, not gently, with the specific enthusiasm of people who had been hoping for an excuse, and pressed her back against the wall with the efficient coordination of women who had decided their loyalties long before this morning.

Sienna assessed. Calculated. Decided she could handle one, possibly both, but not before Elena. Elena was already moving.

Straightened her clothes. Smoothed her hair. The performance of a woman reassembling herself after an inconvenience. Her eyes had changed, though. The theatrical cruelty was gone. What was underneath it was quieter and considerably more honest.

She crossed to the side table. Picked up the knife.

The decorative letter opener, heavy, silver, with an edge that caught the morning light in a way that decorative items weren’t supposed to.

"Accidents," Elena said softly, walking toward Sienna with the unhurried confidence of a woman who had two maids doing the difficult part, "happen all the time in a house this size."

Sienna stood against the wall. Kept her breathing even. Did not let her eyes show a single thing.

Monsters, she thought, with a cold, clear fury. They are actual, literal monsters, and I am stuck in a house full of.