Chapter 281: You are my top priority

Viktor swore under his breath, once, in a language she did not know.

He did not argue. He saw the way her hands moved over the keys, steady and sure. He saw the line of her shoulders, and the way she had already stopped hearing him. This was her territory. She had a way of doing it that he did not.

He went back to the door.

He stood just inside the archway with his back against the stone and his head turned toward the passage. His hand rested near his belt where the gun used to be. In his other fist, he held the silenced pistol he had taken from Shemmel, down at his side.

"Hurry," he said.

"I am." The bar crept forward. Nine percent.

The room was quiet except for the whir of a fan and the faint hum of the screens. Seven men breathed in the corner. The screens showed the party going on, the glittering hall, the tables, the waiters with trays. A song had started. Somewhere in the middle of the floor, a few couples were dancing.

Eleven percent. Sienna’s eyes went from the bar to the great hall and back.

She looked for her mother on the screen. She found her at the head of the table, alone now. The Don’s chair beside her was empty. Helena sat with her back straight and her glass in her hand. She was not drinking. Her eyes kept moving to the doors. She knew something was wrong.

Fourteen percent. Sienna’s head felt strange. It started as a small buzzing behind her eyes. Then the edges of the screens went a little soft, like pictures seen through water. She blinked. She gripped the edge of the desk.

She had not eaten much. She had not drunk enough. And her heart, her wild, stubborn heart, had been running too fast for too long. Not now.

She felt it stumble under her ribs, one hard knock and then a pause and then two quick ones. She pressed her hand flat against her chest and breathed in through her nose, slowly, the way she had been taught.

The buzzing faded. The screens came back. Seventeen percent. She let out a long breath and took her hand away.

She did not turn around, but she felt Viktor’s eyes on her back. He had seen. He did not say anything, but she heard his weight shift against the wall.

"I am okay," she said, before he could ask. "I did not say anything."

Twenty-three percent. Down the passage, something moved.

It was very faint. It was not a footstep. It was more like a door closing, far away, and then another. Then a murmur of voices. Then the heavy tread of boots on stone, many of them, marching in step.

Viktor’s head came up. "They are coming in," he said. "From where?"

"The west. The garden doors." He listened. "A lot of them." Sienna did not look away from the screen. "How many minutes?" "I do not know. Not many."

She chewed her lip until she tasted blood. The bar moved so slowly that she wanted to reach through the glass and pull it along by the edge.

Far away, a voice shouted a name. Another answered. A door banged. The sound of running began, spreading outward through the house like a crack in ice.

On the great hall screen, a guard hurried in through the main doors and bent to whisper something in a man’s ear. The man straightened. His hand went to his jacket. Across the floor, two more men in black slid along the wall toward the head table.

They were going for Helena. "Viktor," Sienna said.

His whole body had gone still. His eyes were fixed on the screen, on the white-gowned woman at the long table and the men closing in from both sides. His fist tightened on the pistol. He looked at the door. He looked at her.

"Go get her," Sienna said.

"I cannot leave you."

"You can." Her voice was fierce and low. "You have to. They will reach her in a minute. If you are there, she lives. If you are not, I do not know."

"And you?"

"I will finish this." She did not turn. Her fingers did not stop moving. "I will lock the door. I will have the plan by the time you come back. Go get my mother."

He did not move. Seventy-one percent. "Viktor." Her voice softened, just a little. "Please. Go get my mother."

"No." He said it quietly, and it was the end of the argument. He stood in the middle of the guards’ room with the silenced pistol hanging at his side and his eyes on the door.

"You are my top priority, Sienna. Your mother will be fine."

"You don’t know that."

"I know." His mouth moved in something that was almost a smile. "She has been fooling that man for twenty years. She can survive a few minutes in a ballroom."

Sienna wanted to argue. The words were ready. But the bar was crawling forward on the screen, and the boots in the corridor were louder now, and she was so tired that her bones hurt. Part of her, a small, selfish part, was glad he had stayed.

She turned back to the desk and sat down. She put her hands on the keys. Down the corridor, the boots were getting louder.

Seventy-four. Seventy-six. She made her mind clear. It was a trick she had learned in her first year of medical school, standing over a table in a cold room with a scalpel in her hand. Do not think about who it is. Do not think about what happened. Think about the next small thing. She had used it in exams. She is using it now.

The next small thing was the bar.

She did not look at the screen that showed her mother. She did not look at the tied men in the corner, or at the black squares on the wall. She did not think about Aliya’s face. She watched the number, and she breathed in and out, and she kept her fingers still.

Eighty-three. Viktor stood at the door with his ear against the steel. Voices passed outside, a few doors down. Someone laughed, short and nervous. Someone else said, "East wing first." The boots moved on.

Ninety. Her heart gave a hard, wrong knock. She did not let it reach her face. Ninety-six. Ninety-nine. One hundred. The tablet chimed.

It was a soft, ordinary sound, like a phone telling you the battery was full. Sienna pulled the cable free with a shaking hand and held the tablet against her chest.

"I have it," she said. "I have it now. Let’s go." Viktor nodded.

He crossed the room in two steps and took her by the elbow. His hand was warm and steady. He looked her over once, quickly, like checking a gun before you leave the house, and his eyes stopped for half a second on her face.

"Can you walk?"

"I can walk."

"Tell me if you cannot."

"I will." She tucked the tablet into his hands, then pulled the sleeves down over her hands. She took the tablet back, opened the blueprint with one thumb and held it up between them, and the thin white lines glowed in the dim light.

She studied it for ten seconds.

It was all there. The grand hall, the stairs, the long wings, the kitchens, the cellars. And near the back of the house, drawn in a faint, old line, was a narrow corridor that was not on any of the new maps. It ran behind the pantry and down a short flight of steps and out to a door marked only with a small cross.

"There," she said. "The old servants’ passage. It lets out near the garden wall."

"Left side."

"The weak side."

"Show me."

She showed him. He looked, and nodded once, and she felt something in her loosen.

Viktor opened the door a crack. He listened. Then he slid out into the stone passage, and she followed, and he closed the steel behind them with a soft, final click.

He put his arm around her.

It was not for show. She was walking more slowly than she knew, and he held her up. His hand pressed against her waist, and his body was a wall on her left, and together they moved down the hallway toward the exits with the fewest guards.

On the other side of the house, an old man was looking at his watch.