Chapter 40: And you’re already causing trouble

Because Sienna had seen it, had felt it coming the way you felt weather, the change in pressure, the gathering of it, and she had simply moved. Not dramatically. Not a lurch or a stumble.

Just a single, economical step to the left, smooth and unhurried, like a woman changing her mind about where to stand. Aliya’s hand connected with nothing. The momentum carried her forward.

Her heel caught the edge of the marble, the wet edge, where the wine had spread, and nobody had quite finished cleaning, and she went, not all the way down, not quite, but enough. A stumble, a lurch, both arms out, the practiced elegance of the whole evening dissolving in one graceless second.

Elena caught her. Both hands, firm and immediate. "I have you," she said quietly, and pulled her upright.

And that was when Aliya’s dress, the beautiful black mermaid dress that had been so perfectly chosen for tonight, caught on something, the edge of a chair, a shard of something from the vase, the universe simply deciding it had heard enough and tore.

Not a small tear.

A real one. Starting at the hip, running down, the sound of expensive fabric giving way, carrying with a clarity that several nearby conversations paused to register.

The silence was brief. But it was loud. Aliya stood in it.

Elena’s hands still on her arms. The dress gaping at her side. The chandeliers continue their indifferent gold. The room continued its careful not-watching that was entirely watching.

Her face, for one unguarded, unperformed moment, was just a young woman who had come to this party to win something back and had lost considerably more than she arrived with.

Then Elena said her name, very quietly. And something closed in Aliya’s face. She straightened. Lifted her chin. Took one step, then another, Elena’s hand still on her arm, and she walked toward the exit with her back straight and her eyes forward and the torn dress following her like the last line of a story she hadn’t wanted to be in.

She didn’t run. Not until she was through the doors. And then she did.

The sound of it faded. Sienna stood in the red dress in the middle of the room and looked at the doors through which Aliya had disappeared and felt nothing cruel.

Nothing triumphant. Just the quiet, slightly tired clarity of a woman who had been in this room for less than an hour and had already survived approximately four distinct catastrophes. She reached for a fresh glass of champagne from a passing tray.

Took a long, slow sip. Okay, she thought. Okay.

Behind her, she felt Viktor’s presence, that particular gravity, and she turned to find him already looking at her, the gun gone, his jacket straightened, the whole incident apparently filed away in whatever place he filed things he considered handled.

His expression was, as always, largely unreadable.

But his eyes moved over her face with that same checking-for-damage thoroughness from earlier, and when he found none, something in him settled barely, quietly, in a way she was only starting to learn to recognise.

"Still okay?" he said. Sienna looked at him.

At this man who had fired a gun at a gala. Who had called her wife like it meant something. Who had thrown money at another man’s feet and called his priceless vase a fake and stood between her and a room full of enemies like it required no particular thought.

"Perfectly fine," she said. And almost meant it. Almost.

Until she saw, over Viktor’s shoulder, Don Amel standing with his back to them, phone pressed to his ear, his other hand loose at his side. And the look on his face, reflected in the dark window behind him, was not the look of a man who had let something go.

"I leave you for five minutes." Viktor appeared at her shoulder, his voice low, almost conversational, the tone of a man who was choosing, with some effort, not to be several other things right now.

"And you’re already causing trouble." Sienna didn’t answer. She was watching Don Amel.

He was still on the phone. Still facing the window. Still wearing that expression she had caught in the reflection, the one that had nothing to do with the gracious host who had smiled and said Please, leave and straightened his cufflinks.

That man had been a performance. This man, reflected in dark glass with a phone at his ear and the loose, patient stillness of someone issuing instructions.

This was the real one.

No proud man lets that slide, she thought. Not in front of that room. Not with those witnesses. He smiled and stepped back, and now he is on the phone, and the phone call is not good news for anyone.

She could feel it. The way the air in the room had changed, still the music, still the laughter, still the crystal and the candlelight, but underneath all of it, something had shifted into a different gear, and Sienna had spent enough time in libraries to know that the most important things were usually happening in the margins.

She turned to Viktor. "Viktor."

He was already looking at her. Reading her face the way he read everything quickly, completely, filing it away. "Can we leave?" she said. "Please."

"Why?" He tilted his head slightly. "The party hasn’t started." Something moved in his eyes, something that on any other face she would have called warmth. "I haven’t danced with my wife yet."

"Good for you," Sienna said. She picked up the front of the red dress. "I don’t want to be here for another minute." And she walked toward the door.

She walked fast. Not running, she would not run, not in this room, not with these eyes on her, but the kind of fast that meant something, heels clicking against marble, the red dress sweeping behind her with considerably more urgency than it had swept in.

She heard Viktor behind her. Heard, also, Don Amel’s voice smooth, sociable, the voice of a man who had reapplied his performance like a fresh coat of paint... "Viktor. Have a drink with me before you go, let’s.."