Chapter 59: You’ll live

Sienna knelt beside Marco and went to work without hurry, without the frantic edge that had gripped the room a moment ago.

Her hands were steady in a way that made Viktor go quiet just watching her. She found the bullet, eased it free while Marco hissed through his teeth and swore under his breath, and she didn’t so much as flinch.

"Lucky you," she said simply, once it was out, setting it aside on the towel. "You’ll live."

She cleaned the wound, bandaged it tight and sure, and only when she was finished did she rise and try to step back, already turning to leave the way she always did once the moment had passed.

Viktor caught her wrist before she got far.

"Thank you," he said. Just that. No smile this time, no teasing edge to it, the words landing plain and unguarded, more honest than anything else he’d said to her all day.

Sienna looked at him for a moment, considering. Then her eyes drifted, almost idle, toward something else entirely, a laptop. A specific one. High-speed, plenty of RAM, the kind she’d use for real work, not the locked relic she’d cracked open out of boredom.

"A high-speed laptop’ll do for a thank you," she said, nodding toward it, and added, almost as an afterthought, "Thanks."

Viktor followed her gaze, then looked to Manuel. "Get it for her tomorrow."

Sienna blinked, caught off guard by how easily he’d agreed, no argument, no negotiation, nothing. But underneath the surprise was something warmer, something she didn’t let show on her face.

A laptop meant access. It meant she could finally check her messages, finally send word to Aria, and finally feel like more than a woman locked away in a house in the mountains with no way out.

"Well... thank you," she said again, quieter this time, and turned to walk away before the smile could reach her face where anyone might see it.

It got there anyway, slow and unstoppable, the moment her back was turned to the room.

Morning came fast, too fast, the kind of fast that came from a night spent half-listening for footsteps even in sleep. Sienna woke to find the laptop sitting on the table exactly where she’d imagined it the night before, exactly as she’d described it. Viktor had actually done it. Of all the things he’s stubborn about, she thought, he kept this one promise without an argument. Small mercies.

She didn’t waste the gift.

She slid out of bed, pulled the laptop into her lap, and went straight for her dark page the one corner of the internet that still belonged to her and no one else, the one place Viktor’s name meant nothing.

Two messages were waiting. One she was fairly sure had come from Manuel, careless enough with his digital footprint that she’d half-suspected him for days. The other, she couldn’t place at all, no signature, no pattern she recognized, just a name and a handful of words.

I missed this, she thought, and the realization surprised her a little, how much she’d missed simply being someone other than Viktor’s wife for five quiet minutes.

Footsteps in the hall.

She closed the laptop in one smooth motion and slid back down under the blanket, eyes shut, breathing slow and even, the same trick that hadn’t fooled him yesterday and clearly wasn’t going to fool him today either.

"I know you’re awake." Viktor’s voice, already amused, already certain. "Get ready. We’re moving to another location. This place might be compromised after last night."

Of course we are. Of course it is. Sienna sat up, not bothering to keep the dryness out of her voice. "If you’re going to keep moving me from place to place like luggage, it would be great if you gave me a heads-up next time." A pause, just long enough to make the next part land. "And you might just send me back to Philadelphia while you’re at it."

"Just get ready," Viktor said, already turning, already walking out, completely unbothered by the dig, which annoyed her more than if he’d actually responded to it.

She got ready anyway. There wasn’t much else to do.

By the time she came downstairs, the house was already half-disassembled around her, bags by the door, voices low and efficient. They moved out within the hour, the mountain roads eventually giving way to flatter ground as they crossed toward San Luca.

The new house was different, less isolated, the mountains traded for something closer to ordinary terrain, but it more than made up for it in the way it was locked down. Heavy security gates. Cameras she could spot without even trying. Locks on the doors that looked like they belonged to something other than a home.

Wherever I am, Sienna thought, eyeing the gate as it rolled shut behind them, he makes sure there’s no version of leaving.

The study was dark except for the glow of her screen, late enough that the rest of the house had gone quiet, the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel deliberate.

Sienna sat hunched over the security panel’s interface, fingers moving in short, frustrated bursts, testing one path after another against the system’s architecture. Forty-seven minutes. She knew exactly how long because some small, clinical part of her brain had been counting, the way it always did when a problem refused to crack open the way it should have.

Viktor stood by the window, his back to her, watching whatever there was to watch in the dark beyond the glass. He hadn’t moved in a while, either.

"You’ve spent forty-seven minutes staring at that security panel, Sienna." His voice came without him turning around, even and unhurried. "You aren’t calculating how to open it." A pause, just long enough to let the words settle. "You’re calculating how much voltage it would take to burn your hand off if you tried."

She didn’t answer right away. Her fingers paused over the keys, just for a second, and that second told him everything he needed to know.

Then he turned.