Chapter 72: I really wish I could leave

Sienna had always wanted to leave. If she was honest with herself, some nights she had lain awake in this very bed and dreamed of nothing else, of a life far away from Viktor, from Elena’s cold eyes, from Aliya’s careful smiles that never quite reached anywhere real.

But she would be a fool to trust these people. A fool to believe that any of them, standing in her room uninvited, offering her freedom wrapped in paper and pretty words, actually wanted to see her walk out of this house whole and safe.

Whatever they wanted from her, it was not her happiness. She was sure of that much, at least.

"I really wish I could leave," Sienna said quietly, letting her shoulders drop, letting her voice tremble just enough to sound believable. "But I’m scared. I’m afraid of what Viktor will do to you." She lowered her eyes, staring down at her own hands folded in her lap. "I’m sorry. I know what he can do. I’ve seen what he can do. I can’t put more people in danger. I’ve accepted my fate."

She said it the way a helpless woman might say it. Small. Defeated. The kind of voice that made people stop looking too closely, because they believed they already understood exactly what kind of woman was sitting in front of them.

"You fool," Elena snapped, disgust curling across her face. "Stay here, then, and die." She turned sharply, her heels clicking against the floor as she moved toward the door.

"Well," Aliya said, following after her, "you asked for this."

Marcel said nothing at all. He only looked at Sienna for one long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, and then he nodded, once, and turned to follow the two women out of the room.

The door shut. The lock clicked. And Sienna was alone again.

She sat still for a moment, listening, making sure their footsteps had truly faded down the hallway before she let out the breath she had been holding.

She knew, without a single doubt, that the three of them were up to something. People did not walk into a locked room with divorce papers and soft threats out of nowhere. There was always a second plan waiting behind the first one, especially in a house like this.

So Sienna moved quickly.

She pulled the pillows from the far side of the bed and arranged them carefully under the blanket, shaping them into something that might, from a quick glance through a cracked door, look like a sleeping body. It was not perfect.

It would not fool anyone who looked too closely. But she was not planning on giving anyone the chance to look closely.

She grabbed her laptop, slid her feet into a pair of flat shoes, quiet ones, the kind that made almost no sound against hardwood floors, and slipped out of the room.

By now, she had spent enough time in this house to know exactly where every camera was hidden. She had memorized their angles weeks ago, back when she first realized that a woman in her position needed to know every exit, every blind spot, every crack in the walls of her own cage.

She moved through the hallway carefully, keeping close to the walls, slipping through each blind spot like she had rehearsed it a hundred times in her mind, because in a way, she had.

She heard their voices before she saw them.

"I told you this would not work," Marcel was saying, his voice tight with frustration. "And if Viktor finds out, he will not spare any of us."

"If we can’t get her to walk into the trap for the enemy," Elena said, "then the enemy can come to her instead."

There was a pause. The sound of a phone being lifted to an ear.

"Listen," Elena said, her voice shifting into something colder, more businesslike, clearly speaking to someone else now, someone on the other end of the line. "Guess who is home alone. Viktor’s little librarian wife."

Sienna froze where she stood, pressed flat against the wall just out of sight, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears that she was almost afraid it would give her away.

So this was their plan all along.

Not a rescue. Not mercy. A trap. They had never wanted to save her at all. They wanted her alone, unguarded, easy to reach, and now they were handing her location to whoever was on the other end of that call, whoever Viktor’s enemies might be.

She needed to leave. Now.

But leaving the mansion meant getting past the guards, the ones stationed at every door, every gate, watching for exactly this kind of thing.

Sienna’s eyes swept the garage as she crept closer, scanning quickly, until she spotted a car parked near the far wall, sleek and quiet, clearly one of the electric ones Viktor kept in his collection.

She moved fast, climbing carefully into the trunk before she could talk herself out of it, pulling it shut behind her with a soft, careful click.

She had no idea whose car it was. She did not know where it would take her. But whoever drove it out of this place would be driving her out too, and being electric meant it would be quiet, easy enough for her to slip into its system later if she needed to reroute it, redirect it, make it hers for as long as she needed.

A moment later, she heard voices approaching, footsteps crossing the garage floor.

"Well," a voice said, low and hurried, "it’s better we leave before they get here."

And then the car doors opened, the engine humming softly to life, and the vehicle began to move.

The drive felt endless.

At first, all Sienna could hear was the low rumble of the engine beneath her, the tires eating up the road at a speed that made the trunk shake gently around her.

Then the music started, loud, thumping through the speakers, bass heavy enough that she could feel it in her chest even from where she lay curled up in the dark.

It had to be Marcel’s car. She was almost certain of it now. No one else in that house drove like this, as the world owed him speed and nothing else.