Chapter 82: Shopping Spree

Because as much as she loved her best friend, as much as Aria’s endless chatter had kept her sane through the last two chaotic days, she couldn’t quite deny that Viktor wasn’t entirely wrong either. Still, agreeing with him out loud felt like handing him a small victory she wasn’t ready to give.

"Is it true?" Viktor asked, his thumb moving slowly, absently, across the back of her hand. "Between her and me. Who do you love more?"

"Seriously?" Sienna said, forcing out a small, disbelieving laugh, trying desperately to sound unaffected despite the way her pulse refused to settle.

"Aria is my best friend. She’s like a sister to me." She swallowed hard, very aware of how close his face still was to hers. "And you..."

She stopped there. The rest of the sentence simply refused to form, tangled somewhere between everything she was supposed to feel about him and everything she actually did.

Love was for the weak, she reminded herself again, quickly, desperately. And definitely not for a man like Viktor. But sitting here now, his hand wrapped around hers, his eyes steady and searching on her face, the words felt thinner than they had that morning in the hallway, harder to hold onto.

"Don’t answer that," Viktor said finally, something almost like amusement flickering across his face as he watched her struggle. "I can be very charming too, you know."

Sienna huffed out a breath, grateful for the small reprieve, and looked away from him, out toward the window, watching the city blur past in streaks of color.

Viktor leaned back into his seat then, some of the intensity easing out of his posture, though his hand remained wrapped loosely around hers.

"Tell me something," he said after a moment, his voice shifting into something lighter, more curious. "How did you leave the house without a single camera catching you? I’ve reviewed the footage myself. There’s nothing. Not one frame."

Sienna glanced at him sideways, surprised by the question, by the genuine curiosity in his voice rather than any trace of anger. "You’re not mad?" she asked carefully. "That I ran away?"

"No," Viktor said simply. "Not about that."

"Of course," Sienna said, some of the earlier fear creeping back into her voice as she thought back to that morning, to Elena’s cold fury, to Marcel’s strange offer wrapped around a hidden agenda.

"If I had stayed, I probably would have died." She shook her head slowly, staring back out the window. "I actually thought Marcel might be a decent person, for a little while. But it seems like no one in your world can really be trusted."

Viktor’s jaw tightened at that, something sharp and dangerous flickering behind his eyes before he smoothed it away again. "I’ll take care of it," he said, his voice low and certain. "You don’t have to worry about any of them anymore. I promise you, Sienna. I will always protect you."

"Yeah," Sienna said quietly, still looking out the window, watching the mall come slowly into view ahead of them. "And you weren’t there."

The words landed heavier than she meant them to, quiet but sharp, cutting straight through whatever softness had settled between them in the car.

Viktor opened his mouth, clearly searching for some kind of response, some way to answer that particular truth, but before he could find the right words, the car pulled smoothly to a stop in front of the mall entrance.

Sienna didn’t wait for him.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed the door open herself, stepping out onto the pavement before he could even reach for his own door handle, before he could come around to open it for her the way he always insisted on doing.

A few feet away, Aria’s car pulled in right alongside them, and the moment Aria climbed out, Sienna practically ran toward her, needing, suddenly, the easy, uncomplicated comfort of her best friend’s presence far more than she needed whatever complicated tangle of feelings still sat waiting for her back inside that car.

"Everything okay?" Aria asked, immediately catching the tension still lingering in Sienna’s shoulders.

"Fine," Sienna said, forcing a small smile, reaching for Aria’s hand and lacing their fingers together the way they always had since they were kids. "Let’s just go shopping."

Aria studied her for one more second, clearly not entirely convinced, but she let it go, squeezing Sienna’s hand once in silent understanding before pulling her toward the mall entrance.

Behind them, Viktor finally stepped out of the car, watching the two women walk away hand in hand, something complicated and unreadable settling over his features as he followed a few careful steps behind, giving Sienna the space she so clearly needed, even if every instinct in him seemed to want to close that distance instead.

"I’m going to make my uncle feel it," Aria announced, her voice bright with mischief as they stepped through the tall glass doors of the mall, cool air washing over them. "In his bank account. That’s how I’m making him pay for upsetting you."

"Come on, Aria," Sienna said, laughing despite herself, still trying to shake off the heaviness from the car ride. "I really don’t need anything."

"Of course you do," Aria said, waving a hand dismissively, already scanning the wide, gleaming corridor of shops ahead of them like a general surveying a battlefield. "Just leave everything to me."

And with that, Aria went to work.

It quickly became clear that shopping was not simply something Aria enjoyed, it was something she had elevated into a full performance, a skill she had clearly spent years perfecting.

She moved from store to store with startling speed and confidence, pulling dresses off racks without even glancing at the price tags, matching them instantly with shoes, holding pairs of sunglasses up against Sienna’s face, and either nodding sharply in approval or shaking her head and tossing them aside without a second thought.

"Get that, and that, and that one too," Aria said, pointing rapid-fire at a rack of dresses while a store assistant scrambled to keep up, arms already full.

"This will go with this, and this goes with this. No, wait, change that. Get me the emerald necklace instead. Bring out the most expensive piece you have."