Chapter 94: Decide what you want to do next

Sienna forced herself to catch her breath, slow and deliberate, her hand tracing down the side of her dress until her fingers found the small, familiar weight tucked carefully between her thigh and the fabric.

The gun was the one Viktor had gifted her earlier that morning. She hadn’t thought to bring it tonight for any real reason beyond his insistence, but standing there now, feeling the cold shape of it pressed against her skin, she felt something in her chest steady, just slightly.

She hadn’t been holding a weapon the last time those men came for her.

She had been unarmed, helpless, standing in the doorway of her foster home the night they arrived, watching them tear through the house like a storm that had been building for years, watching them find her adopted brother first, the only person in that entire family who had ever looked at her with something close to real love, and watching them end his life without hesitation, without mercy, simply because he stood between them and her.

That was why the rest of the family had hated her afterward. Why had she become something poisonous in their eyes, a curse wearing a young girl’s face, blamed silently and endlessly for a death none of them had the courage to admit was never truly her fault at all.

When she left that house years later, she had believed, foolishly, desperately, that she had finally outrun them.

But they found her again at the university, the same cold, careful men slipping quietly into her life once more, and she had understood then, with brutal clarity, that outrunning them would never be as simple as changing addresses or names.

Now, standing in this small, elegant powder room, staring at her own pale reflection, Sienna understood something else entirely.

Whatever this was, whatever debt those men believed she owed, it likely had nothing to do with anything she herself had done. It had to do with her birth parents.

Whoever they had been. Whatever they had done, or failed to do, or stolen, or betrayed, long before Sienna had ever drawn her first breath.

She would not keep paying for a debt that was never hers to begin with.

She had memorized his face that night, every sharp line of it, burned carefully into her memory the way she used to memorize anatomy diagrams back when medical school still felt like a future she was allowed to have.

Whoever he was, whatever he had come here to do, she was ready to face him now, properly, with a clear head and a steady hand.

She tucked the gun back carefully into place, smoothed her hands once more over her dress, and retouched the corner of her lipstick in the mirror, drawing herself back together piece by careful piece.

She was reaching for the door handle when it opened from the outside instead.

Aliya stepped through first, Elena close behind her, both of them sweeping into the small room with the easy, entitled confidence of women who had never once in their lives worried about being unwelcome anywhere.

Sienna’s stomach dropped. For one disorienting second, the elegant powder room around her blurred at the edges, replaced by the memory of her own foster home, the sound of breaking glass, the smell of smoke and fear.

She closed her eyes briefly, forcing herself back into the present, forcing herself to remember exactly where she was standing now, and exactly who she had become since that night.

She knew, with quiet certainty, that falling apart in front of these two women was simply not an option. But she also knew, with equal certainty, that holding herself together completely was going to be nearly impossible.

"Lucky you, escaping like that," Aliya said, her voice smooth and mocking, a small, satisfied smile curling at the corner of her mouth.

"You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. No wonder Viktor lets his guard down around you." She tilted her head slightly, studying Sienna with cold, calculating eyes. "Now let’s see if you care about him half as much as he seems to care about you."

She held out a thin file, extending it toward Sienna with two fingers, as if the contents inside were something distasteful she couldn’t wait to be rid of.

"What is this?" Sienna asked warily, not moving to take it.

"Read it," Aliya said simply.

Sienna took the file slowly, her hands still not entirely steady, and opened it, scanning the pages inside. Her eyes moved faster the longer she read, disbelief tightening in her chest with every line.

Viktor was adopted.

Not a true blood Kessler at all, the documents claimed, but the son of a woman who had already been pregnant before she ever married Don Kessler, a secret buried carefully for decades, hidden behind money and silence and the kind of ruthless control that only a family like the Kesslers could afford to maintain.

"Imagine if this got out," Aliya said, watching Sienna’s face carefully, clearly savoring every flicker of shock that crossed it.

"Do you really think people would still support him? With that temper of his, that arrogance? Half the families in this city already despise him as it is. This would be all the excuse they need to turn on him completely." She smiled thinly.

"Marcel would make a far better heir, once it’s established that Viktor was never truly a Kessler to begin with."

Sienna’s grip tightened on the edge of the file, her mind racing.

"So," Aliya continued, her voice turning almost pleasant now, almost bored, as though she were discussing nothing more serious than a dinner reservation.

"You have two choices. Leave him. Quietly. Or I make this public, and I make absolutely certain that every single enemy Viktor has ever made comes after him at once." She shrugged one shoulder delicately.

"Take your time. Decide what you want to do next."

"Don’t take too long," Elena added coldly, already turning toward the door. "These things have a way of writing themselves, with or without your permission."