Chapter 98: A temporary separation

"I’ll let you know once it’s done," Sienna said, a small, satisfied smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, clearly enjoying the way his expression shifted from skepticism into something closer to genuine curiosity.

He studied her a moment longer, as if trying to decide whether to press her further, before apparently deciding against it, filing the matter away the way he seemed to file away every strange, unexplained skill she kept revealing to him one piece at a time.

"In the meantime," Sienna continued, steering the conversation forward before he could ask anything else, "what do we do about Aliya and your stepmother?"

Sienna was quiet for a moment, considering. "We could arrange a temporary separation," she said slowly. "I could move out, until..."

"No," Viktor cut in firmly, shaking his head. "Leave that to me as well."

Sienna’s eyebrows lifted slightly, surprise flickering across her face.

"Now," he said, straightening in his chair, "What do you need from me?" A faint, genuine smile finally broke across Viktor’s face, something warmer than the careful, calculated expressions he usually wore.

Sienna reached into the small clutch she had set down on the edge of his desk and pulled out her phone, scrolling quickly until she found the photo Aria had managed to snap earlier that evening, the tattooed man standing near the edge of the ballroom, half turned away from the camera.

She turned the screen toward Viktor, holding it steady.

"I want you to have some of your men follow this man," she said, her voice quiet but resolute. "I want to know who he is. Where he’s staying. Who does he work for? Everything."

Viktor took the phone from her carefully, studying the image for a long moment, his expression sharpening into something focused and dangerous.

"Who is he?" he asked, glancing back up at her.

Sienna held his gaze steadily, though something older and heavier moved behind her own eyes now, some shadow of the fear that had chased her into that powder room earlier that night.

"No one," she said quietly.

—-------------

"This man is new," Viktor said slowly, studying the photo again before handing the phone back to her. "I’d guess he’s Don Capri’s new business partner. He’s not from around here. I don’t recognize him from any of the usual circles."

"Why do you need to have people follow him?" he asked again, his eyes narrowing slightly, clearly waiting for a fuller answer than the one she’d given before.

Sienna slipped her phone back into her clutch, offering only a small, careful shrug. "Curiosity," she said. "I want to know who he works with. That’s all." She stood, smoothing the front of her dress. "Well, good night."

She turned and walked out of the study before he could press her any further, leaving Viktor sitting alone behind his desk, watching the empty doorway with a deep, unshakable feeling that there was far more to that answer than she was willing to give him.

He wasn’t going to let it go. Not really. Within minutes, he had already picked up his phone, dialing Marcus with quiet, clipped instructions to have someone track the tattooed man’s movements and dig up everything they could find on him by morning.

—

Upstairs, Sienna closed her bedroom door behind her and crossed straight to the small desk near the window, setting up her laptop with quick, practiced movements. Her mind was already racing ahead, sorting through everything she needed to do before she could finally rest.

She opened a secure connection first, testing the waters carefully, attempting to slip into a low-level FBI database the way she’d done a handful of times before, back when curiosity alone had been enough motivation to push her skills further than most people ever bothered to.

But the signal here was weaker than she liked, thinner and less stable than what she was used to working with, and she could feel the risk climbing with every passing second she stayed connected.

A trace like that, even a faint one, could give away far more about her location than she was willing to risk tonight.

She backed out slowly, careful and deliberate, closing the connection before it could fully establish.

She would need better equipment for something like that, a proper setup, something she hadn’t yet had the chance to build here in this house. That would have to wait.

Tonight, she had other work to finish first.

She opened a different program instead, one she trusted far more intimately than any government database, and began setting the pieces of her plan into motion.

If Don Capri’s new fortune was built on some clever legal financial scheme, then the fastest way to unravel it wasn’t hacking directly into his accounts.

It was something simpler, something far harder to trace back to her. A trap, laid carefully in plain sight, disguised as opportunity.

She created a series of small, carefully constructed trading positions, seeded quietly across several markets she knew, through her earlier research, connected loosely back to accounts tied to the Capri family’s newer business ventures.

She built the bait slowly, patiently, making sure each piece looked exactly like the kind of quick, lucrative opportunity a hungry, overconfident trader wouldn’t be able to resist.

Then she waited.

It didn’t take long.

By the time the numbers on her screen began climbing that night, Sienna already knew, with quiet, satisfied certainty, that the Capris had taken the bait. Someone on their end, likely this new business partner Viktor had mentioned, had spotted the same carefully placed opportunity she had built, and they were biting hard, pouring money in aggressively, clearly believing they had stumbled onto something profitable and easy.

Sienna leaned back slowly in her chair, watching the numbers rise, letting whoever was managing the Capri family’s trading continue exactly as they pleased for now. There was no rush. The trap worked best slowly, patiently, allowing her prey to grow comfortable, confident, greedy enough to keep pouring more and more resources into something that would eventually collapse entirely under its own weight, taking every dollar they’d invested down with it.

She studied the pattern carefully, watching each new transaction ripple across her screen, memorizing the particular rhythm of it, the small tells that told her exactly how deep this trader was willing to go, how far his own greed would carry him before caution finally caught up.

Soon, she thought, a small, satisfied smile settled over her tired face as she watched the numbers climb higher and higher into the dark, quiet hours of the night.

Soon, all of it would come crashing down at once.

—--

Sienna didn’t sleep at all last night. She sat curled in her chair long after the sun had dipped fully below the horizon and the house had gone quiet around her, her eyes fixed on the glowing screen in front of her, watching the numbers climb steadily higher with each passing hour.

Viktor didn’t sleep either.

He was already back in his study by early morning, dark circles forming faintly beneath his eyes, a cup of coffee going cold beside him as he worked through a stack of reports that had come in overnight. Marcus appeared in the doorway not long after sunrise, his expression grim, carrying with him the small, hard-won pieces of information his men had managed to gather.

"Boss," Marcus said carefully, stepping into the room. "We lost two men last night. They were killed trying to look into that guy from the party." He paused, letting the weight of that settle before continuing. "From what little we managed to pull before that happened, it looks like he’s connected to a cartel operating out of the Middle East. A dangerous one."

Viktor’s expression darkened immediately. "The Middle East is controlled by Don Konstantin," he said slowly, more to himself than to Marcus.

"You know him?" Marcus asked.

"No," Viktor said. "My father does. We met once, briefly, when I was very young." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "Are you certain this man is connected to Konstantin?"

"I’m not certain of anything, boss," Marcus admitted. "It could be a rival, for all we know. The only real lead we had came from that man you killed at the library that night. We managed to find some kind of link inside his apartment. That’s all we had to go on. And now the men who followed up on it are gone too."

Viktor’s jaw tightened, a cold, familiar anger settling behind his eyes. "Keep looking," he said finally. "But tell everyone to be careful. I want to know exactly how all of this connects back to my wife, and I want it done without losing anyone else."

"Yes, boss," Marcus said, already turning to leave.

Viktor sat alone for a moment longer after he’d gone, staring down at the scattered reports on his desk, before finally pushing back his chair and heading upstairs. He needed answers, and he was done waiting patiently for Sienna to decide when she felt like giving them to him.