Chapter 99: Did you stay up all night?

Viktor found Sienna exactly where he expected, still hunched over her laptop, the early morning light spilling weakly through the curtains behind her.

The moment he opened the door, her hand shot up sharply, palm raised toward him, a clear, urgent signal to stay quiet. She looked, for all the world, like someone holding their breath, every muscle in her body coiled tight with focus.

"What are you doing?" Viktor asked anyway, ignoring the silent command, crossing the room slowly toward her.

"Did you stay up all night?" He studied the hollow, exhausted look in her eyes, the faint tremor in her fingers still hovering over the keyboard.

"Do I need to take that laptop away from you?"

Right as the words left his mouth, something on the screen shifted.

The final piece of bait she had carefully set the night before finally caught, and in that exact moment, the trap she had built began collapsing in on itself, the numbers she had been watching climb steadily for hours suddenly plunging downward all at once, fast and unstoppable, like a house built on nothing finally giving way.

Sienna closed her laptop calmly, almost lazily, and turned to look up at Viktor with a small, satisfied smile spreading slowly across her tired face.

"What’s funny?" Viktor asked, watching her carefully, unable to read exactly what had just happened.

"Nothing," Sienna said, already standing and stretching, exhaustion finally catching up with her all at once now that her work was done. "I’m going to bed, master."

She dropped face-first onto the bed without another word, pulling a pillow beneath her cheek with a contented sigh.

"Wait, I came to," Viktor started, stepping closer.

But Sienna had already yanked the blanket up over her head, disappearing beneath it entirely, leaving him standing there in the quiet morning light, staring down at the small, stubborn lump of blanket and pillow that used to be his wife, and wondering, not for the first time, exactly how much danger, and how much brilliance, he had actually married.

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Sienna slept through the entire morning, deep and undisturbed, the kind of sleep her body had clearly been demanding for hours before she finally allowed herself to give in to it. Viktor made sure nothing interrupted her rest.

When Aria arrived not long after breakfast, practically bouncing with impatience to hear all the details of the night before, she was stopped firmly at the bedroom door before she could even reach for the handle.

"My wife is resting," Viktor said simply, arms crossed, blocking the doorway with the immovable calm of a man who had no intention of being argued with.

Aria tried everything short of physically pushing past him, calling Sienna’s phone over and over, leaving increasingly dramatic voicemails threatening to break the door down herself if she didn’t get an answer soon. But there was nothing to be done. Sienna slept on, oblivious to all of it, until well past midday.

When she finally woke, her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. She stumbled into the shower first, letting the warm water wash away the last of her exhaustion, and it was only once she stepped back out, wrapped in a towel, that she noticed her phone lit up with a long string of missed calls and increasingly frantic texts.

"Damn it," she muttered, scrolling through them quickly before dialing Aria back.

"Aria, I’m sorry," she said the moment the call connected. "I slept off completely."

"Yeah," Aria said, her voice dry with amusement. "Your husband told me you were resting. Very sternly, might I add. Like a guard dog."

"Stop," Sienna said, laughing despite herself, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I was tired. I spent all of last night busy."

"Oh, I know exactly what you were busy doing," Aria said, and Sienna could practically hear the grin spreading across her friend’s face through the phone. "I saw what happened. Like I wouldn’t recognize a trap when I see one."

Sienna sat up straighter suddenly, alarm flashing through her. "Wait," she said quickly. "You didn’t actually trade on that stock, did you?"

There was a brief, guilty pause on the other end of the line. Aria had always been a little too eager, a little too quick to jump on anything that looked promising, and terrible, historically, at reading the warning signs Sienna usually left buried in plain sight for anyone paying close enough attention.

"Well," Aria admitted slowly, "I did. But you trained me better than that. I pulled my money back out in time. I’m not a greedy bastard like the Capris." She let out a low, delighted whistle. "Sienna, they lost a hundred million dollars overnight. A hundred million. You’re a genius."

Sienna leaned back against her pillows, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across her face despite herself.

"So where did all that money go?" Aria asked, curiosity clearly getting the better of her.

"You already know where," Sienna said simply. "And don’t ever trade on random stocks like that again. You could have lost everything if you’d misread it."

"It would have been worth it," Aria said, laughing. "I would give anything to have seen the look on Don Capri’s face this morning when he found out."

"Please," Sienna said, sitting up and running a hand through her damp hair, "let’s just keep this between us. I mean it, Aria."

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Kessler," Aria teased, drawing the title out in a mock formal tone.

Right as Sienna opened her mouth to respond, the bedroom door swung open.

Viktor stood in the doorway, his phone still in hand, his expression tight and unreadable, the particular kind of stillness he wore whenever something significant had just happened.

He had clearly just come from a call, and judging by the sharp edge in his eyes, it hadn’t been an ordinary one.

"I have to go," Sienna said quickly into the phone, already sitting up straighter, her earlier ease evaporating.

"Wait, what’s happening?" Aria asked, but Sienna had already ended the call, setting her phone aside and turning her full attention to Viktor.

"I just got off the phone with Don Capri," Viktor said, his voice low and controlled, though something dangerous simmered just beneath the surface of it. "Sienna. Come with me."