Chapter 18
SIENNA
Morning comes too early, but the second I step outside, something in me lifts.
It’s ridiculous, maybe, after everything that happened yesterday. The poison. The ambulance. Camille. Ethan. Viktor. All of it hanging over the estate like a storm that never fully moved on.
And still, I feel it.
The pull of a wedding morning.
I’ve loved this part of it for as long as I can remember.
Not the performance, not the money. The structure of it.
The order. The way dozens of small moving parts have to come together at exactly the right time.
The way a blank space turns into something planned and beautiful because someone cared enough to think through every detail.
I love the quiet before guests arrive. The last checks.
The flowers catching morning light. The small panic no one else sees and the satisfaction of smoothing it out before it becomes visible.
I love the structure of it, the way a hundred moving parts can become one beautiful thing for a few hours if enough people care and one person is paying attention.
That’s why I got into this in the first place. Not for the dresses or the staged photos or the fake speeches people write to sound sentimental. For this part. The making of it.
Nadine is beside me with a clipboard and a mug of coffee gone half-cold, already moving through the schedule like she slept far better than I did.
“Chapel flowers are in,” she says. “String quartet is due in twenty. Photographer wants the bride downstairs by eleven, which means she’ll come down at eleven thirty and act like that was always the plan.”
I smile despite myself. “That sounds right.”
We walk the edge of the lawn together, checking chairs, aisle spacing, the placement of the arrangements, the backup shade stands if the sun gets too strong. Staff cross back and forth with trays, linen, cables, flowers. The whole place is waking up into usefulness.
And under all of it, there’s something else.
Men.
Not guests. Not staff. Not obvious security either.
They’re moving around the grounds in the kind of way that is meant not to be noticed.
One near the tree line pretending to look at his phone.
Another by the path to the side terrace.
One farther out near the hedge, walking slowly enough to look casual and not quite managing it.
Viktor’s men.
The thought comes easily now.
Yesterday I looked up what pakhan meant. I shouldn’t have, but of course I did. A boss. The head of a bratva organization. The man at the top.
He’s the big bad wolf. He’s also the father of my baby.
I watch one of the men glance toward the house and then away again, and my stomach tightens.
Nadine follows my gaze. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just noticing we seem to have acquired extra help.”
Her mouth tightens slightly. “Yes.”
She doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t ask. There’s no point. Everyone in this house knows more than they’re saying.
Across the lawn, I spot Yuri. He’s standing near the side path, talking to one of the men for a second before dismissing him with a small movement of his hand. Then his eyes lift and land on me.
He doesn’t look away.
There’s nothing openly hostile in it. No glare. No obvious challenge. But I still get the feeling he doesn’t like me.
Nadine says something about the ribbon on the front chairs, and I drag my attention back to the work.
“Do we keep the ivory?” I ask.
She nods. “Camille wanted white, but the white disappears against the flowers.”
“Then ivory stays.”
She makes a note.
A gust of wind moves across the lawn, lifting the edge of my dress and carrying the scent of cut grass and damp earth with it. It should feel peaceful. Instead, it has the feeling of impending doom. I tell myself it’s anxiety, pure nerves.
I crouch to adjust the edge of one of the aisle arrangements and tell myself to focus.
Flowers. Chairs. Timing. Things I can still control.
But even while I’m working, I can feel those men moving at the edges of the grounds, trying to disappear into the scenery and failing just enough that I keep noticing them.
And every time I do, I think of Viktor.
By nine, the lawn looks the way it’s supposed to. Chairs lined up. Flowers in place. The aisle straight. The musicians setting up off to one side. Staff moving with a little more confidence now that they have things to do with their hands.
That helps everyone.
It helps me too.
Nadine sends one of the younger servers back inside for fresh water for the bridal suite, then turns to me. “Can you check the chapel entrance one more time? I want to make sure the arrangements aren’t blocking the photographer’s angle.”
“I’ll do it.”
I take the side path toward the chapel and feel the change immediately. Less noise from the lawn. More shade. A little cooler under the trees.
And then I hear a car door slam somewhere near the drive.
I stop and look back.
More people arriving. Hair and makeup, maybe. Or one of the late family members who’ll act like everyone else has been waiting for them specifically. This should all feel normal. Busy wedding morning, little problems, people rushing in with coffee and garment bags and too much confidence.
Instead, everything still feels slightly off. Like the whole estate is pretending to be calm while something underneath it keeps moving.
At the chapel entrance, I adjust one of the arrangements by a few inches and step back to look at it. “Better,” I murmur to myself.
“Talking to flowers now?”
I turn.
Viktor is standing a few feet away, jacket on, tie perfect, face unreadable in the morning light. My whole body reacts before my mind does.
I hate that.
I also missed him.
That part is worse.
I straighten and fold my arms loosely, mostly so I have something to do with them. “They’re easier than people.”
His mouth shifts, not quite a smile. “That depends on the flowers.”
I glance at the path behind him. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere important?”
“I am,” he says, softly.
He looks tired. Not messy, not even visibly strained, but I can see it anyway. In the set of his eyes. In the way he’s standing a little too still.
“You didn’t sleep,” I say.
He looks at me for a second. “Neither did you.”
Fair.
I look past him toward the lawn. “Your men are making everyone nervous.”
“They’re meant to.”
“Wonderful.”
“They’re also meant to keep today from getting worse.”
I meet his eyes then.
There it is again. The quiet reminder that yesterday actually happened, that none of this is just pre-wedding nerves and staff stress and family drama.
Someone nearly died.
Something is wrong.
He knows more than he’s saying.
I want to ask, but I know better than to do it out here.
Instead I say, “Yuri looks like he’d rather throw me off the property than say good morning.”
That gets a real smile out of him this time, brief but unmistakable. “That’s just how he looks before noon.”
“No,” I say. “That’s how he looks at me.”
Viktor’s expression settles again. “Yuri looks at everyone like a problem until proven otherwise.”
“Comforting.”
“It isn’t meant to be.”
I exhale and look back at the flowers because if I keep looking at him too long, I’ll start remembering things I absolutely should not be remembering standing beside a chapel in daylight.
“Sienna.”
Just my name. Low enough that it changes the air anyway.
I keep my eyes on the arrangement. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“That voice.”
A pause.
Then, very mildly, “I wasn’t aware I had one.”
I laugh despite myself, then immediately regret it because now I’ve let the mood soften and that’s the last thing I need.
I turn toward him again. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze moves over my face once, as if checking something. Making sure I’m steady. That I’m really here. That I’m not avoiding him so much as trying very hard not to fall into him again.
The answer, when it comes, is simple. “I wanted to see you.”
That shouldn’t hit as hard as it does. I look down at my shoes for half a second, just to break the force of it. Then I say, “That’s not a good enough reason.”
“It was for me.”
The worst part is that I know he means it.
I hear footsteps on the path before I can answer. One of the florists, arms full of greenery, coming our way.
I step back at once.
His eyes flick to my face, then to the extra space I’ve put between us.
“I have to work,” I say, a little too quickly. “Nadine needs me on the lawn.”
He looks past me toward the lawn, then back at me. “That isn’t the reason.”
I force a small shrug. “It’s one of them.”
He says nothing.
I can feel him waiting again, reading too much, seeing too much, and all I can think about is Camille standing in my room last night with that photo on her phone and that ugly, pleased little smile on her face.
The last thing I need is a scandal.
“There are people everywhere,” I say. “And if we stand here talking too long, someone will notice.”
Then, because he is still Viktor and apparently incapable of letting a thing go entirely, he says, quieter, “Did something happen last night?”
I hate how direct that is. I hate more that for one weak second I want to tell him. About Camille. About the photo. About the threat. About how quickly everything around him turns into leverage.
So I shake my head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe that for a second. “Sienna.”
“I mean it.”
That part, at least, is true. I can handle it. I’ve handled worse. Maybe not better, but worse.
He exhales, slow and controlled, and I can see the effort it costs him not to push. “You keep making that sound like reassurance,” he says.
“It is reassurance.”
“For you, perhaps.”
I almost smile at that, but it fades quickly.
Because he’s still standing there, still too close even with the distance I made, still looking at me like he wants to reach for me and is choosing not to. And that is somehow more intimate than touching would be.