Chapter 28
VIKTOR
I stand in the doorway and take in the scene.
Ethan is slumped against the wall, unconscious or close to it. Maksim is on his feet, breathing hard, blood at his mouth. Sienna is on the floor in a hospital gown and coat, one hand pressed to her stomach, her face pale and stunned.
For one moment, my mind refuses to arrange it properly.
Then Maksim says, “Thank God you’re here.” His voice is strained. Shaken. Almost relieved.
I look at him. Then at Ethan. Then at Sienna.
She tries to sit up straighter, but her body gives out halfway. She looks at me with wide, terrified eyes, and I see the exact second she realizes what this must look like.
“Maksim,” I say.
He wipes blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “The nurses called me after she disappeared. I had the CCTV checked. She left on her own.”
Sienna makes a small sound. “No.”
Maksim doesn’t even look at her.
“I tracked her here,” he says. “Ethan was already with her. They planned this.”
My grip tightens around the gun in my hand.
Sienna’s face drains completely. “Viktor,” she whispers.
Maksim takes a step closer to me. “She was going to lure you here and kill you. Her and Ethan. She said she’d let you think the child was yours until she got what she needed.”
I don’t answer.
I look at Sienna. She’s shaking. There’s blood on her mouth. Her wrists are raw. Her hair is loose around her face, tangled and damp with sweat. She looks like someone who has been dragged out of a hospital bed, not someone who has arranged a trap.
But Maksim is still talking, and every second I say nothing makes his voice steadier.
“She tried to attack me when I stopped her,” he says.
Sienna’s eyes fill, but she doesn’t plead. Maybe she’s too tired. Maybe she thinks I’ve already decided. Her hand slips from her stomach to the concrete as if she needs the floor to keep herself upright.
Maksim lowers his voice. “I know you believe in justice,” he says. “Do it now, before she gets away.”
For a second the whole hallway seems to narrow to the space between me and her.
Sienna looks at the gun. Then at me.
I raise it.
Her breathing stops.
The look on her face changes so slowly it nearly breaks something in me. Fear gives way to disbelief, then to something quieter. Acceptance. As if this is one more terrible thing she has no strength left to fight.
She closes her eyes. “I love you,” she whispers.
Maksim exhales beside me, almost in relief. “Good,” he says.
I pull the trigger.
The shot tears through the hallway.
Maksim jerks backward. His body hits the wall hard, one hand flying to his chest, eyes wide with shock. He slides down slowly, leaving a dark smear behind him, and lands on the floor with a sound that feels too small for what just happened.
Sienna’s eyes open.
She stares at me first. Then at him.
Maksim tries to breathe and fails once before finding enough air to speak. “Why?” he chokes.
I walk toward him.
He looks up at me, blood already gathering at the corner of his mouth. “I was your friend.”
I stop in front of him. “You betrayed me.”
His face twists. “You don’t know the truth.”
“No,” I say. “Not all of it.”
He gives a broken laugh, then coughs. Blood stains his teeth.
I glance at Sienna. She’s still on the floor, frozen now, tears on her face, one hand trembling near her stomach.
I look back at Maksim. “But I know she didn’t do this.”
His expression changes. Just enough. “You’re making a mistake,” he says.
“No. You made it.”
He breathes through his mouth, each breath wet and uneven. “I was your friend.”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s why you got this close.”
That shuts him up for a second.
“I will always chose her. I will always trust her. I will always love her.”
Sienna’s gaze cuts to me, tears now streaming down her face.
He tries to laugh, but it breaks halfway. “She’s lying to you.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
Maksim’s eyes flick toward Sienna, and for the first time I see real hatred there. Not performance. Not panic. Something smaller and nastier. “You’d choose her over everyone.”
“Yes.” The answer comes easily.
His face twists.
I crouch in front of him, not close enough for him to reach me. “I trusted you,” I say. “I let you near my family. I let you near her. You helped deliver my daughter, then you took her mother from a hospital bed.”
He says nothing.
That silence tells me more than another excuse would have.
“You don’t get to call yourself my friend.”
His breathing worsens. His hand slips a little on the blood soaking his shirt.
He gives a weak, ugly smile. “You thought Mikhail did this.”
I don’t answer.
Maksim laughs, but it turns into another cough. “Of course you do. I made sure you would.”
The room goes quiet. Behind me, Sienna is still shaking on the floor. Ethan is unconscious in the hallway. I keep my eyes on Maksim. “What did you do?”
He leans his head back against the wall, breathing hard. “What didn’t I? Ah, what a fool I was to think I could have the thing you had.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I say before it dawns on me.
“Alina,” I breathe. “So all of this was for her?”
“This and so much more. You were never worthy of her,” he tells me, his eyes full of venom. “Even after you discarded her, even after I had her in my arms, you still had your talons deep in her.”
“Alina doesn’t love me.”
“Bullshit,” Maksim spits. He then turns to Sienna. “What do you see in this broken man anyway? He’s weak and coward. He’s only the pakhan because his men are too pussy to go against him.”
“And you wanted me gone so bad?” I shake my head.
“The champagne,” he says. “The shooting. The whole thing.”
My grip tightens around the gun. “You poisoned that girl.”
“She wasn’t supposed to drink it.”
The answer comes too quickly. Too easily.
Sienna makes a small sound behind me.
I feel my own anger go cold. “You put poison into a wedding breakfast.”
“I arranged for one glass to reach you,” he says. “That was all.”
“That was all?”
His mouth twists. “Don’t sound offended. You’ve done worse.”
I step closer. “And the shooting?”
“Noise,” he says. “Panic. A way to make everyone look in the wrong direction.”
“You could have killed people.”
“Yes.”
No apology. No shame.
Just yes.
For a second, I cannot speak. This man stood beside me for years. He drank in my house. Treated my family. My best friend.
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” he says. “To watch someone you love keep bleeding for a man who doesn’t deserve her.”
“Alina never asked you to do this.”
“No,” he says bitterly. “She never asks for anything. That’s what you did to her.”
I stand.
His breathing is worse now. The fight is leaving him, but his anger is still there, ugly and alive.
“Do you know what I think? You used Alina’s pain as an excuse,” I say. “You used Ethan’s jealousy. You used Mikhail because you knew I would want to believe he was guilty.”
Maksim’s jaw clenches.
“Viktor,” Sienna whispers behind me.
I turn immediately.
She’s trying to stay upright, but she’s fading. Her eyes are unfocused, her body trembling too hard.
I leave Maksim on the floor and go to her.
“Sienna.”
I kneel beside her and gather her carefully against me. The second my arms go around her, she breaks. She starts crying in a quiet, exhausted way, like she doesn’t have the strength to sob properly.
“I thought you believed him,” she says.
“I didn’t.”
“You pointed the gun at me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
The words cut through me. I touch her face gently, avoiding the bruise near her mouth. “I was aiming past you.”
She sucks in a breath. “How did you know he was lying?”
“At first I didn’t,” I admit. “But I know you, Sienna. And even if you hurt me, I’ll still forgive you. That’s how much I love you.”
A sob escapes the back of her throat and she presses her forehead against my chest. Her whole body is shaking.
For a moment, I just hold her and let her breathe. I need to get her out of here, but she needs one second to understand she is safe with me.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know if I’m worthy of your trust,” she says.
“Shh don’t say a word,” I say.
“I have to.” She shakes her head. “All my life, I had no one but myself. I grew up in foster care, I took care of myself. I never thought I would have someone who would love me more than life itself.”
“Well, I do,” I say “It didn’t matter that you couldn’t tell me the truth yourself. I just knew what was going on.”
“I had nothing left,” she says. “I couldn’t even defend myself.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She gives a broken little laugh. “That’s not how it felt.”
“I know.”
Her hand grips my shirt. “I was going to tell you. About the baby.”
“I know.”
She freezes.
I take the diary page from my pocket and show it to her. “I found this.”
Her face changes. Hurt first, then shame, then relief so deep it almost breaks her again.
“She’s yours,” she says.
“I know.”
“I tried…before.”
“I know you did.”
Her eyes fill. “I was scared.”
I nod and keep my hand on her cheek. “I should have made it easier for you to tell me.”
She shakes her head, but I don’t let her take all of it.
“No,” I say. “Listen to me. You were alone. Pregnant. Hurt. Then you walked into my family and all of us made everything worse. You don’t have to apologize for being afraid.”
She closes her eyes, and tears slip down her face. “I love you,” she whispers.
My chest tightens. “I love you too.”
Her eyes open.
I say it again because she needs to hear it clearly. “I love you, Sienna. I loved you before I knew the baby was mine. That didn’t change anything. It only gave me one more person to love.”
She covers her mouth with one shaking hand, but the sob comes through anyway.
I pull her close and kiss her hair.
Behind me, Maksim makes a rough sound.
I look back. He’s still breathing, but barely.
Sienna follows my gaze, then looks away quickly. “Is he dead?”
“Not yet.”
She trembles harder.