Chapter 6 – Sienna
Present Day
I stand at my bedroom window, staring down at Chicago.
The city is beautiful—steel and light and ambition layered into the sky—but tonight it feels ornamental, distant, like a painting I’ve stared at too long to be moved by.
I turn away from the glass.
Several documents are spread across my bed, arranged with deliberate neatness. I reach for the first one.
A wedding contract.
It feels heavier than any legal document I’ve ever signed.
Not because of its thickness, but because of what it represents.
Pages of ornate clauses. Carefully worded obligations.
Inked seals pressed deep and final. Signatures meant to bind futures and families, promises forged in power rather than affection.
I’ve read it twice already.
The first time with cold precision, pen in hand, identifying leverage points and exit strategies.
The second time with a slow, controlled rage I’ve been carrying for five years without letting it show.
My name sits beside his on the final page.
Sienna Roth.
Sebastian Rusnak.
On paper, it’s flawless.
Two influential families.
Two carefully cultivated reputations.
A union that strengthens alliances my father values with a greedy, almost feverish pride.
The art world will call it poetic. The press will frame it as redemption—the critic and the artist, reunited in love.
I almost laugh.
At first, my family tries to cajole me. Gentle persuasion. Strategic praise. They know how stubborn I am, how allergic I am to being managed.
They’re stunned when I agree immediately.
No arguments.
No negotiations.
No resistance.
“Why?” my father asks, suspicion sharpening his tone.
I shrug. “I want to help strengthen the family alliance.”
That’s all I give them.
They’re overjoyed.
Funny.
They have no idea what I’m doing.
I look back down at the contract.
I don’t see a union.
I see a noose—placed carefully, elegantly, around Sebastian Rusnak’s neck.
I see a stage where I’ll stand with perfect composure, smiling for the cameras while poisoning him in private.
I see a cage I step into willingly.
Just so I can burn it down from the inside.
Five years ago, he used me.
He watched me.
Learned me.
Took my body, my trust, my silence—and walked away the moment I was done serving his purpose.
And I fell.
Damn, I fell.
Not anymore.
I fold the contract slowly and place it back on the bed.
My reflection catches in the mirror—calm, immaculate, unreadable. No cracks. No tells.
But my body remembers.
I remember the heartbreak.
How I reached for him obsessively—day and night—like if I tried hard enough, I could pull him back into existence.
I called. Texted. Left messages that went unanswered.
I searched for him in crowds, in galleries, in every art exhibition that mattered.
I stood in rooms filled with his work, waiting to feel his presence behind me.
He never came.
He blocked me.
The realization landed slowly at first, then all at once—violent, absolute. The way your chest caves in when the truth finally sharpens into focus. He hadn’t disappeared. He hadn’t been busy. He hadn’t hesitated.
He’d discarded me.
Used me. Took what he wanted. Then erased me like I’d never mattered.
My heart didn’t just break; it shattered. Cleanly. Brutally. The kind of break that changes the architecture of a person forever.
It took a full year to recover.
One year to stop refreshing his name online.
One year to stop checking art listings and hoping—pathetically—that I’d stumble into him by accident.
One year to stop waking up with his absence pressing against my ribs.
The worst part?
His career exploded.
Everywhere I turned, there he was. Magazine spreads. Gallery headlines. Praise layered on praise. His art grew more revered, more valuable, while I learned how to swallow the taste of him lingering in my mouth like a ghost.
Eventually, I stopped hoping.
Stopped searching.
Not because I forgave him.
Because I knew something else.
One day, I would exact my revenge.
For five years, I built myself into a fortress.
Brick by brick.
Self-possession.
Success.
A mask so elegant it became art in itself.
Designer suits replaced vulnerability. Critical acclaim replaced longing. My softness hardened into precision. My pain learned how to sit quietly beneath my skin without ever showing its teeth.
To the world, I became untouchable.
But Sebastian Rusnak’s betrayal never left.
It lived inside me like a splinter lodged deep in bone—small, sharp, impossible to ignore, no matter how much time passed.
And now—now I will be his wife.
The irony is exquisite.
I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried.
I smile at my reflection, slow and controlled.
Congratulations, Sebastian.
You finally came back to me.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“Come in,” I say, my voice steady.
My father walks in.
Tall. Silver-haired. Impeccably tailored even inside his own home. His eyes are sharp in the way that has made grown men stammer through negotiations. Two guards flank him, stationed just inside the doorway. Even here, even now, he is never unprotected.
Power doesn’t sleep. Neither does paranoia.
“I’m here to remind you,” he says without preamble, “that the engagement soirée is in two days. But you have a private meeting with Rusnak scheduled for tomorrow evening. Just to acquaint yourselves before the soirée.”
I turn from the bed, crossing the room with unhurried grace. “Are you certain Sebastian Rusnak has agreed to the marriage?”
For the first time, he frowns, just slightly, like the question itself offends him.
“Of course,” he says. “The Rusnaks are fully behind it. I received confirmation directly from the Pakhan, Lukin. Sebastian is on board.”
On board.
I smile.
“Send me the address for the dinner,” I say calmly. “I’ll be there.”
He studies me for a beat, as if searching for hesitation, for doubt. He finds none. Satisfied, he nods once and turns, the guards moving in perfect sync as they leave.
The door closes softly behind them.
Silence returns.
I turn back to the bed where the documents lie waiting, pristine and damning. So Sebastian agreed. Amazing. After everything—after what he did—he agreed without resistance.
I let myself imagine tomorrow.
The room. The lights. The polite applause. And then him.
I imagine looking Sebastian in the eye again.
The flicker of recognition.
The momentary shock he won’t be able to hide.
The guilt—buried deep, but not deep enough—cracking his perfectly controlled facade when he realizes I didn’t just accept this marriage.
I chose it.
I wonder if his hands still carry traces of ink or paint or charcoal. I wonder if he ever thinks of me in unguarded moments—if my name ever crosses his mind when he’s alone, when the bravado drops.
I wonder if he sleeps well at night.
I hope he doesn’t.
Next to the contract on my bed lie two other documents.
The first is the original review—the one that started everything. The one that cut deep enough to drag him out of his shadows and straight into my life. The words are still sharp, still precise. I remember writing them with a clear mind and steady hands, unaware that honesty would cost me my heart.
The second is the last review I ever wrote about him.
The glowing one.
The one I published after falling under his spell. After he made me believe I was special. After he made me believe I was his muse.
Gosh, I was stupid.
I pick them up one after the other, scanning the lines like they were written by two different women. One was untouched. The other was in love.
I fold the papers carefully and tuck them into my file.
My revenge won’t be loud. It won’t be impulsive. It won’t be sloppy.
It will be meticulous.
I will strip him the way he once stripped me—word by word, piece by piece, trust by trust. Let him think he still has the upper hand.
Let him think he’s walking toward a powerful alliance, a beautiful wife, a seamless future.
He has no idea.
No idea that every step he’s taking leads him closer to the edge I’ve spent five years sharpening.
And this time, when he falls, there will be no one left to catch him.