Chapter 15 – Sebastian
The car ride is silent, and it’s better that way, because I’m furious.
What the hell is Sienna’s problem?
Minutes ago, I was at the bar with my brothers, talking business, when Konstantin casually tipped his glass toward the dance floor. I followed his gaze, and everything inside me tightened.
Sienna.
She moved like she owned the air around her. Confident. Fluid. Untouchable. A goddess who knew exactly what she was doing to every man watching her. Heat slammed into my gut, sharp and unwelcome.
I was already angry at how boldly she was displaying herself when a group of men approached the women. One of them put his hands on Sasha.
Lev lost it.
Dimitri had to physically restrain him to keep the place from being torn apart. Guards swarmed in seconds.
I thanked every dark god listening that no one touched Sienna—because if they had, no one would have stopped me.
And now she’s sitting in the car like she’s the one with the right to be angry.
She’ll be the death of me.
The moment we arrive at the house, Sienna springs out of the car without a backward glance. I don’t stop her. I stay seated, gripping my jaw, watching her disappear into the villa like she hasn’t just turned my world upside down.
Too many things are happening at once. Too many instincts pulling at me in opposite directions.
Just before I saw her on the dance floor—before the music, before the guards—I had seen her outside the bar through the glass.
I hadn’t noticed her leaving.
But I caught her coming back in.
Her posture was wrong. Too rigid. Too stoic. Not the walk of a woman stepping out for air. The walk of someone who’d done something she didn’t want seen. Her silhouette had cut through the garden with purpose, shoulders tight, head high.
She lied to me.
She’s hiding something.
“Are you good?”
I open my eyes. Marko is still in the driver’s seat, watching me carefully through the rearview mirror.
I exhale. “I’m good.”
“No, you’re not,” he says flatly. “Do you want me to keep a tail on her? It’ll save you the stress of wondering.”
He’s asked before. Every time, I shut it down.
It would be smart. Efficient. Necessary.
And I can’t do it.
Sienna is fiercely independent. If she ever finds out I had Marko watching her, it would be war. I’ve already hurt her once—deep enough that it still bleeds between us. I won’t make it worse.
Besides…she hasn’t tried to leave the estate.
“No,” I say. “Let it be.”
Marko frowns. “She’s up to something. I don’t trust her.”
I snap before I can stop myself. “Oh, now you don’t trust her? But you were flirting with her earlier.”
He lets out a short laugh. “I will never flirt with your wife.”
“I’ll kill you if you do.”
That wipes the smile off his face.
I push the door open and step into the night, the air cold against my skin, my mind anything but calm.
Sienna Roth is my wife.
And she’s keeping secrets.
That’s a dangerous combination—for both of us.
By the time I reach the suite, I’m wound so tight I feel like I might snap.
She’s in the bedroom.
Walking barefoot across the rug, fiery hair loose down her back, wearing sheer lingerie that leaves very little to the imagination. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t acknowledge my presence. Just moves around the room like I’m furniture.
I stop in the doorway and watch her.
It hits me all over again—how effortlessly she owns space. How she’s changed, yet somehow become even more herself. I don’t recognize this woman fully, and that terrifies me.
She goes to the vanity and begins wiping off her lipstick, her expression calm, distant. Like none of tonight touched her.
A memory crashes into me without warning—my mouth on hers, her body arching into mine, the sound she made when she forgot to be careful last night.
I clench my jaw hard enough that it aches.
“Don’t ever do that again, Sienna.”
She pauses. Then slowly lifts her eyes to meet mine in the mirror.
“Do what?”
“Dance like that.”
She turns fully, facing me now, eyes sharp. “I’ll dance however I want.”
“This isn’t a debate.”
She lets out a quiet laugh, humorless. “Just because I’m married to you doesn’t make me your property, Sebastian. I’m not owned. I have free will.”
I step closer. “Your free will is going to get someone killed.”
Her brows lift. “You better not kill anyone on my behalf.”
That does it.
I stalk into the room, stopping just short of her. “The next time you dance like that in public and a man puts his hands on you, I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
Her chin tilts up. Defiant. Unafraid.
“I’ll cut off his hand,” I say quietly. “And he won’t look at anything ever again.”
For a second, it looks like she’s about to unleash everything she’s been holding back. Anger. Fury. Something sharp and old.
Then she chooses silence.
She turns away from me and grabs a serum from the vanity like I’m no longer worth the effort.
And somehow, that hurts more than if she’d screamed.
I stand there, breathing hard, staring at her back, knowing one thing with absolute certainty: This marriage is going to destroy us slowly.
I force calm into my voice. “Who were you talking to outside?”
She doesn’t turn. “No one.”
“Try again.”
She sets the serum down on the vanity with deliberate care. “You don’t get to interrogate me, Sebastian.”
I move closer, until my reflection appears beside hers in the mirror. Our eyes meet through the glass.
“You’re my wife.”
She holds my gaze, unflinching. “Convenient when it benefits you. Irrelevant when it benefits me.”
I exhale sharply. She’s impossible. Infuriating. And somehow—still devastating.
“Either you’re hiding something,” I say quietly, “or you’re deliberately trying to push me away.”
Her lips curve, faint and dangerous. “Perhaps I’m doing both.”
I step closer. Too close. Our bodies almost touch, the air between us tight and electric.
“You want a war?” I murmur. “You’ll lose.”
She turns then, fully facing me. Her eyes are steady. Unafraid.
“I lost five years ago,” she says. “Everything after that has been extra.”
The words hit harder than I expect. Hard enough that my chest tightens.
“You think I don’t regret what happened?” I say, my voice low. “You think I don’t replay that night and wonder—”
“Don’t.” Her voice trembles despite her effort to control it. “Don’t pretend this is about regret.”
I swallow.
“You used me,” she continues. “And you walked away.”
The room goes quiet.
There’s no accusation in her tone anymore. Just fact. And somehow, that’s worse.
I look at her—this woman I married, this woman I broke, this woman who’s standing in front of me now like she survived something I never fully understood.
I open my mouth to speak.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says immediately. Sharp. Final.
She whirls, intent on leaving.
I reach out without thinking and catch her wrist.
She freezes.
“And you think marrying me will fix what you feel?” I ask quietly. “Or does it just make it easier to tear me apart?”
Her breath hitches—not in fear. In anger. In something raw and unguarded.
I see it then. The war inside her. The restraint. The desire she hates. The revenge she clings to.
Before I can stop myself, I cup her jaw, my thumb brushing her skin, forcing her to look at me.
“You want to hurt me,” I murmur. “But you also want this.”
Her denial dies on her lips.
I kiss her.
This isn’t last night—no explosion, no loss of control. This is slower. Heavier. A kiss that drags five years of resentment to the surface and turns it into hunger.
She makes a soft, involuntary sound, and her hands press to my chest before curling into my shirt like she’s trying to anchor herself.
I lift her onto the bed, her robe whispering against my hands. Her breath trembles. Her eyes burn into mine, defiant and vulnerable all at once.
But when I lower my forehead to hers, everything shifts.
The anger. The desire. The revenge. The regret.
They blur into something dangerous.
Something close enough to vulnerability that it terrifies me.
She presses her palm to my chest and pushes gently, slipping out from beneath me before the moment can tip any further. The loss of her warmth is immediate. Jarring.
“We’re not doing this again,” she whispers.
“We already did,” I say, the words rough in my throat.
She shakes her head. “Not like this. Not when you don’t understand what you took from me.”
That lands harder than any accusation.
I sit back on my heels, dragging a hand through my hair, forcing myself to breathe. For once, I don’t chase. For once, I don’t command.
“Sienna,” I say quietly, carefully. “Tell me what you want.”
She looks at me then—really looks at me—as if she’s weighing the cost of honesty against the damage of silence. Her expression flickers. Conflict. Pain. Control snapping back into place.
Then she turns away.
“Sleep,” she says. “We have a long road ahead.”
She disappears into the bathroom, the door closing with a soft, final click that echoes far louder than it should.
I stay where I am, staring at the empty space she left behind.
And I know two things with absolute certainty.
She’s hiding something.
And I would burn the world down before letting anything—or anyone—take her from me again.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I grab it without looking. Lev.
I leave the suite quietly, the door clicking shut behind me, and stride toward the elevator. I punch in the code for my studio floor. The ride up is silent, steel and glass boxing in my thoughts. The doors slide open and usher me into the private space.
Only then do I take the call.
Lev doesn’t waste time.
“I’m heading to the base. I’m going to cut off that fucker’s arm and feed it to the dogs.”
I already know who he’s talking about. The unfortunate bastard who touched Sasha. I can’t even blame him.
“Do you want to come?” he asks.
For a brief moment, something dark stirs inside me. The familiar pull. The promise of blood, of violence, of the sharp clarity it brings. I imagine it—the snap of bone, the sound of begging—and feel how easily it could lift my mood.
Then the feeling dies.
“I’m in the studio,” I say instead. “Not tonight.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Then Lev scoffs softly. “Suit yourself.”
The call ends.
I lower the phone and stare out into the dim room, jaw tight.
The studio is dim, lit only by the city bleeding in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Concrete. Steel. Control. I built this room to be untouched by emotion.
It failed.
The easel waits against the far wall. I cross the space and yank the cloth away.
Her. Sienna.
I had my guards move this portrait from my penthouse studio to the villa. Why? I don’t know. I just had to have it near. It’s one of my most honest works.
Charcoal lines carve her into existence—arched brow, sharp mouth, the tilt of her head like she’s daring the world to come closer. I come here every day. Sometimes twice. I never touch the drawing. I just stand and let it do whatever it wants to me.
It’s beautiful.
And it’s still nothing compared to the woman herself.
My chest tightens, breath catching like I’ve been struck instead of realizing something. Want crashes into me, heavy and undeniable. Not lust. Not possession.
Need.
I drag a hand down my face, staring at the curve of her jaw I memorized with my eyes before I ever earned the right with my hands.
Five years.
Five years of crossing rooms to avoid her. Of delegating meetings. Of pretending distance was discipline instead of fear. Because I knew—knew—that the moment she stood in front of me again, the careful walls would collapse.
It’ll be endgame.
There’s no middle ground with Sienna Roth. There never was.
I married her, thinking control would save us. Thinking proximity would dull the ache. Thinking I could rewrite the past by claiming the present.
I was wrong.
Because wanting her isn’t something I grew into.
It’s something that’s always lived in me, patient and lethal, waiting for permission to surface.
And now she’s back in my house.
In my bed.
In my life.
Hiding something. Carrying a storm I can feel but can’t see.
I stare at the drawing until my vision blurs, one truth settling with brutal clarity:
Avoiding her was never about protecting myself.
It was about surviving her. And that’s a mission I’ve failed. I can’t survive her. If she doesn’t forgive me, she’ll end me. And there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to stop it.
I shake my head at the portrait, a bitter huff leaving my chest. “What are you up to?” I murmur.
She doesn’t answer.
Of course she doesn’t. The charcoal version is just as silent as the real woman when I ask the questions that matter.
I step back, grab the cloth, and drape it over the easel again, cutting her out of sight before I do something stupid—like open a bottle and let the night swallow me whole.
Instead, I leave.
Back in the suite, the lights are low. Sienna is sprawled across the bed, fast asleep, her hair fanned over the pillow, her face bare and unguarded in a way she never allows when she’s awake. The sight hits me harder than any accusation ever could.
I pause in the doorway, watching her breathe.
Alive. Here. Mine—but only on paper.
I move into the bathroom, turn on the shower, and let the water thunder down, scalding and relentless. It doesn’t wash away the tension coiled under my skin. It only sharpens it.
When I’m done, I change out of my suit and into something soft, something that doesn’t feel like armor. I step back into the bedroom quietly, careful not to wake her.
I sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, close enough to feel her warmth, far enough not to touch.
Because touching her—that would undo me completely.
I want to lie beside her. The urge is sharp, almost physical. But I stand instead, turn away, and leave the bedroom before I give in to it.
The guest room feels colder. Impersonal. Safe.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, forcing my eyes shut, forcing my mind into silence. I refuse the images that try to surface—her mouth, her breath, the way she yielded and resisted all at once.
I breathe through it. Clamp down hard.
Sleep comes slowly, unwillingly.
And even then, she follows me there.