Chapter 24 – Sienna
Two days later, I woke up to my phone buzzing on my nightstand. It’s morning, and the space beside me is empty. While I frown at Sebastian’s absence, I reach for the buzzing device. The screen lights up, relentless, buzzing with alerts I can barely keep up with. Different headlines.
Mikhailov Under Internal Investigation
Anonymous Documents Leak Indicates Major Mikhailov Fraud
Authorities Suspect High-Level Corruption in European Art Rings
I drop onto the edge of the bed, pulse hammering in my ears. My fingers shake as I scroll, unable to look away. Each headline is worse than the last, each one more damning than anything I could have imagined.
Then my eyes freeze at one of the most prominent headlines. My breath hitches. The words that make my chest stop, the ones that make the room spin just a little:
Viktor Mikhailov Arrested!!!
I clutch my mouth, my fingers trembling against my lips. I can feel the weight of the last five years—the fear, the guilt, the constant tension—start to lift, like it’s finally being pulled from my chest in one slow, impossible exhale.
My mind races. Sebastian. Sebastian did this. We did this. The meticulous plan, the documents, the subtle manipulation of his paranoia—it worked. He’s gone. Completely.
Relief washes over me in sharp, dizzying waves. I press my face into my hands, tears threatening to spill—not of sorrow, not of fear, but of something strange and overwhelming: freedom.
I glance at the phone again, half-expecting the news to vanish if I blink, half-expecting some final twist. But no. The headlines remain. They’re real. Viktor Mikhailov has finally fallen, undone by the very schemes he thought he could control.
The doors slide open softly.
Sebastian walks in carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee, steam curling lazily into the air. He sets it down on the low table and sits beside me, close enough that I can feel his warmth without touching him yet.
I turn the phone toward him, my hands still shaking, scrolling through the headlines as if I need him to see them too—proof that this isn’t some fragile dream.
He barely glances at the screen before he smiles.
“I saw it earlier this morning,” he says quietly. Then, softer still: “It’s done.”
Something inside me breaks open.
I throw my arms around him, burying my face against his chest as tears spill freely, uncontrollable.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “He’s really…really gone.”
Sebastian’s arms close around me instantly, firm and sure.
“Not gone,” he corrects gently. “Just caged. Where he can’t touch you.”
Relief crashes through me so hard my body trembles. I cling to him, breathing him in, grounding myself in the solid reality of his heartbeat, his hands stroking slow circles along my back.
“You’re safe now,” he murmurs. “We’re safe.”
I pull back slightly, just enough to look at him. My vision is still blurred, but his face is clear—steady, calm, utterly present.
“You saved me,” I say.
His expression softens, something raw flickering in his eyes. He lifts a hand to my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear.
“No,” he says quietly. “You saved me. You came clean. You trusted me.” His forehead rests against mine. “That’s more than I deserved after what I did.”
I shake my head fiercely, tears clinging to my lashes. “No. You deserved honesty,” I say. “You deserved love. And I should have given that to you…instead of letting someone poison me against you.”
Sebastian lifts a hand, cupping my cheek, his thumb warm against my skin. “Then give it now.”
My breath catches. “I am.”
Something in his eyes shifts—softens into something unguarded, something I never thought I’d see there. Not from him. Not like this.
“Then stay,” he whispers.
I smile through the tears, my heart steady for the first time in years. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He kisses me—long and slow, the kind that unravels you from the inside out. There’s no urgency in it, no desperation. Just promise. Just certainty. Just us.
When he pulls back, he reaches for the tray and lifts one of the mugs, pressing it gently into my hands.
“Drink,” he says softly. “We’re having a quiet morning today. Just me and you.”
I lift the mug, the warmth seeping into my hands, and take a slow sip, letting the aroma fill me. We linger in the bed a little longer, talking in low, easy murmurs—nothing urgent, nothing dangerous—before sliding into the shower together, the hot water washing away the tension of the past days.
By the time we reach the breakfast table, the sunlight spills across the spread: fresh fruit, pastries, eggs, coffee steaming in small mugs. We sit side by side, elbows nearly touching, sharing quiet smiles.
As I reach for a croissant, Sebastian’s voice cuts softly through the morning calm. “I want to paint you again.”
My throat tightens, and I glance at him, heart stuttering. “Why?”
He meets my gaze, steady, unwavering. “The last time I painted you, it was as a memory…a moment I was trying to hold onto. But this time,” he pauses, voice low and deliberate, “I want to paint you as something real. As something fully mine. As you are now—without the ghost of revenge, without the shadows of the past. Just…you.”
It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. My chest aches in a way that’s entirely tender, entirely his.
“I…I’d like that,” I whisper, the corners of my lips lifting into a soft, shy smile.
He grins, that slow, knowing smile that makes my pulse catch. “Then we’ll start after breakfast. You, me, and the canvas. Nothing else in the world matters.”
I press my fingers against his hand across the table, feeling the warmth, the quiet promise, the weight of the love that’s finally ours. “Nothing else,” I echo, and it feels like the truest thing I’ve ever said.
After breakfast, we go up to his studio, the space flooded with light, the smell of paint and turpentine familiar and strangely comforting. The city hums faintly beyond the tall windows, but up here, everything feels suspended—private, sacred.
Sebastian pulls a chair into place and guides me toward it, his hands gentle but sure as he positions me just how he wants. He steps back, studies me with a critical artist’s eye, then adjusts my shoulders, tilts my chin ever so slightly.
“Comfortable?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say honestly. I feel…settled. Seen.
He leans down and presses a soft kiss to the tip of my nose. I laugh, the sound light and unguarded, and he smiles like he caused it on purpose. Then he turns away, moving toward the canvas with quiet focus, slipping into that familiar stillness that always comes over him when he’s about to create.
He sits, brushes lined up, palette in hand.
He works in silence, brush gliding across the canvas, each stroke deliberate, purposeful. I watch him—the way his brow furrows in concentration, the quiet strength in his hands, the tenderness in the way his eyes lift to mine every few minutes, as if he needs to confirm I’m still here. Still real.
At one point, he pauses. The brush lowers.
“I need to ask you something.”
My body tenses despite myself. “What is it?”
He sets the brush aside and crosses the space between us, wiping his hands on a cloth before taking my palms in his. His touch is steady, grounding.
“Five years ago, I hurt you,” he says softly. “Today, you forgave me. And now….” His voice dips, vulnerable. “I want to know if we can try again. Without ghosts. Without lies. Just us.”
My breath wavers. “Sebastian—”
“I’m not asking for perfection,” he whispers. “Just a chance.”
Tears blur my vision as I nod, emotion tightening my throat.
“Yes,” I say, voice trembling but certain. “Yes. I want that too.”
The relief on his face is instant, overwhelming. He leans in and kisses me, sealing a promise that feels stronger than anything we’ve ever had before.
That night, we lie wrapped together, bodies entwined, the quiet kind of closeness that comes after truth.
The storm that has defined us for years finally breaks, leaving warmth and stillness in its wake.
His arm is heavy around me, protective. Mine rests over his heart, feeling the steady proof that he’s here.
“I love you,” I whisper into the dark.
His breath catches. He holds me tighter, like the words have anchored something fragile and precious inside him.
“I’ve loved you for five years,” he murmurs. “I just didn’t know how to deserve you.”
I lift my head, press my forehead to his. “You do now.”
He exhales, long and deep, as if he’s been waiting for permission to believe that. And this time—he does.