4. Sienna
CHAPTER FOUR
SIENNA
Imissed the next two social events because I injured my ankle. It was a stupid landing in rehearsal. Sending a clean shock of pain up my leg. Madame Aveline went silent in the way that terrified every dancer more than yelling.
A strain, the doctor said to rest, ice, no pointe work, rehearsals, no standing in heels at dynasty events pretending everything was fine. I had almost laughed at that last part. Pretending everything was fine was practically my full-time role.
Still, for once, my body had given me an excuse no one could politely argue with. So I stayed home. I missed a conservation dinner in St. Verity. Then I missed a gallery opening in Harlan’s north quarter.
Jamison didn’t contact me.
A month passed since I last saw him at Bellweather. A whole month. Long enough for my ankle to heal, and for the gossip to worsen.
Crow problems had started spilling into society.
A hotel wing had burned down. Which society said in those clipped, rich voices, as if “only” made fire less hungry.
There were whispers about insurance disputes, missing ledgers, a former manager found half-dead in a private club bathroom, and two families suddenly pulling investment from Crow entertainment holdings.
By the time I saw Jamison again, half of Harlan had decided the Crows were either under attack or starting one.
The event was at the Harlan Glasshouse, a black-tie benefit for private medical recovery wards. The kind of event where everyone pretended compassion was the reason they gathered beneath imported chandeliers and drank champagne from crystal.
I arrived with my mother because Jamison had not answered when I asked if we were arriving together.
She spent the car ride telling me my ankle brace was unattractive, my dress was too soft, and my smile looked “needy” when I practiced it in the window reflection.
I stopped practicing after that.
The Glasshouse was full when we arrived. Winter roses climbed indoor trellises. White candles lined long mirrored tables.
It was beautiful.
I stepped inside, handed my wrap to an attendant, and immediately looked for Jamison. He wasn’t there yet.
My mother left me near the entrance with a distracted kiss beside my cheek, already moving toward a group of women whose diamonds were larger than most medical donations.
I stood alone with my little clutch and my healing ankle and my stupid, hopeful heart.
Then the room changed. People stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Jamison Crow walked in.
He was surrounded by more men than usual. They did not try to blend in this time.
He wore a black tuxedo, but it did nothing to civilize him. The jacket strained across his shoulders. His shirt sat open at the throat, exposing black ink. His hair was pushed back too harshly.
He was in a murderous mood. Could sense it as I walked toward him. My ankle protested on the third step. I ignored it.
His gaze cut over the room, then landed on me for half a second.
“Hi, Jamjam.”
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped beside his mouth. The nearest guard looked at me the way people looked at someone stepping onto train tracks.
Jamison did not answer. He glanced down at my shoes. Then my ankle, to my face.
“Walking again?”
I brightened because it was almost a question. “Yes. Mostly. It’s still a little sore, but Madame says I can start light barre work next week if I’m careful.”
“I didn’t ask for a medical report.”
I swallowed. Around us, people pretended not to hear, and they were terrible at it.
“Sorry,” I said.
He looked past me toward the bar. “Where’s Marcel?”
“I’m not sure. I just got here.”
“Useful.”
That one hurt. I had not seen him in a month. Some tiny, foolish part of me had thought absence might make him less careless.
A month was long enough to miss someone, wasn’t it?
I tucked my free hand behind my clutch so no one would see my fingers tremble.
“I’m sorry about the hotel,” I said quietly.
His eyes came back to mine.
The room seemed to drop colder.
“What?”
“The hotel,” I repeated, gentler. “I heard about the fire. That must have been awful.”
He stared at me… as if I had touched something I had no right to touch.
“You heard about the fire,” he said.
I nodded carefully. “Everyone has.”
His mouth twisted. “Of course everyone has. Harlan loves watching smoke if it comes from someone else’s building.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, you don’t mean anything. That’s the problem.”
I tried to smile again.
I truly did.
The muscles moved, but it didn’t feel like a smile anymore. It felt like holding a cracked plate together because guests were still in the room.
“I only wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Then don’t.”
The words were quiet enough that only the people closest could hear.
“If you want to be useful tonight,” he continued, “stand where you’re placed, smile when someone looks at you, and don’t start chirping about business you couldn’t survive hearing the details of.”
My face burned.
“Okay,” I whispered.
His phone rang, he looked down at the screen and cursed under his breath before answering.
“Tell him I’m already in a room full of parasites,” he snapped into the phone. “He can wait.”
Then he walked away.
I stood there for a moment, dismissed in the middle of the entrance path.
People flowed around me carefully. No one came too close. Scared to be associated with whatever had just happened.
My ankle throbbed.
My throat felt thick.
“Sienna.”
Emmie’s voice reached me before her hand did.
She touched my elbow. I turned too quickly and nearly lost my balance, but she caught my wrist with gentle strength.
I could survive Jamison being cruel.
I had practice.
Kindness was always the part that made tears dangerous.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly.
Emmie’s expression said she knew I was lying but loved me too much to call me on it in the middle of a room. Marcel stood behind her, his expression cold in the direction Jamison had gone.
Harrison appeared a second later, drink in hand.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing,” I said.
Harrison’s brows rose. “That answer insults us both, sunshine.”
“It was nothing,” I repeated, brighter. “He’s just stressed. The hotel and everything. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“He should not have spoken to you that way.” Marcel’s voice went flat.
Emmie squeezed my hand. “Come sit with us.”
I wanted to.
I really did. But Jamison had told me to stand where I was placed.
He hadn’t meant beside him exactly, but he had meant something. He always meant something. There were rules with Jamison, even if he never bothered explaining them. I just spent my life discovering them by being punished when I guessed wrong.
“I should probably find him,” I said.
Emmie’s fingers tightened. “Sienna.”
“He’s in a bad mood.”
“He is always in a bad mood.”
Harrison took a sip of his drink. “Tonight he’s making it everyone’s problem.”
I smiled because I was supposed to, but it didn’t work.
People in our world had been raised to understand engagements as contracts first and cages second.
I found him near the western bar.
He stood with two men from the Elric family and one woman I vaguely recognized from a shipping dynasty.
His whiskey sat untouched in his hand, which meant his mood was worse than I thought. Jamison drank when irritated. When he forgot to drink, something dangerous had taken over.
I approached quietly and stood just behind his left shoulder.
The woman looked at me first. Her eyes softened with pity before she controlled it.
I hated pity.
I smiled at her anyway.
Jamison knew I was there. His shoulders changed.
He kept talking.
“Your father doesn’t get to restructure terms after the fact,” he said to one of the men. “He signed with Crow capital because he needed Crow protection. Protection gets expensive when people start setting our hotels on fire.”
The man paled. “No one is suggesting—”
“You are suggesting,” Jamison cut in. “Badly.”
I stared at the floor near his shoes.
The conversation stretched for several minutes. Jamison was brutal through all of it. He dismantled arguments until the people holding them looked embarrassed to have tried.
When they finally left, I took a breath.
“Do you want anything from the table?” I asked softly. “I can get you something, if you haven’t eaten.”
He looked at me then.
“Do I look like I need you to fetch me food?”
“No. I just thought—”
“Stop thinking.”
My stomach dipped.
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that.”
I pressed my lips together.
His eyes raked over my face. “Do you even hear yourself?”
I didn’t answer. The wrong answer would hurt. So would the right one.
He stepped closer, towering over me, whiskey glass loose in his tattooed hand. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Hand, please. Fix this, Jamjam. Look at me, Jamjam. Are you coming to my birthday, Jamjam?”
Each phrase landed like a slap because he said them in my voice. Mocking. The room blurred at the edges.
“I don’t sound like that,” I whispered.
“You absolutely fucking do.”
A few people nearby went quiet.
My face had gone hot, but my hands were cold.
“I was only asking if you needed food.”
“I need you to understand that I have actual problems tonight.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“No, Sienna. You don’t. You want everyone to clap because you managed to walk in heels again after twisting your little ankle.
You want me to pat your head because you performed some dance I didn’t ask to hear about.
Needing fucking attention every time you breathe near me, and I don’t have any left to waste. ”
For once, I did not rush to fix the silence.
Jamison stared at me, breathing hard through his nose, as if I had somehow dragged that cruelty out of him and made him hold it in public.
Maybe he expected me to say it was fine and tuck his hand into mine and make him look less monstrous in front of Harlan.
I did not.
I stepped back.
His eyes narrowed.
I held my clutch in both hands and made myself look at him, really look at him. I had spent years making him smaller in my mouth.
Jamjam.
As if a nickname could turn a blade into something safe.
“I’m going to find Emmie,” My voice shook, but it came out clear enough.
Jamison blinked once. Shocked. His expression darkened.
“Sienna.”
That warning had stopped me hundreds of times.
Tonight, my ankle hurt, and some exhausted part of me refused to keep hurting politely at his side.
I turned and walked away.