The Mafia King of Philadelphia: From witness to his doted wife

The look of a man receiving a list he finds interesting.

”That can be arranged.” He straightened his cuff. Easy. Unbothered. ”The phone. The laptop.” He moved toward the dining room with the unhurried certainty of a man in his own home, which, she supposed, this was.

”As for moving around...” he glanced back at her over his shoulder, ”... the mansion is yours. For now.”

She followed because of the food. Only because of food.

”And before you begin redrawing the boundaries of this arrangement...” he pulled out a chair at the head of the long table and sat, gesturing to the one beside him without ceremony, ”.. let me be clear about something.”

She sat. Shook out the napkin. Looked at him.

”You haven’t been punished for running.” He said it pleasantly, the way you’d mention an unpaid bill.

”I’d keep that in mind before the next great escape.” The almost-smile. The devastating, infuriating, almost-smile. ”I can’t have my wife running from her husband. It’s bad for the image.”

”Punished,” she repeated flatly.

”Warned.” He picked up his fork. ”Consider yourself warned.”

”You are stuck with me,” he added, quieter, almost to himself, ”for life, baby girl.”

Food arrived. Plates were set by staff who moved like ghosts and made eye contact with no one.

Sienna looked at the spread in front of her and made a private, practical decision. She was going to eat this food. She was going to eat it well.

And she was going to smile and be civil and patient and calm for however long it took Viktor Kessler to lower his guard by a single degree.

”We’ll see about that,” she said under her breath.

”Hmm?”

”Can we eat now?” she said sweetly. A beat. Then Viktor smiled slightly, genuinely, the rare one, and turned to his plate.

Silence settled over the table like a third guest.

Not uncomfortable exactly. Something stranger than uncomfortable. The particular silence of two people who have run out of battle positions for the moment and are eating food instead.

Viktor ate the way he did everything with complete attention, nothing wasted. But his eyes kept finding her.

Not obviously. Not in the way his men had looked at her yesterday, which had been inventory and appetite poorly disguised. This was different. Slower.

The way you look at something, you’re still figuring out. An equation you keep checking because you’re not certain of your own answer.

Her hair. The way she held her fork. The small vertical line that appeared between her brows when she was thinking hard about something and trying not to show it.

She was thinking hard about something right now.

He ate and watched her think and felt something moving in the deep water of his chest that he had no useful language for. Viktor Kessler had wanted many things in his life: territory, loyalty, leverage, the particular satisfaction of a problem cleanly solved. He had wanted them and taken them and filed them away.

This was different.

This woman, who had slapped one of his men, ran through the city in a wedding dress, bargained with him over a marriage contract like she was negotiating a lease, and was currently eating his food with the focused energy of someone fueling a future escape attempt.

Was making him completely, thoroughly insane. He looked at her eyes. Her hair.

The way she chewed was like she was angry at the food.

He ate another bite and said nothing and felt the strange, unfamiliar weight of wanting someone to stay.

Across the table, Sienna reached for her water glass and glanced at him sideways. He was watching her. Again. Still. With that unreadable face that gave nothing away except the fact that something was very much happening behind it.

She looked back at her plate.

Play nice, she told herself. Be patient. Let him think it’s working. Let him think you’re settling. Let him get comfortable and stop counting the exits and stop watching you like.

She glanced up again.

He was still looking.

Like that, stop looking like that, she told him silently, because it is significantly harder to plan an escape when someone is looking at you like you are the most interesting problem they have ever decided to solve.

She put a piece of bread in her mouth.

Chewed.

Thought about Aria Cross.

Thought about the phone she’d been promised and what she could do with a phone and a laptop and a husband who was slowly, barely, not enough yet, but possibly beginning to think she wasn’t going anywhere.

Let him think that, she decided. Let him think whatever keeps the doors unlocked. She reached for more bread.

Across the table, Viktor Kessler watched his wife eat and felt something in him that had been closed for a very long time crack open, just slightly, just a fraction, like a window someone had forgotten was there.

He didn’t close it. Not yet. She was planning. He knew she was planning. And God help him, God help them both, he was looking forward to it.

He didn’t ask.

He simply reached across the table unhurried, inevitable, the way he did everything, and picked a single grape from the plate. Held it between his teeth. And then closed the distance between them before she had fully processed what was happening.

The kiss arrived slow and deliberate and tasted like something she didn’t have a name for yet.

She pressed both hands against his chest. He didn’t move. His hand came up to her jaw, gentle, absolute, and held her still and kissed her the way a man kisses something he has decided belongs to him.

Long. Unhurried. Like he had the rest of the morning and intended to use it. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were open and on hers.

”Now it’s done,” he said quietly. She blinked. ”What...”

”We didn’t kiss. After the ceremony.” A simple observation. As a matter of fact. He sat back and picked up his coffee as if nothing had happened.