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

When the silence finally came, it came all at once heavy and strange, the kind of quiet that felt like its own kind of violence. She lowered her hands slowly and looked up.

Viktor was still standing. Gun still in his hand, shoulders still set in that same controlled line except for the dark, spreading stain blooming across his side where no one had gotten to him in time.

She was moving before she’d decided to move, scrambling up and crossing the room just as his knees started to buckle, getting an arm under him before he hit the floor.

”You’ve always wanted to run,” Viktor said, breath uneven, eyes finding hers with an effort that cost him something. ”Now’s the time. I want you to run. From here. From all of it.”

Sienna’s mind raced through it anyway, the door, the hallway, the party downstairs full of men who’d sell her without blinking, the simple, brutal math of a woman alone in a building like this. She wouldn’t make it past the first floor. She knew that the way she knew her own name.

She grabbed a cloth from the table instead and pressed it hard against the wound at his side, ignoring the way he flinched.

”You’ve always been a stubborn one, Sienna,” he said, something almost fond cutting through the pain in his voice.

”Tell me how we get out of here,” she said instead of answering, voice tight, refusing to let it shake. Viktor coughed, the sound wet and wrong, and something cold settled low in her stomach.

”You’ll be all right,” she said, pressing harder, like pressure alone could hold a person together. ”I promise.”

”I’m glad you want to die with me,” Viktor said, and there was something almost amused buried under the pain in his voice.

He’d already known Lion would do this, had read it in him the moment they walked in, that particular flavor of greed that always ended in someone reaching for a gun. He could have shut it down faster, cleaner, before it ever got to this point. But some small, reckless part of him had wanted to see it play out. His men would be here soon enough; he’d made sure of that before they ever walked through the door.

Still watching Sienna’s hands shake as she pressed against his wound, watching her face go pale with something that looked dangerously close to fear for him, not of him, that part he hadn’t planned on. And it felt better than it had any right to.

”We are not going to die,” Sienna said firmly, like saying it loud enough might make it true. ”We’re getting out of here. Tell me who to call.”

”You could leave now,” Viktor said, ”and save yourself.”

”No.” The word came out immediate, unthinking, before she’d even decided to say it. A single tear escaped down her cheek, and she swiped at it like it had betrayed her. ”I’m not leaving you.”

Viktor’s mouth curved, faint and knowing despite everything. ”I told you. You’d fall for me eventually.”

”You’re a narcissistic jerk,” Sienna shot back, pressing harder against the wound, refusing to look anywhere but at the blood soaking through the cloth. ”I used to save lives. I’m not about to be the one who stands by and lets you bleed out instead.”

”Kiss me,” Viktor said.

Sienna’s head snapped up. ”Are you crazy?” Somewhere beyond the door, more gunfire cracked through the air, voices shouting over each other in a building that was very much still falling apart around them.

”Consider it my death wish.”

”Are you serious right now?” she demanded, incredulous, hands still pressed firm against his side. ”We’re in the middle of a shootout, and you want a kiss?”

”You want me to stay alive, don’t you?” Viktor said, and even half-bled-out, he managed to make it sound like a perfectly reasonable negotiation. ”Then give me a reason to.”

”You are insufferable,” Sienna snapped, and that was the exact moment the door burst open.

”Boss! Boss!” Viktor’s men flooded in, guns raised, sweeping the room before landing on him.

The interruption, Sienna decided immediately, was the single best thing that had happened all night, sparing her from a decision she absolutely refused to examine too closely later.

”He’s been shot, hurry, we need to move him,” she said instead, already shifting aside as his men closed in to help carry him, her voice clipped and steady in a way that surprised even her.

There was no time to be gentle about it. Viktor’s men hauled him up between them, one arm braced over a shoulder, the other clamped tight against the wound. Sienna refused to stop pressuring even as they moved. He grunted with every step, jaw locked against the pain, but he didn’t slow them down. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t a man who let a bullet dictate his pace.

”Move, move,” one of the men barked, and they half-carried, half-dragged Viktor toward the back stairwell, away from the noise still crackling through the floors below, shouting, more gunfire, the building’s other occupants either fleeing or finishing what Lion had started.

Sienna stayed glued to Viktor’s side, one hand fisted in his shirt, as letting go meant losing him entirely.

Stairs, she thought, counting them under her breath without meaning to. Just get him down the stairs. Then the car. Then he’s fine. He has to be fine.

”You’re doing that counting thing,” Viktor muttered, voice rough, eyes half-lidded but still maddeningly aware of her.

”I’m not counting anything,” she lied.

”You’re counting the stairs.”

”Shut up and bleed quietly.”

The corner of his mouth twitched with actual amusement, somehow, even now, before a fresh wave of pain wiped it clean off his face as they rounded the final landing too fast.

The back exit spilled them out into a narrow alley behind the building, the night air sharp and cold after the suffocating heat of the suite. Two cars idled there already, headlights off, engines running. Viktor’s men were clearly more prepared for this outcome than Sienna had any desire to think about right now.

”Boss, in the car, now,” one of them said, wrenching open the back door.

They loaded him in carefully despite the urgency, Sienna climbing in right after without waiting to be invited, refusing to let even inches separate them. The door slammed. The car lurched forward.