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

”Come,” Konstantin said. ”We will talk when we get home. I have a feast prepared for all of you.” He lifted her hand and held it out, waiting for her to take his arm. ”Come, my love.”

Helena bit her lip, hard enough to hurt. Then she smiled. It was a small, soft, perfect smile.

”Okay,” she said. Just like that, she took his arm. She became the sweet, obedient wife, and Konstantin looked at her like something he had finally learned to bend.

He thinks he has molded her, Sienna thought. She was not sure he was wrong. She was not sure of anything.

The Don walked ahead with Helena on his arm. His men opened the car doors, and the white suits and the red suit disappeared inside. Viktor did not let go of Sienna’s hand.

He had not let go once, through all of it. She looked down at his fingers, and then she looked at the back of her mother’s head as the car door closed.

She said nothing to him. She only watched. Her mind was loud. Why is she playing along? She told me she hated him. She told me she would never come back here. So why is she smiling at him?

It was a question with a terrible number of answers, and she did not like any of them. ”Sienna,” Viktor said quietly. ”Not now.”

He nodded. He understood. They began to walk toward the second car. Carina was walking beside them, a little behind her father’s men. She was still in white, with her eyes low.

Viktor looked at her. Sienna looked at her too.

The question was in both of their faces, and it was not a kind one. Carina had been at the Don’s side. Carina had known things. Was she the one who had sold them? Carina felt their eyes. She lifted her head and met them.

Slowly, she shook it. No.

It was a small movement, and no one else saw it. But her eyes were red at the edges, and for the first time she looked her age. She looked like a girl who was afraid.

”It was not me,” she whispered. She barely moved her lips. Viktor held her gaze for a long moment. Then he gave one short nod. He did not say he believed her. He only chose not to argue.

Then who? The car door opened. Sienna slid in first. Viktor followed, and the door shut with a soft, expensive click. The engine started. The world outside turned dark behind the tinted glass.

Sienna sat with her hands in her lap and watched the road roll by.

It was not Carina. It was not Marcel. Nobody outside this small circle should have known the truth. Only a few people in the world knew who she really was.

So who had told the Don? Someone had opened the door, and Konstantin had simply walked through. And whoever it was, Sienna thought, they were still close.

The four cars moved in a line down the long road, one behind the other.

In the first car sat Helena and Don Konstantin. In the second sat Viktor and Sienna. Carina rode in a third car, alone. Nobody spoke inside the second car. Viktor kept his eyes on the back of the first, and Sienna kept hers on the window.

The road went on for a long time. Then the trees ended, and the gates began.

They were tall white gates with gold on the tips, and they opened without a sound. Two men stood on each side. They did not look at the cars. They looked at the road behind them.

Four men. Two on each side. Guns under the jackets, left side. Sienna counted without meaning to.

The cars rolled up a wide, curved drive, and the Ivanou estate came slowly into view.

It was white. Everything was white. The walls, the pillars, the steps, even the stones on the ground. It sat in the middle of a green lawn like a giant piece of ivory, clean and quiet and perfect. There were fountains. There were rows of tall windows shining in the sun. It looked like a palace from a story.

Anyone seeing it for the first time would have stopped and stared. Sienna did not.

Viktor did not either. He had been here before, and he had learned long ago what this beauty was worth. His face showed nothing. The car stopped. A driver opened the door, and they stepped out into the warm air.

Sienna’s eyes began to move. They did not go to the fountains or the flowers. They went to the roof, where a man stood near the edge with something long on his shoulder.

They went to the windows on the second floor, where a curtain moved and then was still. They went to the side of the house, where a path led toward the garden and a low wall. Two on the roof. One at the far window. Six at the front steps. Cameras on every pillar.

She found the doors. The main one, the small one near the kitchen, the wide glass one that opened to the back lawn. She marked them all in her head like a woman drawing a map. If I had to run, which way? Which door is the closest? Which one will be locked first?

She was not looking at a home. She was looking at a cage, and she was counting the bars.

Beside her, Viktor moved a little closer. He did not look at her, but she felt him do it. He knew exactly what she was doing, because he was doing the same.

”Left side is weak,” he said, so low that she almost missed it. ”The wall by the garden.”

”I saw,” she said. That was all. They both went quiet again.

Ahead of them, the first car had already emptied. Don Konstantin stood at the bottom of the steps with his arm held out. Helena’s hand rested on it.

She walked beside him, close and slow, in her red suit against all that white. To anyone watching, she looked like a wife coming home.

But Sienna saw her shoulders. They were too straight. She saw her mother’s fingers on the Don’s sleeve, resting so lightly that they hardly touched the cloth. And she saw the smile, the small soft one, fixed on Helena’s face like a painting.

She is not walking with him, Sienna thought. She is being walked.