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

She was a med student. She could read the pages without trying. She saw her own condition written in careful handwriting. She saw the name of her illness, the pieces of her blood, the numbers that meant something to a doctor.

And something else.

There were notes in the margins that had nothing to do with her heart.

He is lying, she thought. This is not about my condition. It never was.

She looked at the machines. She looked at the woman with her head bent and the guard standing by the door.

This man will go to any length. Any length at all. He was trying to buy her, win her with jewels and hope, and now with the promise of a cure. And he truly believed it would work.

But she was not Aliya.

Aliya would have cried at the diamonds. Aliya would have touched them, held them, asked for more. Nothing here meant anything to Sienna. It was all just objects in a cage.

She turned around.

”Are you done?” she said. ”Can I leave now?” The Don studied her for a moment. Then he laughed, softly. ”Just one more stop.”

He took her hand again, and she let him. She was tired of fighting over her fingers. She followed him back down the stairs with her chin high, and Helena and Viktor and Carina followed behind them, close but silent.

They came out through the main entrance into the bright afternoon.

The parking lot was wide and white. Cars sat in rows, gleaming. The moment the drivers saw the Don, they snapped to attention. One of them was already at a white car with the engine running and the back door open.

They had been ready for this. Of course they had. ”Where are you taking me?” Sienna asked.

”You will see.” The Don gestured toward the open door. She stopped. Then Helena moved. She slid past Carina and Viktor and got into the car first, quickly, sliding across the back seat. She patted the space beside her.

Sienna climbed in and sat beside her mother. The Don followed. He took the seat on her other side, and the door shut behind him with a heavy sound.

Through the tinted window, Sienna saw Viktor start forward. He did not get far. Guards stepped out of nowhere. Two in front of him, then two more at his sides. A big man grabbed his arm.

”Hey!” Viktor shouted. ”Let me go!” He threw the man off. Another took his place. Viktor twisted, drove his elbow back, and one of them stumbled, but the others closed in on him like a wall. Four men. Then five.

”Let me go! Sienna!” Six men held him. He fought all of them at once, his face wild, his voice cracking across the lot. His hands reached toward the car. His eyes were on the window, on her.

Sienna pressed her palm flat against the glass. The Don leaned back in his seat and adjusted his white cuff, calm, as if nothing at all was happening.

”Drive,” he said. The car began to move.

”Let him go.” Carina’s voice was not loud, but it carried across the whole parking lot. The six men holding Viktor did not stop at first. One of them glanced over his shoulder, and when he saw who had spoken, he hesitated.

Carina stepped forward. She was still in her white dress, still small next to all those big men. But she lifted her chin, and something in her changed. The scared girl from the hall was gone.

”Did you not hear me?” she said. ”I said, let him go.”

She had been the Don’s right hand for years. She had signed his papers and carried his messages. She had stood beside him in rooms where men begged for their lives. Every one of these guards knew it. They might not respect her as a daughter, but they knew what her word could do.

”He is Miss Katalia’s husband,” Carina said.

One by one, the hands came off Viktor. The men stepped back. They pulled at their jackets and fixed their collars, and they would not look at him. Then they turned and walked away, as if nothing had happened.

Viktor stood in the middle of the lot, breathing hard. His sleeve was torn, and there was a red mark on his jaw. He did not look at Carina. He was looking at the road, where the white car was already small.

”Come with me,” Carina said.

She said it calmly, and she did not wait for an answer. She walked straight to her own car, opened the door, and got in behind the wheel. Viktor stared after her for one second. Then he ran and got in.

The engine started. Carina drove out of the gates without a word.

Viktor sat stiffly in the passenger seat with his hands on his knees. The road was long and empty, and far ahead of them, two cars away, he could see the Don’s white car. She kept the same distance and never got closer.

He turned his head and looked at her. Her eyes were on the road. Her hands were tight on the wheel. Her face gave away nothing, but a small muscle moved in her jaw.

”Why did you tell him?” Viktor asked. His voice was quiet, and it was worse than shouting.

”I never did.”

”Carina.”

”I never did.” She said it again, still looking straight ahead. ”When I said I would look out for myself from now on, I did not mean I would go to the Don and hand him Sienna. I meant I would not be anyone’s pawn.” Her voice shook and then steadied. ”I would never do that.”

Viktor watched her for a long time.

He had spent years reading people’s faces across tables, and he was very good at it. He looked for the small signs, the eyes that slid away, the breath that came too fast. Carina did not look away. She just drove.

”Then it must be someone else,” she said.

”Who else knew?” His hand closed into a fist on his knee. ”Tell me. Who else in this world knew the truth?”

”I don’t know.”

”You must have an idea.”

”I don’t know, Viktor.” Her voice cracked. ”I have been asking myself the same question since the runway. Every name I think of, I cannot believe it. That is what scares me.”