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

”Do you need help?” Viktor’s voice came from behind her.

He was dressed now. The white suit fit him perfectly, sharp at the shoulders, with a white shirt and a dark tie. His shoes were polished. He looked like a different man. He looked like a prince, or a bodyguard, or someone who had been made to stand next to the Don and match him.

He had seen her lean toward the mirror. He did not know why. He only knew something had changed.

”No,” Sienna said.

She said it quickly. She stood up straight and turned her face away from the glass.

Her hands were shaking. It was a quiet shaking, small and fine, like a leaf in still air. She hid it by lifting them to her hair and pulling out the pins. She let it fall loose around her shoulders. She ran her fingers through it, slowly, as if she were only fixing it.

Viktor turned to pick up his jacket. The moment his back was to her, she pressed her hand against her other wrist. Two fingers. The place under the bone. She closed her eyes and counted.

One. Two. Three. Four. It came in a rush, and then it did not. It tripped. It sped. It went quiet, and then it came back harder, like a drum being hit by two different people.

She could not name it.

She had a dozen words for it in her head, from textbooks and charts and the long nights of study. She tried them all, one after another, and none of them fit. It was not any one thing. It was two things or three, or something she had never seen written down.

What is happening to me? The room faded.

She did not hear the music from downstairs. She did not hear the clink of cufflinks. She stood in the middle of the white room with her eyes shut and her hand clamped on her wrist, and she was a long way from here.

She did not notice that the sound of the cufflinks had stopped. She did not feel him cross the room.

When she finally opened her eyes, he was right behind her. She could see him in the mirror, tall and white and still, with his hands hanging at his sides. His face was calm. But his eyes were fixed on her reflection, and they were not calm at all.

Slowly, gently, Viktor took her by the shoulders.

He turned her around to face him. ”Something is wrong,” Viktor said. ”Tell me what it is.”

He did not shout. He held her by the shoulders and looked into her face, and he waited.

Sienna opened her mouth to say I’m fine. The words were already there, ready, worn smooth from use. But he was looking at her the way he always did, as if there were nothing in the world she could say that would make him look away.

She could not lie to that. ”I don’t know,” she said.

”Sienna.”

”I really don’t know. My heart...” She stopped and tried again. ”My pulse is not stable. And my eyes. I can’t explain it yet.” Her voice was quiet. ”I’m not okay, Viktor.”

It was the first time she had said it out loud. It sounded smaller than she had expected, and much heavier. Viktor did not ask her to repeat it. He did not ask if she was sure.

His hand dropped from her shoulder, and he turned toward the bed. In three steps he had the black bag open. He pulled out a shirt, then a pair of boots, then the second bag, and began stuffing things inside without looking at them.

”We are leaving. Now.”

”Viktor...”

”Marcus is on standby. The Gallon boys are with him. We cannot take all of the Don’s men, but we do not need to take them all. We only need a door.” His hands moved fast. A zipper tore halfway, and he pulled it again. ”I will not wait one more second. I do not care what it costs.”

”Viktor, stop.”

”If I have to burn this house down to carry you out of it...”

”Viktor.” He stopped.

He stood with a boot in one hand, and the bag half closed in the other. His chest was rising and falling too fast. His eyes were bright, and not from anger.

This was the man who had stood calm in front of a gun that afternoon. The man who had held his face still while six guards beat him. Now his hand was shaking so hard that the boot knocked against the zipper, a small, ugly rattle in the quiet room.

Sienna watched it.

She had never seen him break before. It was not loud. It was only a crack, thin and quiet, running right through the middle of him. She crossed the room and took the boot out of his fingers and set it on the bed.

”Look at me,” she said gently. ”Come here.” She led him to the tall mirror.

He did not understand at first. She stood in front of the glass and pulled him in beside her, so they were both in the frame, white on white, in the soft lamplight.

”I want to show you something,” she said. ”Because I need you to understand what this could mean.”

She lifted her chin toward the light. ”Look at my eyes.” He looked.

”This is the pupil. It’s the right size, and it reacts to light. That is good.” She turned her head slowly. ”Now this part, the white. It should be clear. It isn’t. See the color, just a little, along the edge?”

He leaned in. His jaw tightened. ”Yes.”

”And here.” She pulled down her lower eyelid with one finger. ”The lining should be pink. It is pale. And these tiny lines, the veins, they are in the wrong places. They are thicker than they should be.”

Her voice was steady. It was the voice of a student reading a chart, and she held it that way with all her strength.

She lifted her hand and showed him her nails. She pressed one down and let it go and counted how long the white took to turn pink again. She laid two fingers against the side of her neck and held them there, watching the second hand of the clock on the wall.

”It’s fast. Too fast. And then it isn’t. It trips.” She dropped her hand. ”I don’t know what it is. I know it’s not just stress, and I know it’s not just tiredness.”

She met his eyes in the glass. ”I’m not telling you this to scare you. I’m telling you because you’re the only person in the world I would tell.”

The room was very quiet.

Viktor’s face had gone gray. The muscle in his cheek was jumping. He was gripping the edge of the dresser behind him so hard that his knuckles shone white, and she could see him trying to keep upright by sheer will.

”Say it,” he said hoarsely. ”Say what you think it is.”

”I don’t know yet.”

”Sienna.”

”I don’t know. And I won’t guess when your life depends on it too.” Her voice cracked on the last word, just a little. She breathed and steadied it. ”But I think the answer is here.”

”Here?”

”The lab.” She turned to him fully. ”When the Don took us to the other side of the house, I saw files. On the wall, and on the tables, and in the cabinets. My name was on the top of them.” Her hands closed around his. ”He has my blood work. Twenty years of research. Whatever this is, he knows more about it than I do.”

”Then we take it from him and run.”

”We can’t run.” She said it softly. ”Not yet. If I leave now, I leave without answers. I will be sick somewhere with no idea what is killing me. And if the Don finds out I’m unwell, that is all the excuse he will ever need. He will have me in that lab before I can say my own name.”

Viktor’s eyes closed.

”He will start whatever all this is about,” she said. ”I can’t let that happen. We need those files. Tonight.”

For a long moment, he did not speak.

When he opened his eyes, something in them had changed. The panic was still there, but it had gone quiet and sharp, folded down into something he could use.

”Okay,” he said. He let go of the dresser.

”Okay. We will get the files.” He took her face in both his hands. ”But you promise me. If it becomes too much, if it gets worse, even for one second, you tell me. You do not hide it. You do not smile and pretend.”

”I promise.”

”Say it again.”

”I promise, Viktor.” He nodded slowly. Then, for the first time since the knock on the door, his mouth moved into a small, tired smile.