Nobody asks too many questions.
Who says something like that unless it’s normal in their world? Unless there is already an understanding that things can be buried at convenience.
I look at Viktor again.
He’s speaking quietly to Yuri now, face unreadable, body still. He hasn’t raised his voice once since the girl collapsed. He hasn’t shown shock the way other people have. Only attention. Calculation. A terrible kind of calm.
And suddenly I’m back on the plane for a split second, not in the seat, not in the soft heat of him later, but in the moment before any of that, when he stepped between me and the creep bothering me with that same stillness. That same ease. As if handling dangerous men was not unusual for him, just tedious.
My mouth goes dry.
I slept with this man. I am carrying his child.
And I do not know who he is. Not really.
The realization should make me step away from him. It should make me gather whatever is left of my common sense and run in the opposite direction.
Instead, horribly, what I feel first is fear for him.
If I’m right, then someone tried to poison Viktor this morning and nearly killed the wrong girl by accident.
I fold my arms around myself without thinking, then stop halfway before my hands can settle where they want to. Still, the baby shifts low and heavy, as if even that tiny movement was a signal something has gone badly wrong.
I force my hands down.
Across the terrace, Camille is still crying. Ethan is still murmuring to her. Alina stands a little apart from them, pale and furious in a much quieter way. Around all of them, guestsare beginning to understand that the morning is not going to recover.
The wedding is already cracking.
And I’m standing in the middle of it, staring at a man I thought I knew through hunger and memory and one night of astonishing sex, realizing that whatever he really is, it’s bigger, stranger, and more dangerous than I let myself imagine.
Viktor turns then, as if he feels me looking.
His eyes find mine immediately, and for one second the whole terrace seems to fall away. The crying bride. The guests. The ambulance already gone through the gates. Ethan trying to act like his father can bend the police to his will.
It all disappears under the weight of that look.
He sees that I know something. Maybe not everything, but enough. And in his face, for the first time since breakfast shattered, I see something that looks almost like a warning. Not to speak. Not yet.
My heart starts pounding all over again.
I slip away at the first chance I get.
Not far. Just into a small sitting room off the side hall, one of those half-forgotten rooms meant for coats or quiet conversations, with pale walls, a narrow sofa, and tall windows looking out over the side garden. The door doesn’t quite latch unless you push it hard, and I don’t. I just need a minute. A breath. Somewhere no one is watching my face.
My hands are shaking when I pull out my phone.
Talia picks up on the second ring. “Sienna?”
I close my eyes. “Tell me who these people are.”
A beat of silence.
“What happened?”
“Just answer me.”
More silence, and then I hear her exhale. “I don’t know everything.”
