Chapter 19 Eva
EVA
The glass explodes inward before my brain can process what's happening.
One second, I'm fumbling with the buttons on my blouse, my body still humming from Roman's touch, and the next, the world erupts into chaos.
Sharp cracks split the air—gunfire, my mind supplies with sickening clarity—and Roman's body slams into mine, taking me down to the floor with brutal efficiency.
His weight crushes the air from my lungs.
My cheek presses against the expensive carpet, and I taste copper—blood, I realize with horror, though I don't know if it's mine or his.
Roman's hand is on the back of my head, holding me down with one arm while the other moves with terrifying purpose.
I hear the metallic slide of a gun being drawn, and when I manage to turn my head slightly, I see him produce a weapon from the back of his waistband with the practiced ease of someone who's done this a thousand times.
This isn't my boss. This isn't the man who just made love to me against his desk. This is someone else entirely. Someone lethal and controlled, his blue eyes cold and calculating as he rises to a crouch, using his desk for cover while keeping his body between me and the shattered windows.
He returns fire with deadly precision. Three shots, each one deliberate and measured. No panic. No hesitation. Just cold, efficient violence.
The shooting stops as suddenly as it started.
Through the ringing in my ears, I hear a heavy thud and realize it's a body hitting the floor.
Roman moves forward, his gun still raised, and I watch in frozen horror as he approaches a figure sprawled near the doorway.
Blood pools on the carpet, spreading in a dark stain that will never come out.
The man's eyes are open, staring at nothing, and I can't breathe, can't think, can't process what I'm seeing.
Roman killed someone. Right in front of me. With the same hands that touched me moments ago, that made me gasp his name, that held me like I was something precious.
"Eva." His voice cuts through my shock. He's kneeling beside me, his hands on my face, forcing me to look at him instead of the body. "Are you hurt? Look at me. Are you hurt?"
I shake my head, unable to form words. My whole body is trembling, my teeth chattering despite the warmth of the office. Roman's blue eyes search my face with an intensity that should comfort me but only amplifies my terror.
"Stay here," he orders, his voice low and controlled. "Don't move. Don't look at anything. Just stay here."
He stands, already pulling out his phone, and I hear him speaking rapid Russian. The words are too low for me to follow, but his tone is clipped, authoritative. Giving orders. Managing a crisis with the same efficiency he brings to business meetings.
I don't know how long I sit there on the floor, my back against his desk, my half-buttoned blouse hanging open. Time feels elastic, stretching and compressing in ways that make no sense. It could be minutes or hours before the elevator chimes and Lev Baranov steps onto the floor.
His dark eyes sweep the scene… the shattered glass, the body, me huddled on the floor, Roman standing with his gun still in hand, and his expression doesn't change. No shock. No surprise. Just grim acceptance, like this is something he's seen before. Something he expected.
Lev nods, already pulling out his phone. He makes a single call, then moves to the body, checking pockets with clinical detachment, photographing the man's face with his phone.
"Yakovlev's crew," Lev says after a moment. "I recognize him. Low-level soldier, but the setup was too clean for him to have planned alone."
The elevator chimes again. More men step out. Four of them, dressed in dark clothing, carrying equipment I don't want to identify. They move with the same practiced efficiency as Roman's security team, but there's something different about them. Something harder. More dangerous.
"Cleaners," Lev says, noticing my stare. His tone is matter-of-fact, like he's introducing me to the janitorial staff rather than people who erase evidence of murder.
I watch in numb horror as they work. The body is wrapped in plastic sheeting with disturbing speed.
Blood is scrubbed from the carpet with industrial-strength chemicals that make my eyes water.
The shattered glass is collected, every fragment accounted for.
One man is already measuring the window frame, presumably to arrange replacement glass.
They work in near silence, communicating with hand signals and brief words in Russian.
It's choreographed. Practiced. They've done this before—many times before.
My mind fractures trying to process it. This isn't just Roman being involved in something illegal. This is an entire infrastructure designed to make violence disappear. To erase evidence. To ensure that what happened here tonight never officially existed.
Are they going to kill me, too?
The thought crashes through my shock with sickening clarity.
I saw everything. I'm a witness to murder.
Roman might have just made love to me, might have held me like I mattered, but I know what he is now.
I've seen the monster beneath the expensive suits and controlled demeanor.
What's to stop him from having these "cleaners" make me disappear along with the body?
My hands start shaking harder. I press them against my thighs, trying to stop the tremors, but it's useless. My whole body is betraying me, fear flooding my system with adrenaline that has nowhere to go.
Roman appears in front of me suddenly, crouching down to my eye level. His hands cup my face with surprising gentleness, forcing me to meet his gaze. Those piercing blue eyes that usually make my pulse quicken now make my stomach clench with terror.
"Eva," he says, his voice low and intense. "Listen to me very carefully. You can never tell anyone what happened here tonight. Not Megan. Not your brother. Not the police. No one. Do you understand?"
I nod, my throat too tight to speak.
"Your life depends on your silence," he continues, his accent thicker than usual.
"Not because I would hurt you. I wouldn't, I swear to you, I wouldn't. But because there are people who would use this information to destroy everything.
People who would hurt you to get to me. You saw nothing tonight.
You were never here. This never happened. "
"But it did happen," I whisper, my voice cracking. "You killed someone. Right in front of me."
Something flickers in his expression—regret, maybe, or pain. "He came here to kill me, Eva. To kill us both. I did what was necessary to protect you."
The words should comfort me, but they don't. Because I'm realizing with horrible clarity that this is Roman's world.
Violence and death and bodies wrapped in plastic.
Cleaners who erase evidence without blinking an eye.
A man who can kill without hesitation and then hold me like I'm precious in the same breath.
And I'm trapped in it now. Complicit by proximity. A witness who can never speak.
Lev approaches, his expression carefully neutral. "We need to get her home. The longer she's here, the more complicated this becomes."
Roman nods, standing and pulling me to my feet.
My legs are shaking so badly I can barely stand, and he keeps one arm around my waist, supporting my weight.
He helps me button my blouse with steady hands, his touch impersonal now, clinical.
Like I'm a problem to be managed rather than a woman he was inside less than an hour ago.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
One of Roman's security guards brings my purse and coat. Roman helps me into the coat like I'm a child, his movements gentle despite the violence I just witnessed him capable of.
The ride down in the elevator is suffocating.
Roman stands close, his hand on the small of my back, and I can't stop staring at his other hand.
The one that held the gun. The one that killed a man with three precise shots.
Those same fingers were inside me earlier, making me gasp and moan. The contrast makes my stomach turn.
The SUV is waiting at the curb, engine running.
Roman helps me into the back seat, then slides in beside me.
The driver pulls away from the building immediately, and I watch through the tinted windows as the gleaming glass tower disappears behind us.
From the outside, it looks exactly the same.
No evidence of the violence that just occurred on the forty-second floor. No sign that a man died there tonight.
Roman doesn't touch me during the drive, but I feel his attention like a physical weight. He's watching me, assessing, probably calculating whether I'm going to break, whether I'm going to run to the police the moment I'm alone.
I won't. Not because I'm loyal to him, but because I'm terrified. Terrified of what he is. Terrified of what he's capable of. Terrified of the men who can make bodies disappear and the infrastructure that supports it all.
When we finally pull up outside my building, Roman walks me to the door. His hand is gentle on my elbow, his voice low as he reminds me one more time, "You were never at the office tonight. You went straight home after work. You saw nothing."
I nod, unable to meet his eyes. Unable to reconcile the man who just gave me the best sex of my life with the man who killed someone without hesitation.
"Eva." He cups my face, forcing me to look at him. "I'm sorry you had to see that. But I would do it again to keep you safe. Do you understand?"
I don't answer. I just pull away and walk into my building, my legs barely supporting my weight as I climb the six flights to my apartment. Each step feels like moving through water, my body heavy with shock and fear and the weight of what I've witnessed.
I'm fumbling with my keys when I hear voices inside the apartment. Megan's voice, high and angry. And Tyler's, lower, trying to calm her down.
My stomach drops.
I push open the door to find them both in the living room. Megan is pacing, her usual sunshine completely eclipsed by fury. Tyler sits on the couch, and my breath catches when I see his face. His left eye is swollen and bruised, his lip split, his wire-rimmed glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.
They both turn when I enter. Megan's brown eyes are blazing with an anger I've never seen directed at me before.
"What the hell is going on with your boss?" Her voice cracks with emotion. "Why did his people attack Tyler?"