Chapter 4 The Escape
PART I: MAYA
The light was the first assault.
Not the soft, filtered glow of dawn that crept through the grimy window of her Queens apartment. This was cold, bluish, merciless—pouring over dark marble, making everything look sharper and more expensive.
Maya Ventura woke with a jolt, her entire body protesting. She wasn't in a bed. She was curled up on the black leather sofa that might as well have been carved from a block of ice. The same sofa where she'd passed out, naked and exhausted, hours before.
The silence.
That was the second thing she noticed. A pressurized, high-altitude silence that buzzed in her ears.
Then the memories hit her. Not in a gentle wave, but like a punch to the stomach. The hallway. The wall. The kiss that was a battle. The cold marble floor. The way he'd watched her afterward, as if she were a specimen.
A sound escaped her throat—a moan of horror.
She sat up abruptly, and the movement made the world spin.
Every muscle in her body ached. She was sore in places she didn't even know could hurt.
She looked down. Naked. Completely naked on a stranger's sofa, with New York watching her passively through the glass walls.
Shame. A hot, dirty wave rising through her chest and burning her face. Shame and a crippling anger at herself.
What did you do?
She thought of Leo. She thought of the seventy thousand dollars. Tonight was supposed to be oblivion. Instead, she'd just added another layer of degradation to her life. She hadn't forgotten anything—she'd just become something Roman Lazarov used and threw away.
She needed to get out. Now.
She jumped off the sofa, the cold marble floor a shock against her bare feet. Where was he?
She looked frantically around the vast space. The apartment was silent. A dark hallway she hadn't noticed last night led to another part of the penthouse. The door was closed.
Was he in there? Sleeping? Or had he simply… left? Gone to work as if nothing had happened?
Maya didn't care. She just needed her clothes.
She saw them. A pathetic pile on the floor, near the glass wall where it all began. Her black polyester shirt, her uniform pants, her dirty apron. And her shoes.
She ran to them, stumbling over her own urgency. Humiliation hit her again when she picked up the pants. The zipper was broken, the fabric torn where he'd yanked it down. She couldn't wear them. The shirt was wrinkled but intact.
She pulled on the shirt, the buttons impossibly complicated for her trembling fingers. She grabbed the pants and held them against herself—useless coverage. Her shoes. She slipped on the cheap work shoes.
She stood there in nothing but work shoes and a wrinkled shirt, clutching a pair of torn pants, looking like a disaster victim.
Then she remembered. The earring.
Her hand flew to her left earlobe. Empty. She touched the right one—the cheap hoop was still there.
They were her mother's earrings. The only “good” earrings she owned, even if they were just costume jewelry. And he'd broken it.
A frantic search began. She dropped to her knees, panic clawing up her throat. She crawled across the marble floor, looking under the icy sofa, near the glass wall. Where was it?
Stop. She had to stop.
She was naked from the waist down, hunting for a broken earring in the apartment of a billionaire who'd used her like a toy. The insanity of it hit her. Was she crazy?
She had to go. The earring was gone. Like her dignity.
She stood up. She grabbed her dirty apron and tied it around her waist like a makeshift skirt. Humiliating. Grotesque. But it covered her legs.
She ran to the private elevator—the one that had brought her up here. She pressed the button. The brushed metal doors opened instantly, silently.
She stepped in and pressed the “Lobby” button. The doors closed, trapping her in a mirrored metal box. She caught her reflection. Her hair was a wild nest. A purple mark was forming on her jaw where he'd gripped her. Her eyes were red and feral.
The box descended. Every second was agony. She expected alarms to blare, for him to appear and mock her.
The doors opened to the silent underground garage. The Maybach was gone. He'd left her there. Alone.
She ran. She found a door marked “Fire Exit.” She shoved it with her shoulder and stumbled into a cold alley that reeked of garbage and piss.
Manhattan's gray dawn light hit her. It was almost six in the morning. A garbage truck rumbled past, and the driver looked at her with pity and disgust.
Maya Ventura—wearing a uniform shirt, an apron for a skirt, and broken work shoes—started to run. She ran, tears of shame and rage finally streaming down her face, not caring who saw her.
She wasn't running from him. She was running from herself.
PART II: ROMAN
Roman Lazarov wasn't sleeping. He rarely slept more than four hours.
He stood in his bedroom—a vast space of gray and glass overlooking the other side of the city—watching the sunrise. He'd been awake for two hours. Already showered. The hot water had washed the smell of sweat, sex, and her anger from his skin.
He wore black sweatpants and nothing else. A cup of black coffee sat in his hand.
He listened.
He heard the moment she woke, a rustle of panic on the sofa. He heard the low moan. He heard her feet hitting the marble.
He stood perfectly still, listening.
He heard her searching for her clothes. He heard the rustle of fabric.
Then, he heard the crawling.
That made him pause. He frowned. He walked silently to the bedroom door and opened it a crack.
He watched her.
She was on all fours, near the glass wall, her hair a wild mess, naked. She was hunting for something.
He watched her for a long moment. The dawn light outlined her curves, pale skin against the dark floor. She was a mess. A disaster. And she had fought him like a wildcat.
She stopped searching. She stood up. He watched her tie the dirty apron around her waist. A mockery of modesty.
He watched as she ran to the elevator, like a frightened animal fleeing a trap that was already open. He heard the elevator doors close.
She was gone.
Roman walked out of the bedroom, into the main room. The morning sun now flooded the space, illuminating the scene from the night before. His clothes were in a pile near the door. Her polyester shirt, the torn pants.
He wasn't angry.
He was intrigued.
No one left.
The women he brought to his penthouse—and there were few—never left like this. They stayed for breakfast. They lingered, waiting for a parting gift, for money on a nightstand, for a promise of another meeting. They clung.
Maya Ventura had fled as if the building were on fire.
She didn't ask for anything. She didn't take anything.
She didn't even take the earring.
Roman walked to the spot near the glass wall, where he had first pressed her. He crouched. There it was, glinting faintly against the dark marble.
The earring she had been searching for.
He picked it up.
It was light, the metal cold. A fake silver hoop, with a broken clasp. The kind of thing you buy for ten dollars from a street cart.
He turned it between his thumb and forefinger.
He thought about the night. The taste of blood in his mouth when she bit him. The force of her scratches on his back. The way she cursed him and fought him until the moment she came apart.
She was fire and desperation. And she ran.
A small, cold smile formed on Roman Lazarov's lips. She was a puzzle. And he hated puzzles he couldn't solve.
He went to his desk, the cheap earring still in his hand. He picked up his cell phone. He didn't call the driver to ask where she had gone. He called a number he knew by heart.
The voice on the other end answered on the first ring. “Yes, sir.”
“Kosta,” Roman said, watching the city wake up. “I need a file. The name is Maya Ventura. She worked at the Art Museum event last night.”
He paused, rolling the earring in his palm.
“I want everything,” he continued, his voice low and calculating. “Where she lives. Her associates. Family history. And, Kosta,” he squeezed the earring hard, “find out who her brother owes money to. I want the file on my desk in an hour.”
He hung up, without waiting for confirmation.
He looked at the cheap earring. A worthless piece of metal. The only thing she left behind.
He opened his desk drawer and tossed it inside. The hunt had begun.