Chapter 9 The Demand
POV: Maya
The word hung in the musty air of the studio, mingling with the smell of oil paint and panic.
Owner.
“Unless,” he said, “you’d rather have a different owner.”
The silence that followed was louder than any scream.
Roman Lazarov stood before her, a statue in an expensive suit with zero morality.
He wasn’t flirting, the way he had at the museum.
He wasn’t hungry, the way he’d been the night before.
He was… clinical. Like a surgeon deciding where to make the first cut.
Maya stared at him, the wooden stool hard beneath her. Her fear for Leo was a ball of ice in her stomach. But a spark of her stubborn anger remained.
“Owner,” she repeated, her voice hoarse. “Are you insane?”
“I am many things,” Roman replied, his voice flat. “Insane is not one of them. Desperate? Perhaps. But you… you’re at a level of desperation you haven’t even begun to understand.”
He stepped away from her, deliberate, and walked to the grimy window of her studio. He looked out at the Queens brick alley as if inspecting an empire.
“I’m going to be clear, Maya, because I don’t like wasting time.” He turned. The gray morning light silhouetted him, transforming him into a figure of darkness. “I have an offer for you. It’s not a negotiation. It’s an ultimatum.”
Maya swallowed hard. The ice in her stomach began to melt into hot panic.
“I’ll pay off Leo’s debt,” he said.
The air left Maya’s lungs. Seventy thousand dollars. She stared at him, incredulous. That was more than she made in two years. He said it like he was offering to pick up the tab for coffee.
“I get him out of the country tonight,” Roman continued, as if she hadn’t reacted. “I put him on a plane, send him somewhere Sokolov will never find him. Rehabilitation. Security. I guarantee Viktor Sokolov will never touch a hair on your brother’s head again.”
Hope. It was a sickly, treacherous thing. It began to bloom in Maya’s chest, a poisonous flower. Save Leo. Get Leo out. Safe.
She stood slowly. “Why?” Her voice was a whisper. “Why would you do that? What… what do you want?”
“Ah,” he said. He walked slowly toward her, stopping only when the small work table covered with photos of Leo stood between them. “Now we get to it. The quid pro quo.”
He looked at her, his gray eyes no longer icy but hard as polished steel.
“I want you.”
Maya stepped back. “I… I don’t…”
“No,” he interrupted, his voice sharp. “Not like last night. Last night was a tactical error. A distraction.” He gestured to the apartment, to the canvases, to her. “I don’t want your body for one night. I want your entire life.”
Panic returned, smothering the hope. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” he said, leaning slightly over the table, “that in exchange for your brother’s life, you come with me. Now.”
And then he laid it out.
“You will be mine. You will live in my house. You will not speak to anyone without my permission. You will not leave without my approval. You will eat what I order and wear what I buy.”
He paused, letting the weight of each word sink into her.
“You will follow my rules. And the most important rule: you will stay away from Viktor Sokolov. You will belong to me. And you will continue to belong to me… until I decide otherwise.”
The Demand.
POV: Roman
He watched her face. Like watching a film on fast-forward. The shock. The disbelief. The pale gleam of hope being brutally extinguished. And then, the fire.
He almost smiled. There it was. The fire he’d seen at the museum. The fire he recognized on a cellular level. Anja’s fire.
That was why he had to do this.
She’s identical, his mind hissed, the memory of the surveillance photo burned into his retina. Sokolov found her. He was grooming her. He was going to make me watch.
His stomach turned. He hated having her here, in her poverty, smelling of paint and fear. He hated her resemblance to Anja. Having her in his house would be daily torture, a constant reminder of his failure to save his sister.
But Sokolov was an animal. A sadist who understood only one language: ownership.
Viktor wouldn't try to steal another man's woman just for fun. But he would love to steal a pawn in the making. To protect Maya, Roman couldn't simply hide her. He had to claim her. Publicly. Brutally.
He had to mark her as his territory—so completely that not even a psychopath like Sokolov would dare cross the line.
She had to be his. In the eyes of the entire world. Especially in Viktor's eyes.
He hated having to be the monster. But he was the only monster who could keep her safe from the other one.
POV: Maya
The silence stretched. Maya stared at him. The air in her lungs felt like it had turned to cement.
Then she laughed.
It wasn't a happy sound. It was broken, torn from her throat. Pure, disbelieving hysteria.
“No,” she said, the laughter dying.
She walked toward him, stopping on the other side of the table. His scent hit her—money and control.
“Go to hell,” she spat, each word dripping with venom.
His face didn't change.
“Buy me?” she hissed. “Is that it? You slept with me once, one night you can barely wait to forget, and now you think you can buy me?” She slammed her hand on the table, making Leo's photos jump. “I'm not one of your companies. I'm not an 'asset.'”
“You are...” he began.
“I'm not finished!” she shouted, rage finally breaking through her fear. “You come in here, break down my door, violate my space, show me pictures of my idiot brother, and think you can give me orders?”
She circled the table. She jabbed him in the chest, shoving hard. “You're a monster. Worse than him. At least Sokolov doesn't pretend to be anything else. You hide behind your suits and your money, but you're rotten. You're an arrogant tyrant.”
She was inches from him now, chin raised, eyes burning.
“I'd rather die,” she said, her voice low and lethal. “I'd rather let Leo deal with his own messes. I'd rather burn this place to the ground than belong to you.”
POV: Roman
She poked him.
No one. Ever. Touched him in anger.
He didn't move. He endured her shove, her fury. Her fire was magnificent. And completely naive.
“Dying is easy, Maya,” he said, his voice so calm it cut through her hysteria like a scalpel.
He grabbed her wrist. Not with force, but with a speed that made her gasp. The hand that had poked him was now trapped in his.
“It's what Sokolov will do to you before he kills you that should worry you.”
He pulled her, throwing her off balance. He didn't let go.
“You'd rather Leo die?” he mocked, his face now inches from hers. “You sure about that?”
He released her wrist and turned, walking to the photos. He picked up the one showing Leo with the scarred man.
“This is Dmitri,” Roman said, his voice casual, as if discussing the weather. “Ex-Spetsnaz. He likes breaking fingers. One at a time, with needle-nose pliers. He'll start with your brother's thumbs, so he can't text for help anymore.”
Maya paled.
“But Viktor is creative,” Roman continued, tossing the photo back.
“He won't let Leo die. That's too quick.
No, he'll turn him into his property. He'll make him sample every narcotic his ships bring in.
He'll break Leo's spirit until your charming little brother is nothing but a junkie ghost, begging for the next fix.”
He turned to her. “And then, when Leo is completely broken, Viktor will send him back to you. And he'll still owe the seventy thousand.”
“Stop,” Maya whispered, pressing her hands over her ears.
“And you?” Roman tore her hands away from her ears. “You think he'll leave you alone? You, the beautiful, feisty sister?”
He forced her to look at him. He had to make her see.
“He knows about you, Maya. He put you at that gala. He was waiting.”
He was waiting for me to see Anja, her mind screamed.
“He won’t kill you,” Roman hissed. “He’ll ruin you. He’ll sell you to men who will make last night look like a bedtime story. He’ll break you into pieces so small you’ll beg to die. And he’ll do it while sending the videos to your junkie brother.”
The silence in the studio was absolute. The only sound was Maya’s harsh, terrified breathing.
POV: Maya
The paint on her hands felt dirty. The paintings on the walls looked childish.
He wasn’t lying.
The level of detail. The certainty in his voice. The mention that Sokolov had placed her at the gala.
She was caught in a trap she hadn’t even known existed.
She looked around her studio. Her sanctuary. The place she’d built to protect herself from the world. And the world had come in, kicked down the door, and proven that her walls of paint and canvas were made of paper.
She was cornered.
She looked at Roman. The man who had bought her, used her, and was now offering to save her, but at an impossible price.
One monster to protect her from another.
“I don’t have a choice,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Roman said, his voice cold. “You don’t.”
He checked his watch. A platinum Rolex. A gesture so calculated, so arrogant, it made Maya want to vomit.
“Time’s running out. Sokolov’s men are coming for Leo today. They know he’s here.”
Maya’s eyes widened. “Here?”
“You thought he was safe?” Roman mocked. “They followed him. They’re waiting.”
Final panic. The last straw.
Maya looked at Roman, the man she hated. The man she had scratched and bitten. The man who was now her only, and terrible, salvation.
“And… last night?” she asked, her voice barely audible. What exactly did it mean to be “his”?
Roman’s face hardened. For a second, Maya saw something there—pain, perhaps? Disgust? He looked away.
“Last night was a mistake,” he said, his voice sharp, as if the word hurt him. “My… property… is not for my pleasure. It’s for my convenience.”
He looked back at her, his face a mask of control.
“You’re an asset, Maya. An asset I’m protecting from a competitor. Nothing more.”
The final nail in the coffin of her dignity. She wasn’t even a person. She was an object. An “asset.”
She looked at the photos of Leo. The image of his fingers being broken.
She closed her eyes. She breathed in the smell of turpentine one last time.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I didn’t hear you.”
She opened her eyes. The tears were gone, replaced by an icy emptiness that rivaled his.
“I said… yes.”
Roman Lazarov nodded once. There was no triumph on his face. Only the cold conclusion of a business transaction.
“Good,” he said. “Get your jacket. You won’t need anything else.”