Chapter 15 Romans Weak Spot
POV: Maya
The ride back from the restaurant was silent torture—the kind screaming could never have matched.
Roman Lazarov's rage in the hallway didn't explode. Worse. It solidified. After Viktor Sokolov disappeared, Roman grabbed her by the arm—his fingers like steel claws, digging into the silk of the dress and the skin beneath—and dragged her back to the table.
He didn't speak.
He threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table for the wine they'd barely touched and the blood he'd spilled.
He pulled Maya from her chair—to the shock of Arthur, the business partner—and dragged her through the restaurant.
Stares followed them, but Roman was a force of nature, a human hurricane no one dared question.
The silence in the Maybach was deafening.
Maya sat huddled against the door, as far from him as she could get, but the air in the car was thick with his unspoken fury.
He didn't look at her. He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched so tight she feared his teeth would shatter.
The hand he'd used to break the glass rested on his knee, the linen napkin now a rag soaked with blood and wine.
When they arrived at the penthouse garage, he pulled her out of the car before the driver could even open the door.
The elevator ride. God, the elevator. Pressurized silence, surrounded by mirrors. She could see his reflection—tall, dark, vibrating with contained violence. And she could see herself—a pale, terrified doll in an emerald-green dress.
He led her to her bedroom door, the gray cage. He unlocked it (or signaled for Kosta to unlock it). The door opened.
“Take off that dress,” he ordered, his voice hoarse and cold. “Burn it. I don't care. But I never want to see it again.”
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and marched down the hallway toward his own wing, disappearing into the darkness.
The door closed. Click.
And now, sleep was impossible.
It was three in the morning. The silence in the penthouse was almost absolute. Maya was back in her prisoner's uniform—a gray cashmere sweater and pants that felt like clouds. The doll's clothes (the dress, the shoes, the jewelry) lay in a heap in the corner, like snakeskin she'd shed.
But sleep wouldn't come.
She was trapped. The word echoed in her mind. Viktor Sokolov's warning buzzed in her ears, warring against Roman's possessive grip.
“He breaks his toys.”
The image of the shattered glass. The pain of his grip on her knee.
“He wasn't saving your brother, Maya. He was buying you from me.”
She felt dirty. She hated Roman. She feared Sokolov. She was a pawn, exactly as Roman had said in his studio, and she was being crushed between the two kings.
She couldn't stand the gray room anymore. It was suffocating.
She needed air. She needed space.
She went to the bedroom door. She turned the handle. This time, it wasn't locked from the outside. He hadn't locked her in. He knew he didn't need to. The threat of handing Leo over was a stronger lock than any metal.
She opened the door. The hallway was dark, lit only by dim lights along the baseboard.
Silence.
She stepped out into the large living room. The place where it all began. The place where he broke her.
The glass walls revealed a city that never slept, a carpet of twinkling lights. She was the only person awake in this mausoleum, floating above the world. She walked to the glass, cold marble beneath her bare feet, and pressed her forehead against the icy surface.
What was she going to do? She had nowhere to run. She had no way to fight.
That's when she heard it.
It wasn't a scream. It was a low, strangled sound. A sound of pain.
Maya froze. The sound came from the west wing. His wing. The wing he'd forbidden her to approach.
She held her breath. Silence.
Maybe she'd imagined it. The exhaustion and hunger of the past few days were playing tricks on her mind.
Then she heard it again.
A groan. Guttural. And the sound of something—a fist?—hitting a soft surface.
Maya's heart pounded against her ribs. Was he with someone? A woman? The idea filled her with a sudden, sour poison she refused to identify as jealousy.
No. It wasn't a sound of pleasure. It was a sound of agony.
She stepped away from the glass, moving like a ghost. She didn't know what she was doing. Curiosity was a stupid, reckless force. She wanted to see him weak. After the humiliation at the restaurant, she needed to see him weak.
She slid down the main hallway, her feet making no sound on the thick carpet. His hallway was even darker. She stopped at its entrance.
The sound came again, clearer this time. A low growl, followed by words. Muffled, confused words.
She moved down the hallway. There was only one door at the end. And it was ajar.
A thin sliver of light—not from the hallway, but from the city itself—leaked through the crack.
She crept closer, her heart hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it. She stopped beside the door, hidden in the darkness, and peeked through the crack.
His room was enormous but dark. Almost empty. The only furniture was a massive bed, low and modern, facing a wall of glass, just like hers.
He was on it.
He wasn’t sleeping. He was being tortured.
Roman was in the middle of the bed, but he wasn’t lying down. He was half-sitting, black sheets twisted around his waist, shoulders bare. And he was thrashing.
He was tense as a bowstring, the muscles of his back and shoulders rigid. Sweat gleamed on his skin, even in the cold light of the city.
He was trapped in a nightmare.
Maya watched, hypnotized. The man who was the epitome of control, the man who shattered wine glasses through sheer force of will, was completely… undone.
His face was twisted into a mask of pain she’d never seen. He shook his head from side to side, teeth clenched.
“No,” he murmured. The word was a broken sound. “Not… again…”
He was fighting an invisible enemy, his hands clenching at the air as if trying to grasp something… or someone.
Maya leaned closer, instinct screaming at her to flee, but the sight of him kept her rooted in place.
He groaned again, a sound with nothing human in it. It was the sound of a soul being torn apart.
And then he whispered a name.
It was so low she almost missed it. A breath of air.
“…Anja…”
The name hung in the dark air. Anja.
Who was Anja? The woman Sokolov mentioned, the one he “broke”?
Before Maya could process the name, the very air in the room seemed to shift.
Roman stopped thrashing.
He didn’t wake slowly. He didn’t blink, confused. In an instant, he went from unconscious torment to absolute stillness.
He was lost in pain, eyes squeezed shut… until they snapped open.
And they found her.
He didn’t look around. He didn’t search for the source of the disturbance. He looked through the darkness, through the crack in the door, and his stormy gray eyes fixed directly on hers.
Time stopped.
Maya gasped, the air stolen from her lungs. He had sensed her.
The vulnerability vanished. The pain was gone.
In its place, a black, murderous fury overtook his features.
In a movement so fast she could barely register it, Roman was out of bed. The sheets flew. He was bare to the waist, his body that of a predator, gleaming with sweat.
Maya stepped back, the spell broken. Panic hit her. She turned to run.
Too late.
He was at the door in two seconds. It flew open with a bang, slamming into the hallway wall.
Maya screamed, stumbling over her own feet.
He grabbed her by the sleeve of her cashmere sweater, fingers like steel. He dragged her out of the dark hallway and into the dim light of the living room.
“What,” he hissed, his voice not a roar but something far worse—a blade of ice and venom. “Were. You. Doing?”
He was naked except for a pair of black pajama pants. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He smelled of fear and fury. And he was trembling. Not from cold. From rage.
Maya was paralyzed. She’d never seen him like this. Not even at the restaurant. That had been controlled hatred. This was primal.
“I… I heard,” she stammered, terrified. “I heard a noise. I thought…”
“You don’t think!” he roared, and this time it was a roar, echoing through the vast, silent space. He shook her, and her head whipped back. “I gave you rules! I told you to stay in your wing!”
“You were screaming!” she cried, trying to wrench free of his grip.
“I don’t care!” he shouted, his face inches from hers. The vulnerability she’d seen, the broken man calling for “Anja,” had vanished, replaced by a furious monster.
The fury in his eyes was so absolute, so terrifying, that she stopped fighting.
He watched her, chest heaving. He saw her look at him, at the sweat, at the tremor in his hands. He saw the realization dawn on her face.
She had seen him.
She had seen him weak.
His rage extinguished instantly, replaced by something even colder.
He released her. He shoved her away as if she were filthy.
He stepped back, and Roman Lazarov's mask of control snapped back into place. He straightened his shoulders, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Get out,” he hissed. His voice was lethal.
Maya didn't move. She was shaking too hard.
“Get out,” he repeated, his voice lower but somehow more deadly. “Go back to your room. And if you dare leave that wing again, if you dare look at me while I sleep, I swear to God…”
He didn't finish the threat. He didn't need to.
Maya turned and ran.
She ran across the cold marble floor, her bare feet slapping against the ground. She ran back to her wing, to her gray cage. She slammed the door and, with trembling hands, turned the small useless lock.
She leaned against the door, her heart pounding like a drum. She slid to the floor, shaking uncontrollably.
She was terrified.
But beneath the terror, a new seed had been planted.
She had seen him. The all-powerful monster, the king of the city, the man who owned her.
He was afraid.
She had seen him broken.
She had seen his weak spot.
And the name of that weak spot was Anja.