Chapter 26 Roman’s POV The Panic
POV: Roman
Control was a drug. And Roman Lazarov was addicted.
It was in the east wing. On her.
He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.
It had worked. The chaos, the fury, the discipline…
it had all been worth it. The yacht trip had softened her, broken her defenses in ways his anger never could.
The confrontation about Anja was a necessary setback; she needed to test the fence.
And the studio—the gesture of “kindness” she’d rejected so vehemently—had finally worked.
Her performance earlier that evening was proof.
The surrender. The way she leaned into his hand, the tears of regret (or so he thought). The timid request to see him “later.”
She was broken. Finally.
He wasn’t proud of his methods, but he didn’t regret them. He’d taken her off Sokolov’s board. He’d tamed the ghost. He’d done what he couldn’t do with Anja: controlled her. Kept her safe.
The attraction to her, the raw desire he’d felt on the yacht, was just a bonus. A reward for his success.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. 11:38 PM.
She’d said “an hour.” That was almost two hours ago.
Satisfaction gave way to irritation. Control was slipping. She was… late. Was she playing games, testing him again after her surrender?
He stood. The expensive suit made no sound. He didn’t like being made a fool of. He’d go to her studio, remind her who was in charge.
He crossed the vast, silent living room, his Italian shoes barely making a sound on the marble. The apartment was dark, lit only by the city lights.
He stopped in the hallway leading to her wing. Silence.
“Maya?”
No answer.
The irritation began to transform into something else. A cold stab of… anxiety.
He walked to her studio. The door was ajar, exactly as he’d left it. A single lamp was on inside.
He pushed the door open.
The studio was empty.
The storm canvas was on the easel. A brush was submerged in a jar of turpentine. The smell of oil paint hung in the air. But she wasn’t there.
“Maya?” he called again, his voice firmer.
He went to her bedroom. Empty. The bed untouched. The marble bathroom, dark and silent.
The anxiety became a cold knot in his stomach.
“Kosta,” he said aloud to the empty room. The house AI recognized his voice.
“Sir?” Kosta’s voice came through the speaker in the wall, distorted.
“Where is she?” Roman’s voice was low, controlled. But the ice was forming. “What is the asset’s location?”
There was a pause. A second of static.
“Sir,” Kosta’s voice returned, and for the first time in five years, Roman heard hesitation in it. “We’re… checking. The pressure sensors in her room indicate she left… an hour and forty minutes ago.”
“Checking?” Roman hissed. “Where is she, Kosta? Is she in the gym? The kitchen?”
“Negative, sir. She’s not in any of the permitted zones.”
The knot in his stomach turned to ice. “Check the elevators.”
Another pause. Longer. More deadly.
“Sir. The main elevator hasn’t been used. The service elevator hasn’t been called to this floor. But…”
“But what, Kosta?” Roman growled.
“We had a sensor alert on the fire escape door. Level 60. At 11:01 PM. We logged it as a system error. The silent alarm didn’t…”
Fire escape.
11:01 PM.
During the guard shift change.
The floor of the hundred-million-dollar penthouse seemed to disappear beneath his feet.
She wasn’t testing him.
She wasn’t late.
She’d fooled him.
The performance. The tears. The kiss on the cheek. The promise. Shit.
But the emotion that hit him wasn’t anger at her betrayal.
It was panic.
Pure, unfiltered, hollow, the same panic he’d felt five years ago.
Flashback.
The smell of whiskey and leather in his old office. The phone ringing late at night. A state trooper’s voice, bored and flat.
“Mr. Lazarov? There’s been an accident involving a vehicle registered in your name.”
He remembered laughing, thinking it was a mistake.
“A convertible. Route 7. There was a fire. The driver… Anja Lazarov… she didn’t survive.”
The silence. The world stopping. His failure.
He’d warned her. “Don’t drive so fast, Anja. It’s reckless.”
And she’d laughed at him. “Live a little, Roman!”
His failure.
He’d failed to protect her. And now…
He looked around Maya’s gray room. The cage he’d built to keep her safe. The cage she’d escaped from.
Sokolov.
The word hit his mind with the force of a hammer.
It wasn’t her. She wasn’t smart enough to time the guard change. She wasn’t brave enough to descend sixty flights of stairs in the dark.
The housekeeper. The phone? How? How did he reach her?
It didn’t matter.
He got her.
It wasn’t an escape. It was an extraction. Sokolov got her. His warning at the restaurant, his smile. He’d been mocking Roman the whole time.
He got her.
“NO!”
The roar was torn from his gut, an animal sound of pure agony. He swept the items from her nightstand. The expensive lamp. A glass of water. The glass shattered against the wall.
“NOT AGAIN!”
He wasn’t losing Maya. He was losing Anja again. And this time, he was losing her to the same man. The man he believed had sabotaged Anja’s car. The man he’d spent five years hunting.
He’d failed. Again.
“Sir?” Kosta’s voice on the speaker was full of alarm.
Roman stopped in the middle of the room, chest heaving. The panic was a straitjacket, suffocating him.
He closed his eyes. Breathed. Once.
The panic didn’t recede. He channeled it. He turned it to ice.
When he opened his eyes, the broken man was gone. The hunter was back.
He grabbed his private cell phone, the one connected to Kosta.
“She didn’t escape, Kosta,” Roman hissed, his voice trembling with cold fury. “He got her. Sokolov took her.”
“Sir, our men…”
“Your men failed!” Roman interrupted. “Her performance, the painting, it was all a trap. He turned her against me. He convinced her that I was the monster.” (The irony was that Sokolov had done exactly that, but Roman didn’t know how right he was.)
He started pacing. No longer panicking. Now, he was a general.
“Lock down the city. Every bridge. Every tunnel. Airports. Heliports. I want all my assets on the street. Now.”
He went to the window, looking out at the city that dared steal something from him.
“The credit card. The one I gave her. It has a GPS tracker. Activate it. Where is she?”
There was a click, the sound of keys. “The card was used, sir. Thirty minutes ago. A taxi. Dropped her at… 440 Kent Street. Brooklyn. A warehouse district.”
The warehouse. The trap.
“Mobilize everyone,” Roman ordered. “Tactical team. I want a perimeter in three minutes. And I want total radio silence. Sokolov thinks he’s won. He thinks he has time.”
“Sir, you can’t go…”
“I’m going now,” Roman growled. “I’ll bring her back myself.”
He hung up. He went to his private closet in the office. He didn’t grab a coat.
He opened a biometric safe and pulled out a matte black pistol. He checked the magazine and placed it in a holster under his jacket.
He’d failed to protect Anja. He’d failed to save her from her own recklessness.
He wouldn’t fail to save her ghost from Viktor Sokolov’s clutches.
He wasn’t protecting her anymore.
He was going to war.