Chapter 27 The Captivity
POV: Maya
The darkness lifted in layers of pain.
First, the smell. Sweet and sickening. The chemical from the cloth over her face.
Second, the pain. A dull, throbbing headache.
Third, the sound. Silence. But not the pressurized silence of Roman’s penthouse. This was a dusty kind of silence.
Maya opened her eyes. The world was a blur. She blinked, pain throbbing behind her eyes.
She wasn’t in the warehouse.
She was in a room.
Confusion hit her first. She was lying in an incredibly soft bed, under a heavy comforter. But she couldn’t move.
Panic surged, clearing the fog. She tried to sit up.
Restraints.
Her wrists and ankles were bound. But not with rough rope or metal handcuffs. With… ribbons. Wide silk ribbons, tied firmly to the four posts of a canopy bed.
The absurdity of it terrified her more than chains would have.
She looked around, heart pounding wildly.
The room. Not a filthy basement. Not a warehouse. It was… elegant. And bizarre.
It was a girl’s room, but from a century past. The wallpaper was floral, peach and cream. A mahogany vanity sat in one corner with an oval mirror. A life-sized dollhouse. But it was all… wrong. The air was still. There was no dust. It was a set. A replica.
“Ah, I see Sleeping Beauty has awakened.”
The voice. Smooth. Cultured.
Maya whipped her head around so hard her neck cracked.
Viktor Sokolov sat in a velvet armchair in the corner, near the window. He wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing out at a well-manicured garden. He held a delicate porcelain teacup in his gloved hand.
The monster was having tea.
“Where… where am I?” Her voice came out hoarse, throat dry from the chemical.
“You’re safe,” Sokolov said without turning. “Safer, I’d say, than you’ve been in weeks. The tea here is much better than Roman’s. He drinks that black sludge like it’s fuel. No subtlety.”
Maya’s panic gave way to cold rage. Leo’s betrayal. The trap.
“Where’s Leo?” she demanded. “What did you do to my brother?”
Sokolov finally turned. His face was calm, that polished paternal smile in place. “Leo? The boy is fine. He’s receiving payment for his services. A considerable sum, I might add. Enough to keep him in trouble for many years.”
“You… you used him,” she spat, pulling at the silk ribbons. They didn’t give.
“Of course,” Sokolov said, as if it were obvious. “The boy is weak. His loyalty has a price, and it was shockingly cheap. But he served his purpose. He brought you to me.”
“You… you lied about everything,” she gasped, the fog finally lifting. “The police report. The partnership with Roman.”
Viktor laughed. A genuine, amused sound that made Maya’s blood run cold.
“My dear! You actually believed that? That I… I… would partner with that brute? That controlled animal?” He shook his head, taking a sip of tea.
“What an insult. Roman and I aren’t partners.
We’re… competitors. And right now, he’s probably smashing his concrete furniture, realizing I’ve stolen his favorite toy. ”
The truth. So Roman wasn’t his partner. He was the victim.
No. She was the victim.
“Why?” she asked, her voice low. “Why me? If this isn’t about you and Roman, then why…”
“Ah, but it is entirely about Roman and me,” Sokolov interrupted, rising.
He set the teacup on the saucer with a soft click. He was tall, impeccable in his camel-colored overcoat. He walked to the foot of the canopy bed and studied her the way an entomologist studies a rare insect.
“You see,” he said, his voice dropping to a professorial tone, “Roman and I have been playing this… game… for a very long time. Since before he was the king he thinks he is. And he’s very good. Cold. Controlled. Relentless.”
He circled the bed, and Maya tracked him with her eyes, body tense.
“But every man has a weakness,” he murmured, almost to himself. “A crack in the armor. And Roman’s crack… is one I helped create. A wound that never healed.”
He stopped beside her, reaching out with his gloved hand to touch a strand of her tangled hair on the pillow.
Maya shuddered violently. “Don’t touch me.”
He withdrew his hand, the paternal smile returning. “Of course. But you still don’t understand, do you? Why you. Why all this theater. The museum. The housekeeper. The phone call from your traitorous brother.”
“The money,” she said. “The debt…”
“The debt?” He laughed. “The seventy thousand? My dear, that barely covers the fuel for my plane. No. I don’t want Roman’s money.”
He leaned in, and the scent of his expensive cologne and Earl Grey tea enveloped her. His smile vanished, and his icy blue eyes bored into her.
“I want to break his soul. Again.”
“I… I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t.” His charm was fading, revealing the cruelty beneath. “I put you at that gala, Maya. I knew he would be there. And I knew he would see you. I was waiting for it. I saw the moment his eyes landed on you. The shock. The recognition.”
“Recognition?” Maya shook her head, panic returning. “He’d never seen me before.”
“He didn’t see you, dear Maya.” Sokolov’s smile was now a grimace of sick triumph. “He saw her.”
Maya’s confusion must have been clear on her face, because he laughed.
“Oh, Roman,” he mocked. “So full of secrets. He didn’t even tell you? After everything you two… shared?” He gestured at her body. “After the yacht? After his punishment?”
How did he know? The housekeeper. She saw everything.
“He didn’t tell you,” Sokolov continued, savoring each word, “why he has those horrible nightmares? Why he calls you ‘reckless’? Why he can’t stand to see you hurt?”
The air in the room grew thin.
“He only wants you,” Sokolov said, his voice dropping to a cruel whisper, “because of her.”
He stepped back, letting the statement hang in the air.
Maya tried to process. Her? Who?
“He only wants you, my dear,” Viktor said, walking to the mahogany vanity, “because you are the ghost of Anja Lazarov.”
The name.
The name from the nightmare.
The name from the accident report.
The dead sister.
But… what did that have to do with…
Maya looked at the oval mirror on the vanity. She saw her own reflection—pale, terrified, dark hair spread out.
Sokolov stood beside the vanity, watching her reflection. “You don’t see it, do you? You don’t even notice.” He sighed. “The resemblance. It’s extraordinary. Roman always had a sick weakness for his sister. And you…”
He turned to her.
“You’re the spitting image of her.”
Maya Ventura’s world stopped.
It wasn’t a collapse. It was a silent implosion.
Every piece. Every interaction. Every moment of confusion.
The first look at the museum—it wasn’t desire, it was shock.
His obsession with possessing her—it wasn’t about her, it was about her.
The nightmare—“Anja! Not again!”—he wasn’t remembering her, he was seeing her.
The fury over “recklessness”—he was shouting at a ghost.
The yacht. The slow sex. The kiss under the stars.
The nausea hit her with physical force. She thrashed against the silk ribbons.
He wasn’t kissing her. He was kissing his dead sister.
The accident report. His guilt. He’s using her to replace the sister he murdered.
She was a substitute.
She looked at Sokolov, horror draining all color from her face. “You… what… what is this place?”
Sokolov smiled, his gentlest smile yet. “This place?” He gestured around the doll’s room. “Ah. I prepared it for your arrival.”
He ran his gloved hand over the wood of the vanity. “It’s a replica. Meticulous, I’d say. Down to the wallpaper. Of Anja Lazarov’s childhood bedroom, in the old family estate. Before the fire.”
Maya stopped breathing.
She wasn’t just in a prison. She was in a twisted sanctuary. A stage.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered.
“No,” Sokolov said, his tone light. “I’m just a man who enjoys theater. And the performance, my dear… is only beginning.”
He watched her struggle, a broken doll on another woman’s bed.
“Roman locked you in a glass cage to protect you. But I,” he smiled, “I put you in a dollhouse to play with.”
He turned and walked to the door. “Get some rest, little sparrow. You’re going to need your strength. The first act is over. But the second… the second is when Roman comes for you. And that’s when the real fun begins.”