Chapter 30 Romans Arrival
POV: Maya
“...and he'll watch you burn, Maya. Exactly like he did the first time.”
Viktor Sokolov's voice had barely faded into the oppressive silence of Anja's room when the first sound came from outside.
It wasn't an alarm. It was a muffled shout, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the hallway floor.
Sokolov, who had been savoring his monologue, stopped. His smile vanished, replaced by annoyance. “It seems the security outside is less... competent... than I expected.”
He turned toward the door, his hand sliding inside his overcoat.
Maya held her breath. Roman's panic had been real. He was here.
The second sound was the click of a lock being forced.
The third sound was the door to the replica of Anja's room exploding.
It didn't open. It was ripped from its hinges, as if struck by a battering ram. The old wood splintered, filling the air with splinters.
And Roman Lazarov was there.
He wasn't the suited man from the office. He wasn't the weary lover from the yacht.
This was the man from the nightmare.
He stood framed in the destroyed doorway, a silhouette of pure fury. He wore the same black suit from that morning, but it was rumpled, the jacket hanging open. And in his hand—not a glass of whiskey.
A matte black pistol.
POV: Roman
The world was red.
The drive to Brooklyn had been a fog of cold, controlled panic. Kosta had confirmed it. Her credit card. A warehouse.
He'd taken down Sokolov's two guards in the hallway like bowling pins. He didn't even look at them.
He forced the door open.
The smell hit him first. Dust and... perfume. A floral perfume he hadn't smelled in five years. The scent of Anja's old room.
His blood froze.
Then he processed the scene.
The peach wallpaper. The canopy bed. The mahogany vanity.
Sokolov's sick stage.
His eyes swept the room—tactical, trained. And he saw her.
Maya.
She was on the bed. Anja's ghost. Bound. Her eyes wide and terrified.
And beside her, the devil. Viktor Sokolov. Smiling.
The sight shattered every shred of control Roman had. Five years of panic, survivor's guilt, the fury of his hunt... it all exploded.
He raised the gun.
“Roman, how good of you to join us!” Sokolov mocked, his accent light. “Punctual. You'll watch the show.”
Viktor moved. He didn't go toward Roman. He went to Maya. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back, and pressed something to her temple. A small silver pistol that looked like a toy.
“Not again, Roman,” Viktor whispered. “You're going to stand there and watch. You're going to see her die. Again.”
Roman wasn't seeing Maya anymore. He was seeing Anja in the burning car. He was seeing the fire.
His training screamed at him to shoot. A clean shot. But his hands were shaking. The panic from his nightmare was real.
I let her burn.
“Shoot me, Roman,” Viktor taunted. “But I'm faster. You know that. I'll take her with me. And you'll have two ghosts haunting you.”
Roman couldn't breathe. The gun in his hand weighed a thousand pounds.
“No,” Roman growled, his voice unrecognizable.
He didn't shoot.
He threw the gun. The heavy pistol spun through the air and struck the oval mirror on the vanity. The antique glass exploded into a thousand pieces.
It was the distraction he needed.
The instant Sokolov's eyes flicked toward the noise, Roman lunged.
He wasn't a billionaire. He was an animal. He crossed the room in two seconds and hit Viktor with the force of a train.
POV: Maya
Chaos erupted.
Roman didn't shoot. He attacked. The two men crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and fury.
Sokolov fired his gun. The sound was deafening in the small room. The bullet hit the ceiling, raining plaster down on them.
Maya screamed, pulling at the silk ribbons.
The fight wasn't clean. It wasn't choreographed. It was brutal.
Roman was pure primal force. Sokolov was a snake—cruel and dirty.
They rolled, breaking a velvet chair. Glass shattered. Roman threw a punch. The sound of bone on bone was dry and sickening.
Sokolov retaliated, jabbing his fingers into Roman’s eyes.
Roman roared—a sound that wasn’t human—and hurled Sokolov against the mahogany vanity. Perfume bottles flew.
“She was mine!” Roman screamed, and Maya didn’t know who he meant—her or Anja.
“You let her burn!” Sokolov spat, blood streaming from his nose. He grabbed a shard of broken glass from the mirror. “You let her!”
“ROMAN!” Maya screamed, seeing the glass.
Roman turned just in time. He grabbed Sokolov’s wrist, the glass inches from his face.
“You...” Roman was panting, the fury in his eyes so pure it burned. “Killed. My. Sister.”
He twisted.
The sound of Sokolov’s wrist breaking was a sharp crack.
Sokolov screamed, a high, thin sound, and dropped the glass.
It was the end.
Roman didn’t stop. His fury, fueled by five years of guilt and hatred, took over. He slammed Sokolov to the floor. He straddled him.
And he started punching.
One blow. Another.
It was no longer a fight. It was an execution.
Maya watched, horrified. Viktor’s face, once so elegant and charming, was becoming an unrecognizable mass of blood and bruises.
“Roman...” she whispered, but he couldn’t hear her.
He was lost. He was reliving the fire, the accident, and this time he was doing what he wished he’d done five years ago. He was killing the monster.
The sound of punching stopped.
Roman’s hands, bloody and broken, rose. They didn’t form fists. They went for Viktor’s throat.
He was strangling him.
Sokolov was thrashing, his legs kicking against the floor, but Roman was a statue of fury, his muscles rigid. Viktor’s face was turning a dark purple.
He was going to kill him.
Maya realized the truth. Roman was becoming the monster. Sokolov had won. He was turning Roman into a cold-blooded killer, right in front of her, in Anja’s room.
His guilt would become real.
She couldn’t let it happen. She hated him. She feared him. But she’d seen the man on the yacht. She’d heard the man in his nightmare. She couldn’t let him do this.
“NO!” she screamed, her voice tearing at her own throat. She pulled at the silk ribbons, and pure adrenaline ripped the fabric. Her wrist was free.
“ROMAN! STOP!”
He froze.
His hands were still on Sokolov’s throat. Sokolov’s body was limp.
Roman didn’t move.
Slowly. Agonizingly slowly. He turned his head.
He looked at her over his shoulder.
Maya gasped. The eyes that met hers weren’t Roman’s eyes. They weren’t gray. They were black. Empty holes of fury and pain and nothing.
He was looking at her. But he wasn’t seeing her.
He was looking at the ghost of Anja Lazarov.