Chapter 32 The Final Confrontation
POV: Maya
The world was a blur of sound and pain.
Roman’s grip was like a tourniquet around her, pinning her against his chest. His jacket smelled of blood, sweat, and expensive cologne.
She was safe. The realization hit her like a wave.
The man she’d believed was Anja’s killer was, in fact, the only person on Earth willing to go to war for her.
Sokolov’s confession had rewritten everything.
The Demand. The cage. His fury when she ran.
It wasn’t possession. It was protection. Desperate, twisted, but protection all the same.
She had betrayed him. She’d believed the monster. She’d run from him.
“Roman,” she whispered against his chest, the first sound she’d made. The word came out as a broken sob.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured back, his voice a rough growl against her hair. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
He was holding her with the strength of a drowning man, his arms trembling with the aftermath of adrenaline. He was hurt. His black shirt was wet with his own blood in one place, and with Sokolov’s blood in another.
And then, the sound cut through the fog.
Wooo-eeee… Wooo-eeee…
Sirens.
Not distant. Close. Coming fast.
Roman heard them too. His entire body went rigid. The moment of broken relief was gone. The real world was pounding on the door.
He released her. The loss of his warmth was sudden, jarring.
He gripped her shoulders, his wild gray eyes scanning her, searching for injuries. “Maya, are you…”
But Maya’s eyes were no longer on him.
The room was in ruins. The velvet chair was in pieces. The vanity mirror was a spiderweb of shattered glass.
And on the floor, where Viktor had thrown it, was the proof.
The photograph.
Roman’s smiling, happy face. And beside him… her. Not her.
Anja.
The sirens were louder now, a rising wail from the street below. Time was running out. Kosta would be here. The police. His world. And this moment, this bubble of raw truth, would vanish.
She needed to know.
She pulled away from his grip on wobbly knees. “Roman…”
“They’re here,” he said, his CEO voice returning, but it was fragile, cracked by exhaustion. “We have to…”
“Wait.”
She crouched down, ignoring the pain in her knees, and picked up the small yellowed square of paper from the floor.
She looked at it. At the face of the girl who was identical to her. The girl he couldn’t save from the fire.
Roman followed her gaze. He saw the photo in her hand.
The color that had been returning to his face drained instantly. He went pale as a ghost, his gaze fixed on the image as if it were a weapon aimed at his heart.
“He showed you,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict.
Maya stood up. Her hands were shaking, crumpling the edge of the photograph.
She looked from Anja’s smiling, dead face to Roman’s broken, bloodied one.
Everything Sokolov said about Roman being a coward was a lie. She’d just watched him fight like a lion. But what Sokolov said about the resemblance… that was the truth.
And that truth hurt more than any lie.
“Was it all because of her?”
Her voice wasn’t a shout. It was a broken whisper, barely audible over the approaching sirens.
Roman recoiled. A physical step back, instinctive. As if she’d stabbed him. His armor, which had shattered to pieces, began hastily rebuilding itself. The ice returned to his eyes—a desperate defense.
“Maya. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t?” Her voice cracked, hysteria rising. “Don’t do this? You ruined my life. You locked me up. You terrorized me. You punished me.” She stepped toward him, pressing the photograph against his bloodied chest. “Answer me! Was it me or her you were punishing that day?”
He looked down at the photo she pressed against his heart. He looked at his sister’s happy face.
He couldn’t speak. The pain on his face was so deep, so ancient, it was almost ugly.
“You saw me at that gala,” she pushed, tears of rage and confusion streaming down her face. “You didn’t see me. You saw a ghost.”
“Maya…”
“The Demand!” she screamed, her voice finally shattering. “The rules! The yacht! Every touch… every time you looked at me… was it her you were seeing?”
The pain of being used—by Leo, by Sokolov, and now, in the most twisted and intimate way, by Roman—exploded.
She wasn't his "asset." She was his substitute.
“Answer me, you cowardly bastard!” she sobbed. “Was it all so you could have her back?”
BOOM!
The apartment's front door exploded—the one at the end of the hallway. Not the bedroom door. The main entrance.
Voices. “POLICE! HANDS UP!”
Heavy footsteps. Kosta. Men in tactical gear flooded the hallway.
The private moment shattered.
Roman didn't answer. He didn't need to.
He closed his eyes. Just for a second. But it was enough.
It was a confession.
He couldn't deny it. Because it was true.
The look on his face when he stared at Anja's photo told her everything she needed to know.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, the anger draining away, leaving only a cold, sick emptiness.
He saved her. But he didn't save her for her.
Red and blue lights began flashing through the windows, sweeping across the destroyed room. A police officer burst into Anja's room, weapon drawn.
“Freeze! Hands…”
The officer stopped, staring at the scene. The bloodied billionaire. The sobbing woman, clutching a photograph. And the man groaning on the floor.
Roman didn't look at the officer. He looked at Maya.
And for the first time, he looked completely defeated.
Her question hung in the air between them, screaming louder than the sirens, unanswered but absolutely clear.