Her dark hair had been washed and braided by one of the medical staff. She looked fragile but alive—definitely, undeniably alive. Maya was asleep, curled up in the large chair next to the bed. Victor’s jacket was still draped over her small frame like a blanket. Her face was peaceful in sleep. The terror had finally left her features. One hand reached across the small gap between the chair and the bed.
Her fingers were interlaced with her mother’s. Ellen’s eyes found Roman in the doorway. she didn’t flinch or look away. She simply studied him with an intensity that suggested she was trying to reconcile the man who saved her life with the type of man capable of doing such things. Roman entered quietly, closing the door behind him but not locking it—never locking himself into a room without options. “Roman.” Ellen’s voice was steady.
“Ellen. Just Ellen.” — A pause. — “Maya told me what happened. What you did. What you’re doing.” Roman moved to the window, keeping his distance. Close enough to hear, far enough to give her space. “She didn’t need to tell you anything. She’s a child.” — “She’s my child. And she saved my life by running to you.” — “She saved your life by being brave enough to ask for help. I just happened to be there.”
Ellen made a sound that might have been a laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. “You don’t strike me as a man who happens to be anywhere by accident.” Roman didn’t deny it. The truth was complicated. He had been returning from a meeting upstate, choosing the back roads to avoid traffic and attention. The fog, the empty road, the timing. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was just math.
He didn’t believe in providence, but he recognized probability. “The people who hurt you won’t be coming back,” Roman said simply. Ellen’s eyes searched his face. “Because they’re dead.” — It wasn’t a question. Roman didn’t confirm or deny. The silence was answer enough. “Good,” Ellen whispered. And beneath the fragility, there was steel. “I hope they understood their mistake before the end.” Ellen nodded slowly, processing it.
Her fingers tightened around Maya’s hand. The unconscious gesture of a mother who had come too close to losing everything. “What happens now?” she asked. “Maya said we’re under your protection. But protection from what? If those men are gone?” — “They worked for someone. Victor Kostas. He sent them to make an example of you for a debt he says you owed.” Ellen’s face paled. “Five thousand dollars. I didn’t steal it.”
“The till was short three times. And he called it theft. I offered to pay him back, to work extra shifts, anything. But he said an example had to be made.” — “Kostas won’t be making any more examples. I’m going to have a talk with him about his business practices.” — “That’s not a talk, that’s…” Ellen stopped, looking at her daughter’s sleeping face. “Will Maya and I be safe?” — “Yes.” — “How can you be sure?” — “Because I’m very good at making sure.”
Ellen studied him for a long time. This dangerous man in expensive clothes who had appeared out of the fog like something from a dark fairy tale. A monster who had saved them from other monsters. “Why?” she finally asked. “Why help us? You don’t know us. We’re nobody to you.” Roman was silent, considering how to answer the question he’d been asking himself since the drive back. Why had he stopped? Why had he acted without hesitation?
He had built an empire on calculated decisions, cold pragmatism, strategic thinking. Mercy wasn’t part of that architecture. But then he’d seen Maya’s face. The terror, the hope, the desperate faith that someone, anyone, would care enough to act. “My sister was eight when she died,” Roman said quietly, the words surprising him as much as they did Ellen.
He rarely spoke of Sofia, never to strangers. “Someone hurt her, and nobody stopped them because nobody thought a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks was important enough to risk anything for.” Ellen’s expression shifted, understanding blooming in her eyes. “I was fourteen,” Roman continued. “Too young to do anything, too weak to matter. I swore if I ever had power, I’d use it differently. That if I saw someone being hurt, someone defenseless, I’d be the one to stop it.”
“And you kept that promise?” — “When I can.” Maya stirred slightly in her sleep, murmuring something unintelligible before settling again. Both adults watched her. This childhood had survived a nightmare and would carry those scars forever. “Thank you,” Ellen whispered. “For stopping. For listening. For…” Her voice broke. “For giving her back her mother.”
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