Chapter 1 – Noelle
If wishes burned calories, I’d have the body of a supermodel by now. Instead, I’ve got hips that don’t quit and thighs that laugh in the face of denim.
I groan as I yank on the loosest pair of jeans I own, and still, my curves insist on announcing themselves like a marching band. It’s a ritual at this point: Stand in front of the mirror, make sure I’m covered head to toe, pray nothing clings.
Baggiest jeans. Oversized black hoodie. Hair tied back. And yet my ass and thighs act like they’re auditioning for their own spotlight.
But I’m not hiding my body because I don’t want attention; it’s because there are scars on my skin that tell a story I don’t want anyone else to know.
I turn away from the mirror to shove my stethoscope into my bag when the door creaks open.
Sasha fills the frame like she’s stepping onto a magazine cover instead of into our crappy Chicago apartment. She’s tall—long legs, slim waist, the kind of effortless grace that makes people stare. Blonde hair falls in perfect waves over her shoulder, and even in pink pajama shorts and an oversized tee, she looks like she belongs on a private jet, sipping champagne. Which, knowing her job as a flight attendant, she probably does.
Sometimes I wonder how the hell we ended up as roommates.
“Don’t you have a flight or something?” I ask, smirking.
She groans, rubbing her eyes like a child who just lost her favorite toy. “Three hours. That’s all I get before I have to drag myself back to O’Hare and smile at a bunch of entitled assholes who think the sky belongs to them.”
I laugh and shake my head. “I don’t envy you.”
“Well, I envy you.” She narrows her blue eyes at me in mock bitterness. “Sometimes I wish I worked at Redline Assembly. At least I’d be on solid ground, not thirty thousand feet in the air, wondering if the pilot got enough sleep.”
Factory. Right. Redline Assembly—the fictional nine-to-five I invented when I moved in. It’s grimy, boring, and just believable enough to keep Sasha from asking questions.
If she ever found out the truth, she’d pack her bags and sprint in the opposite direction.
Because the truth is simple and deadly.
I don’t clock in at a factory. I clock in at an underground Bratva clinic—patching up mobsters, stitching bullet holes, resetting broken bones for men who’d slit my throat if I so much as breathed wrong.
I shouldn’t be there. But the pay is good—too good. And until someone gifts me a few hundred thousand for med school tuition? Judge me when you can pay my bills. For now, I’m working there, scraping up every penny I make and saving it for my tuition.
I have my own goals. I want to finish med school. I want my own clinic. But I don’t have enough money yet, so for now, I work for men who carry guns and knives and slit throats without blinking. I’m almost used to it by now. It’s been over a year.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and head to the door.
Sasha steps aside, still smiling. “I guess I’ll see you on Saturday.”
“Yes.” I kiss her cheek. “Take care.”
She walks me to the door, waving as I step out into the evening. I round the bend, and a taxi is waiting at the curb. I get in, nodding at the driver. He nods back, eyes on the road as we pull away.
He’s the only driver I use. I don’t know his real name, but I know the ink curling up his wrist and the pistol tuckedunder his seat mean he’s Bratva. That’s enough. He doesn’t ask questions, and I don’t offer answers. It’s an arrangement that keeps me alive.
Chicago blurs past in a wash of neon and shadows as we cut through backstreets, deeper into neighborhoods most people avoid after dark. The farther we go, the more the city peels away—until there’s nothing left but warehouses, abandoned factories, and silence that hums like a warning.
We turn down an alley no GPS would recognize. Brick walls loom on both sides, graffiti sprayed in languages I can’t read. At the far end, a rusted metal door sits half-hidden beneath a broken security light. To anyone else, it looks condemned. To me, it’s work.
The driver slows, kills the engine. I press cash into his waiting hand. He doesn’t count it, just tucks it into his pocket with a grunt. Our deal is simple: he delivers me here in one piece, and I pay him enough to make sure he always does.
I step out, the night air colder here, heavier. The alley smells of oil and rot, the kind of place where secrets go to rot, too. Hugging my bag closer, I hurry toward the door.
One sharp knock. A pause. Then another.
There’s a metallic scrape before the door swings open. No words, no greetings, just the silent acknowledgment of the guard inside. I slip past him, head down, into the clinic.
The door clangs shut behind me, locking out the city and locking me into a world where blood is currency, and survival is earned one stitch at a time.
