“You were there for the fight,” he said, tone calm and deliberate.
“I just stumbled into a brawl. Wrong place, wrong night.” Then I shrugged. “Oh no—my bad.” The sarcasm rolled easily off my tongue.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. “We have footage of you working on Red after he was knocked out.”
“And?” I asked, amusement curling through my words.
His jaw tightened, the faintest crack in his composure. Shoulders squared, chin lifted. He was tense now—ready and controlled, discipline against fury—and it thrilled me.
This cop was all banked fire and potential, and it was delicious.
“What made you cut him up?” he continued. “Are you tied to a cartel? Feeding them spare parts from victims?”
I felt something cold twist low in my gut at the wordcartel—a flash of heat behind my ribs and old ghosts snapping their teeth just under my skin. Raven’s voice echoed in my head. Keep the heart going. Keep the product alive—value or waste.I huffed a short laugh, the kind that sounded amused but held no warmth.
Change the subject before I lose my shit.
“What’s your name, gorgeous?” There was a wildness in his dark eyes that I wanted to understand, and it gave me something other than cartels and carved-up bodies to focus on.
“The fuck?” he snapped.
“Your name?” I asked again, wondering if he’d let me have that much.
He snarled at me. “DetectiveRosen. Yours?”
I wasn’t falling for that shit. “Doc,” I said and let the silence stretch, studying him as he gestured into the corners where cameras caught our exchange.
“We’ll know your name soon enough.”
I grinned. “Are you threatening an innocent man, Detective Rosen?” His eye twitched. “Go on then,” I whispered. “Ask your next question before you lose your nerve.”
“Why didyoukill Kyle Rourke?” he repeated.
“And I already said I didn’t.” I sat back, studying him. “When Red left mycare, he was alive and kicking. And screaming. Yeah, there was a lot of screaming, but he was definitely alive.”
Detective Rosen was silent for a long moment, then, with a cold, measured tone, he finally spoke. “Want to tell me how he turns up dead with kidneys and liver surgically removed and eyes taken post-mortem?”
I studied him for a long moment, my gaze flicking from his fingers to his lips and back again—eyes removed post-mortem.The phrase stuck. Eyes were almost useless once the bloodstopped moving. The corneas cloud fast, the vitreous starts to break down, and within hours, they’re little more than pale jelly. Unless someone had been quick—within twelve hours, tops, and in a chilled environment—those eyes wouldn’t fetch a damn thing. No transplant, no black-market use. But the rest? The kidneys, liver—that was a different game.
My mind ticked through the details. I felt anger slide in—quiet, controlled, not the kind that burned but the kind that cut deep. Had Novak gone rogue? We had a deal. He and his team took the injured to the hospital, and the deceased to their designated disposal sites. No comeback on me, no experimenting, no stripping, no reselling parts. That was the rule. No fucking with a corpse. I might not care about much, but the desecration of one of my patients without my authority made me look sloppy. It wasn’t morality; it was order. I kept the system clean, or everything rotted from the inside. Had Novak and his team broken that deal?
“As I said,Detective, he was alive when I last saw him, and my instructions were clear that he was to be taken to the nearest emergency room.”
Now it was the cop’s turn to smirk. “Uh oh, your cleaners fucked you over.”
My laugh came out short and harsh. “Looks that way, huh?” I said, covering the heat growing in my belly. My tone stayed calm, controlled fury curling inside me—I didn’t do rage, I calculated. Whoever thought they could turn one of my patients into a parts buffet—they’d just signed their own death warrant. Someone had broken the rules, fucked with the order I’d built, and that was a problem I would pay to have fixed. Slowly.
Novak may well be my pet psychopath—useful, predictable, violent—but if he’d stepped out of line, then I’d need someone even meaner to put him down. Fuck. Did such a person exist?
He moved forward a fraction, gaze on me. “You think it’s funny?”
“It kinda is?” I said. “Bodies, bets, bullshit—someone always screws someone. Keeps the game interesting, right?” I tilted my head, eyes on him as he calculated his next move.
“Say I believe thatyouweren’t the one carving him up.”
“Go on.”
“Then how about you give me the names of the cleaners who removed Rourke from yourcare?”
