Theflashdrivesaton my bed like a live grenade, small and black and capable of destroying everything. I'd been staring at it for ten minutes since Oksana and Kateryna left, my laptop open beside it, cursor blinking in an empty password field.
I’d come to the bedroom to try and clear my head, but it wasn’t working.
Irina had risked everything to get me this evidence. Had spent months copying files while Brand continued his harvest, knowing that discovery meant deportation at best, death at worst. She'd trusted me with it because she remembered the doctor I used to be.
That doctor had been destroyed six months ago. But apparently, some piece of her still existed, because my hand moved without conscious permission, picking up the flash drive and sliding it into the USB port.
The drive unlocked.
Hundreds of files appeared, organized with the kind of methodical precision I recognized from Irina's work in the OR. Folders labeled by date, subfolders for patient records, financial transactions, correspondence. She'd been thorough. Obsessively thorough.
I opened the most recent patient folder and started scrolling through names. Anderson, Bekhtari, Bondarenko—
There. Kateryna Bondarenko.
The file was clinical in its horror. Admitted Tuesday, November 7th, for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Standard gallbladder removal. But there, buried in the surgical notes like it was routine, was the addition: "Exploratory laparotomy performed due to unexpected adhesions. Right nephrectomy completed per protocol 7-Alpha."
Protocol 7-Alpha. I opened another file, this one labeled "Protocols," and found it immediately. 7-Alpha: Unilateral nephrectomy for tissue compatibility match. Harvest to be completed concurrent with scheduled procedure to minimize scarring and suspicion.
They had a protocol for it. A standardized approach to stealing organs, like it was just another surgical technique to be perfected.
I kept reading, my horror mounting with each file. Six cases in the past month alone.
The financial records were worse. Each organ meticulously priced and tracked. Kidney: $150,000. Partial liver: $200,000. Corneas: $30,000 per pair. The buyers were coded—Recipient Alpha-1, Recipient Beta-3—but their payment methods were traceable. Wire transfers from offshore accounts, cryptocurrency transactions, even one payment through a children's charity that was clearly a front.
Brand had built an entire economy of flesh, and he'd done it using the people who trusted him most—immigrants who came to his free clinic believing in the promise of American medical care.
I found myself cross-referencing dates obsessively. The enforcer had been shot three nights ago, Thursday, November 16th. According to the surgical schedule, there had been an emergency harvest planned that night—a young woman, no name listed, just "Target Seven, dual kidney harvest, buyer waiting." Maybe he'd stopped it. Walked into that hospital and prevented a bilateral nephrectomy that would have killed the victim.
My hands were shaking as I scrolled through email chains. Brand's correspondence with someone called "The Broker," discussing quality metrics, tissue typing, transportation logistics. They talked about human organs like they were discussing produce shipments. "Tuesday's harvest was successfully preserved and transported." "Recommend focusing on Type O inventory, high demand." "Liver segment from Patient 19 showed excellent regeneration potential."
The evidence was ironclad. Names, dates, financials, even photographs from the procedures. Irina had built a case that could destroy Brand and his entire network.
I could take this to the FBI. Walk into their Boston field office with the flash drive and lay out everything. They'd have to investigate. Have to stop it.
Except I knew how that would go. They'd want my real name, my medical license number, why I was operating an illegal clinic in Brighton Beach. They'd dig into my background and find the accusations Brand had manufactured—that I'd operated while high, that I'd stolen opioids, that patient had died because of my negligence. My credibility was destroyed. Who would believe the disgraced doctor over the respected surgeon?
The police, then. But they'd ask the same questions, and Brand had connections there too. How else did organ trafficking operate for months without investigation? Someone was being paid to look the other way.
For just a moment, I let myself think about the enforcer. He clearly had power, resources, the kind of connections that operated outside normal law enforcement. He'd already tried to stop Brand once. If I told him about this evidence, showed him these files . . .
No.
The thought crashed into my survival instincts like a sledgehammer. Trust him? Trust anyone? That's exactly how I'd ended up here—trusting Brand when he'd said he'd support my report, trusting the system to protect whistleblowers, trusting that doing the right thing mattered more than politics and money.
Trust was vulnerability, and vulnerability was death. The enforcer might look at me with something like reverence now, but that would change the moment I became useful to him.
If I told him about this evidence, I'd become important to his mission. He'd want to protect me, which meant controlling me, which meant I'd trade one captor for another. Brand had destroyed me with a smile and a sympathetic voice. The enforcerwould destroy me with protection I never asked for and couldn't escape.
I needed to calm down. Think clearly. Make rational decisions based on evidence and probability, not panic and past trauma. I needed to be Dr. Maya Cross, brilliant surgeon, analytical mind, someone who could solve problems without dissolving into anxiety.
Instead, my hand reached under my pillow and pulled out my iPad.
The screen came to life, already logged into Netflix through someone else's account that hadn't been deactivated. My finger hovered over the profile selection. I could watch something adult. Something normal people watched to relax. True crime documentaries or comedy specials or whatever prestige drama everyone was talking about.
Instead, I navigated to the kids' profile and found where I went when the world was too much. Bluey.
The Australian cartoon filled the screen with gentle chaos—a family of animated dogs navigating playground politics and backyard adventures. It was meant for children, obviously. The episodes were seven minutes long, the lessons simple, the conflicts always resolved with hugs and understanding. Everything the real world wasn't.
