"You saved her life, Kostya."
The quiet voice came from the leather sofa, where I'd almost forgotten Sophie was sitting. She looked small among the cushions, but her presence filled the room anyway. She had that effect—making hardened killers remember they were human.
Nikolai's expression softened fractionally when he looked at his wife, the way it always did. The ice in his eyes thawed just enough to show the man underneath the Pakhan mask.
"Yes," he said, turning back to me. "You did save her. And I'm not saying you made the wrong choice." He stood, moving around the desk with the controlled grace of a predator. "But you also painted a target on yourself, and by extension, on this family. The Belyaevs know someone interfered. Brand knows someone is investigating. They'll be looking for you."
"Let them look." The words came out harder than I intended. "I'm not good at hide go seek. Not my style."
"No, but what about the people around you?" Nikolai's voice dropped lower, more dangerous. "What about Sophie? The baby? What about whoever patched you up when you were too stubborn to come home?"
My chest tightened. He didn't know about Dr. Cross specifically, but Nikolai always knew more than he should. Thebasement clinic. The shadow doctor who worked outside the system. The woman who'd commanded me with a voice that brooked no argument and had saved my life without asking a single question about who I was or who I'd killed.
She was probably in danger just from treating me. Brand had connections everywhere.
The monster in my chest stirred, restless and protective. Not her. They couldn't touch her.
"I'm going back for my follow-up appointment," I said, the words coming out as a statement, not a request. "Tonight."
Maks threw his hands up. "Of course you are. Why would you stay away from an obvious point of vulnerability?"
"Because I gave my word." I looked at Nikolai, not Maks. "She told me to come back in three days to check for infection. I said I would."
"She?" Sophie's voice held a note of interest that made me want to leave the room immediately.
"The doctor. That's all. Some doctors are women." I kept my voice carefully neutral, but Sophie's smile said she heard what I wasn't saying anyway.
Nikolai studied me for a long moment, and I could see him calculating risks and probabilities the way he always did. Finally, he sighed—a sound that meant he knew he couldn't stop me even if he tried.
"Take your phone," he said. "Location services on. If anything happens—anything—you call immediately. And Kostya?" He waited until I met his eyes. "If this doctor is in danger because of what you did, you bring her here. We protect our debts."
I nodded, already heading for the door. The meeting was over, and I had a wounded shoulder that needed checking and a doctor to warn about the storm I'd brought to her door.
Thebasementdoorlookedexactly the same as three nights ago, except now I knew what waited behind it. Not just medical care. Not just another underground doctor.
Her.
Dr. Cross, with her exhausted eyes and steady hands and the kind of competence that made me want to know every secret she was hiding.
I knocked slowly, loudly. My shoulder ached with each movement, the gunshot wound protesting despite the medication I'd taken. The knife wound in my side pulled with every breath, a constant reminder of how close I'd come to bleeding out on her table.
Footsteps on the other side, hesitant. A pause that stretched too long. Then locks disengaging—one, two, three. The door opened a crack, safety chain still engaged, and her face appeared in the gap.
Christ. She looked worse.
The dark circles under her eyes had deepened to purple-black, like someone had hit her. Her hands trembled slightly where they gripped the door frame before she forced them still—a tell she probably didn't know she had. She'd lost weight in three days, her cheekbones sharper, the hollows beneath them more pronounced. Her dark hair was pulled back in the same messy bun, but strands had escaped, hanging limp around her face.
She looked like someone being hunted.
"Thank you for being on time," she said flatly, unhooking the chain. No greeting. No acknowledgment that I'd survived the three days since she'd saved my life. Just that clinical detachment, like I was a appointment in her calendar, nothing more.
The door swung open fully, and I stepped inside. The clinic smelled the same—bleach and that underlying copper scent that never quite went away.
"On the table, please," she said, already pulling on latex gloves with brisk efficiency.
I obeyed, watching her move through the familiar space. She avoided my eyes, focusing on her instruments, on the bandages she'd need to change. Professional. Distant. Safe.
The table creaked under my weight as I pulled off my shirt, careful not to pull the stitches. She approached with that same clinical precision, her face a mask of medical assessment. No reaction to the bruising that had bloomed across my torso. No acknowledgment of how much worse I looked than when I'd left.
