I opened my mouth to tell her she didn't have to do this alone. That I could help. That my family had resources, protection, power.
But before I could, the door exploded inwards.
Three men in black tactical gear and ski masks had flooded the clinic, weapons drawn and aimed. Professional formation—one covering the door, one securing the corners, one with his gun pointed directly at Maya's chest. She'd stumbled backward against the surgical table, eyes wide with the kind of terror that comes from recognizing your own death.
"Dr. Cross," the lead man said, his voice cold and American and carrying the kind of casual cruelty that made my blood ice over. "Brand sends his regards."
Not here to question. Not here to threaten. Here to execute.
The lead man's finger moved to the trigger, and time slowed to nothing. Maya's eyes found mine over his shoulder—a flash of recognition, of desperate hope, of goodbye.
But I wasn’t going to let it be goodbye.
The thing about being six-five and two-forty is that physics works differently for you. I didn't need to reach the gunman. I just needed to reach her. My body crashed into Maya like a freight train, sending us both tumbling behind the table as the first shot cracked through the air where her head had been.
The second shot caught me in the already-injured shoulder as I covered her with my body. The pain was immediate and blinding, a white-hot explosion that nearly dropped me. Blood soaked through the fresh bandages she'd just applied. More fucking bullet wounds to deal with.
Later.
"Stay down," I growled in her ear, then rolled off her and surged upward.
The monster in my chest didn't roar this time. It did something else—it focused. All that violence I carried, all that destruction I was built for, suddenly had purpose. Direction. These men had come to kill her. My doctor. The woman who'd saved my life with steady hands and exhausted eyes.
They'd already lost. They just didn't know it yet.
The lead gunman was adjusting his aim, trying to track my movement. I grabbed his wrist before he could fire again, twistedwith every ounce of strength I had left. Bones ground together, then snapped with a wet crack. The gun clattered across the floor as he screamed, but I was already moving, bringing my elbow down on his temple with enough force to drop a horse.
He crumpled, unconscious or dead, I didn't care which.
The second attacker fired, and I felt the bullet graze my ribs—a line of fire that would have mattered if I wasn't running on pure adrenaline and rage. He was backing up, trying to get distance, but the clinic was too small for tactical retreats.
I closed the gap in two strides. His next shot went wide as I grabbed his throat, lifted him off his feet, and drove him backward into the concrete wall. His skull made a satisfying crack against it. Once. Twice. His gun fell from nerveless fingers. I let him drop, watched him slide down the wall leaving a red smear.
The third man made a mistake. Instead of shooting me, he went for Maya.
She'd started to stand, probably trying to run, and he grabbed her arm, yanking her against him as a shield. His gun pressed to her temple, and I saw her eyes go blank with terror.
"Back off," he shouted, voice muffled by the ski mask but high with panic. These weren't special forces. These were hired killers, used to victims who couldn't fight back. "Back off or I'll—"
I didn't let him finish. Grabbed the surgical table—the same one where she'd saved my life—and flipped it at him with every bit of violence I had left. It caught him full in the chest, sending him flying backward. Maya stumbled free as he crashed into the shelving unit, medical supplies raining down on him.
He tried to get up. I didn't let him. My boot connected with his face once, twice, three times. The wet crunch of his nose breaking. The way his body went limp. The blood pooling beneath his mask.
Then silence, except for our breathing—mine harsh and ragged, hers in short, panicked gasps.
The fight had lasted maybe ninety seconds, but looking at the clinic now, it might have been ninety years of war compressed into this single room.
Blood painted the walls in arterial sprays and smears where bodies had hit concrete. The surgical table lay overturned, its metal legs bent from the force I'd used to weaponize it. Medical supplies littered the floor—gauze soaking up blood, scattered pills from shattered bottles, syringes cracked under tactical boots. The fluorescent light flickered where someone's head had cracked the fixture, casting everything in a strobe of horror and shadow.
Two men weren't moving at all. The one I'd driven into the wall had a dent in his skull that meant he'd never move again. The other, the one I'd kicked, was still breathing but wrong—the wet, rattling breaths that meant internal damage. Maybe minutes left, maybe less.
The lead gunman, the one whose wrist I'd snapped, was unconscious but alive. His arm bent at an angle that would need surgery to fix. Blood seeped from his temple where I'd dropped him, but his chest rose and fell steadily.
Sirens wailed nearby, maybe four blocks now. In Brighton Beach, that meant two minutes, maybe three if we were lucky. Someone had definitely called it in—gunshots in a basement tended to draw attention, even in neighborhoods where people minded their own business.
Dr. Cross stood exactly where I'd left her, pressed against the wall like she could disappear into it. Her eyes tracked across the destruction but didn't seem to actually see it. Shock—complete dissociation from a reality too violent to process. She was a doctor, had probably seen death before, but not like this. Notviolent death meant for her, prevented by more violence done in her name.
"Dr. Cross," I said, keeping my voice low, steady. "We need to go."
