I didn't remember arriving. The last clear memory was the Escalade's leather seats, Kostya's massive frame behind the wheel, Brooklyn bleeding away in the rearview mirror while I sat there clutching my bag and trying not to think about the bodies we'd left behind. After that—nothing. Just black.
Trauma? Exhaustion? Had I passed out?
He must have carried me. The thought made my skin crawl and something else twist in my stomach that I refused to examine. Those huge hands that had crushed windpipes like paper had carried me into this room, laid me in this bed, maybe even pulled the covers over me. The intimacy of it, the vulnerability of being unconscious in his arms—
Stop. Strategic thinking only.
This had to be his territory. The enforcer had said his name was Konstantin Besharov, and men like him didn't take strays anywhere but home. Which meant I was somewhere in Brooklyn, probably Brighton Beach based on the glimpses of architecture I could see through the window—that particular mix of old New York grandeur and new Russian money.
I tried the door first. The handle turned smoothly, expensive mechanisms that didn't even click. I pulled it open six inches and met the impassive stare of a man I didn’t recognize. He looked like the offspring of a refrigerator and a brick wall. Six-four at least, shoulders that barely fit in the hallway, carrying a gun like other people carried phones.
He shook his head once. Didn't speak, didn't need to. The message was clear: I could open the door, I could look out, but I couldn't leave.
"I need to—" I started.
Another head shake. Still no words. Just that flat stare that said he had his orders and my needs weren't part of them.
I closed the door with careful control instead of slamming it, then moved to the window. Three stories up—I could tell by the perspective, the way the manicured lawn stretched out below like a green carpet that had never known a weed. The glass was thick, distorting slightly at the edges. Bulletproof, probably. Even if I could break it—which I couldn't, not with anything in this room—the fall would shatter my ankles at minimum. And even if I survived that, even if adrenaline let me run on broken bones, the fence at the property's edge was topped with cameras that tracked movement. I'd counted three guards on the grounds just in my limited view. I'd never make it fifty feet.
My hands had started shaking again—that fine tremor that had become my constant companion over the last six months. Exhaustion, malnutrition, chronic stress response. I knew the medical terms for everything wrong with my body, could diagnose myself with clinical precision. Knowledge didn't fix anything.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, still clutching my medical bag like a traumatized child with a teddy bear. The mattress was firm but yielding, the kind that probably cost more than I'd made in three months at the clinic. Everything in this room cost more than my life was worth.
Which raised the question: Why was I here? Why was I still alive?
Men like the Besharovs didn't do charity. They operated on a different economy—favors and debts, leverage and blood. Kostya had saved me from Brand's hit squad, had brought mehere instead of dumping me at a bus station with a warning to disappear. That meant I had something they wanted.
The flash drive. Had to be. The evidence against Brand that could undermine his operation, that named names and tracked money and contained enough proof to bring down not just him but everyone connected to him. They'd searched my things while I was unconscious—I was sure of it. Professional killers didn't leave potential weapons uninvestigated.
But if they'd found it, if they had what they wanted, why keep me? Why waste a room, a guard, resources on a burned-out basement doctor who'd already given them everything valuable?
I could scream. Pound on the door. Demand to be released, threaten to go to the police, throw whatever tantrum might get attention. But men like the Besharovs didn't respond to demands from people like me. They responded to leverage, to value, to usefulness. And right now, sitting in this beautiful prison with a guard outside and cameras watching the grounds, I had none of those things.
So I sat on the edge of that too-expensive bed, medical bag pressed against my chest, hands shaking with that familiar tremor, and tried to figure out what piece of myself I'd have to trade for survival this time. What part of Dr. Maya Cross would I have to cut away and offer up to make it through another day, another week, another lifetime of running from men who saw me as either useful or disposable, nothing in between.
The tremor in my hands got worse. I pressed them against my thighs, but even through the fabric, I could feel them shaking. My body betraying me, showing weakness when I needed to be strong, breaking down when I needed to be steel.
Itwasalmostanhour later when the door opened without a knock. Kostya filled the doorframe the way smoke fills a room—inevitable, impossible to ignore, changing the very composition of the air.
"Family meeting," he said. Not a request. Not an invitation. Just a fact, like gravity or blood loss—something that would happen regardless of my participation.
His shoulder was bandaged under a fresh black t-shirt, the bulk of gauze visible through the fabric. He'd been shot again last night, taking a bullet that was meant for me, and here he stood like it was a mild inconvenience. I wanted to demand he sit, let me check the wound, make sure whoever had patched him up had done it properly. The urge was so strong I had to bite my tongue to keep the words inside.
"I need my—"
"Bring it." He nodded at my medical bag, still clutched against my chest. "You'll feel safer."
The fact that he knew that, had observed that about me in the handful of hours we'd been in each other's presence, made something uncomfortable twist beneath my ribs. I stood, bag handle cutting into my palm from how hard I was gripping it, and followed him into the hallway.
The guard who'd been watching my door fell into step behind us, and I found myself cataloging the compound's security with the same compulsive attention I used to memorize anatomical landmarks. Cameras at every corner, small and expensive, the kind that could read a newspaper from fifty feet. Windows with that same thick glass, bulletproof and probably soundproof too. Guards who materialized and disappeared like antibodies responding to infection—visible when needed, invisible when not.
The hallway was all dark wood and oriental runners that muffled our footsteps, paintings on the walls that looked realenough to belong in museums. Everything whispered money, but more than that, it whispered power. The kind of power that didn't need to shout, that could destroy you with a whisper and make your body disappear so thoroughly even God would forget you existed.
We climbed a staircase that belonged in a period drama, all carved banisters and steps that didn't creak despite their age. Third floor, corner office, door heavy enough to stop bullets. Kostya opened it and gestured me inside with that particular brand of courtesy that was really just control wrapped in politeness.
The office hit me like a physical force. Floor-to-ceiling windows commanded a view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, gray water churning beneath it like my stomach. The desk alone probably cost more than my medical school debt—massive, dark wood that had been polished until it reflected light like water. Chess pieces scattered across a board in the corner, and even from across the room, I could see the game in progress. White's king was in trouble, backed into a corner with limited options, but black hadn't noticed the knight fork coming that would flip the entire board.
A man sat behind that desk like he'd been carved from the same wood—dark hair neat despite the early hour, darker eyes that tracked my entrance with the kind of attention that made me want to inventory my exits. He looked like Kostya but different—slightly older, more restrained. He had that perfect stillness that predators had right before they struck. Everything about him screamed control, from the way his hands rested on the desk to the way he didn't blink when he looked at me.
