Sandwiches cut into small triangles like I was a child who needed manageable portions. Soup that steamed and smelled like chicken and herbs and comfort I didn't deserve. Ice water with actual ice, the condensation already beading on the glass. A cloth napkin, not paper, folded into precise angles.
"Eat," he said, lowering himself into the opposite chair.
The fireplace flickered between us, casting shadows that made his face harder to read than usual. Not that I could read him anyway. He was a closed book written in a language I'd never learned—violence and protection twisted together until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"I'm not hungry."
"Stop lying, devotchka." That flat certainty again, like he could see through skin to the hollow ache of my stomach. "Your body is consuming muscle mass for energy. Eventually, it'll start on organ tissue. You know this. You're a doctor."
"Was," I corrected automatically. "Was a doctor."
"Are." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and the movement brought him close enough that I could smell him—gun oil and expensive soap and something like blood. Probably blood. "License or no license, you're still a doctor. Still the woman who saved my life three nights ago with hands that didn't shake even once."
They were shaking now, and we both could see it.
"You told us about Brand," he said, changing tactics with the smoothness of someone used to interrogation. "The what and the how. But you didn't tell us what he did to you specifically. What really happened."
"I told you enough."
"No." He shook his head once, deliberate. "You gave us data. Statistics. Facts scrubbed clean of feeling. But something personal happened. Something that broke you enough to run, to hide, to give up everything you worked for."
The silence stretched between us, broken only by the fake crackle of the gas fireplace. He waited with the patience of someone who'd learned that silence was often more effective than violence in extracting truth.
"I was a good surgeon," I said finally, staring at the untouched food because it was easier than looking at him. "Not just good. Exceptional. Youngest chief resident in the hospital's history. I had publications, research grants, a career trajectory that should have led to running my own department by thirty."
My throat felt like I'd swallowed glass, but the words kept coming.
"When I found Maria—the girl missing her kidney—I did everything right. Documented everything. Filed reports with the ethics board, the state medical board, hospital administration. I had proof. Charts, surgical notes, even security footage showing Brand entering operating rooms he wasn't scheduled for."
I picked up the water glass just to have something to do with my hands, took a sip that felt like swallowing around a stone.
"Brand called me into his office two days later. Sat me down like a concerned mentor. Told me he understood I was under stress, that residency was hard, that sometimes we saw patterns that weren't there. He offered me a leave of absence. Said it would be good for me to rest, get some perspective."
The laugh that escaped was hollow, bitter. "I refused. Told him I'd already sent everything to the state board, that an investigation was coming whether he liked it or not. That's when his expression changed. Like taking off a mask."
I set the glass down before I dropped it, my hands trembling worse now.
"He said, 'Dr. Cross, you're very young. You don't understand how the world really works. But you're about to learn.' Then he dismissed me. Just like that. Sent me back to my shift like nothing had happened."
"But something did happen," Kostya said quietly.
"The next day, security found opioids in my locker. Three bottles of fentanyl, two of morphine, all with the lot numbers from missing inventory. An anesthesiologist named Dr. Hendricks came forward, claimed he'd seen me taking them, that I'd been impaired during surgery. Another nurse said she'd noticed erratic behavior, suspected drug use. Within forty-eight hours, I was suspended pending investigation."
My voice had gone clinical again, retreating into facts because they were safer than feelings.
"I tried to fight it. Demanded drug testing, which came back clean. But Brand had an explanation for that too—said addicts were clever, knew how to time usage to avoid detection. The investigation I'd started got buried under concerns about my 'mental state' and 'substance abuse issues.' Every piece ofevidence I'd gathered got reframed as the paranoid delusions of someone in the grip of addiction."
"Maria," Kostya prompted when I fell silent.
"Maria." Her name tasted like failure. "She was scheduled for a 'corrective procedure' to address 'complications' from her appendectomy. I tried to warn her, but security had banned me from the hospital. I waited outside, tried to catch her going in, but she never came out."
My throat closed completely for a moment. I had to force the words through.
"Died on the table. Cardiac arrest during a routine procedure. Brand himself tried to save her, according to the official report. A tragedy. Unexpected. These things happen sometimes."
"He killed her."
"He killed her," I confirmed. "Eliminated the only witness who could corroborate my story. Her family got a settlement, signed NDAs, were probably told she died because of complications from whoever had performed her first surgery. They probably think some resident made a mistake. They'll never know their daughter was murdered to cover up organ trafficking."
