Backinmyroom,the kittens had discovered they could move. Not well—Malysh kept tripping over his own paws, and Zmeya's fierce determination exceeded his coordination—but they were trying. Their blanket nest had become a battlefield. Zmeya stalked Malysh's tail with all the intensity of a lion hunting gazelle, never mind that he could barely walk straight. Malysh retaliated by pouncing on his brother's head, both of them rolling in a tangle of grey and orange fur.
I sat on the floor, back against the bed, and watched them wage their tiny war.
They noticed me eventually. Malysh approached first, sniffing my knee with deep suspicion. Zmeya, not to be outdone, marched over on unsteady legs and tried to climb my thigh. His claws were needle-sharp through my pants, but I didn't move. Didn't want to scare them.
I held out my hand, palm up. Neutral. Unthreatening—which was laughable, considering these hands had broken Alexandr's nose mere hours ago.
Zmeya climbed into my palm like he was conquering Everest. He weighed nothing. Maybe three ounces. I could crush him without thinking about it, end that tiny life between my fingers. The thought made me sick.
Instead, I brought him up to eye level, careful as I'd ever been with anything. He stared at me, green eyes too big for his orange face, and then did something that stopped my heart: he purred.
"Silly little thing," I murmured in Russian, but there was no heat in it. I stroked one finger down his spine, felt the delicate architecture of his bones, the rabbit-quick heartbeat. He arched into the touch, purr getting louder.
Malysh, jealous, tried to climb my arm. I scooped him up with my other hand, held them both. They fit easily, one kitten per palm, and I sat there like an idiot, holding two cats while my brother's assignment churned in my head.
Investigate quietly. Navigate the civilian world. Find Dr. Brand without causing a war.
Nikolai had faith in me, but Nikolai's faith was sometimes misplaced. He saw what he wanted to see in people—their potential, not their limitations. He looked at me and saw his brother, his enforcer, someone capable of evolution. He didn't see what I saw in the mirror every morning: a creature built for one purpose, trying to pretend it could be something else.
Organ trafficking meant hospitals. Doctors. Nurses. People with advanced degrees and clean hands who'd take one look at me and see exactly what I was. My scars told stories. My size made me a threat just by existing. My face—even Malysh had been afraid of my face at first, and he was a cat.
How was I supposed to investigate quietly when my very presence was a scream?
The warehouse addresses Alexandr had given me were a start. But warehouses led to shipping manifests, which led to legitimate businesses, which led to people in suits who'd callsecurity the moment they saw me coming. I couldn't intimidate my way through this. Couldn't break fingers until someone talked. This required finesse, and I had all the finesse of a sledgehammer.
I thought about Sophie, calling me Uncle Kostya with such easy affection. About the baby growing inside her, who'd be born into this family of monsters and somehow be loved, be safe. About Nikolai, who'd found a way to be both Pakhan and husband, brutal and tender.
Maybe that was possible. Maybe you could be two things at once.
Or maybe that was just something people like Nikolai could do. People who hadn't fed the monster so long it had consumed everything else.
I set the kittens carefully back in their nest. They stirred, readjusted, curled together again. Zmeya's paw rested on Malysh's head, protective even in sleep.
"I'll try," I told them, though they were unconscious and wouldn't have understood anyway. "I'll do this job without breaking everything I touch. Without becoming more of a monster."
It was a promise I wasn't sure I could keep. The monster in my chest had been fed too well, too long. It knew only one way to solve problems, and that way left bodies and blood and broken things in its wake.
Tomorrow, I'd start investigating Brighton Medical Center. I'd find Dr. Brand and the Belyaev connections without starting a war. I'd be subtle, careful, smart. All the things I wasn't.
I looked down at the sleeping kittens one more time. They'd need food soon. Real food, not just cream. I'd have to go to a pet store, buy supplies. The thought of me in a PetSmart, buying kitten food while looking like I'd just walked out of a maximum-security prison, almost made me laugh.
But I'd do it. For them. Just like I'd do this investigation for Nikolai and Sophie and the family.
The monster in my chest stirred, restless. It knew something I was only beginning to understand: this job was going to cost me. Maybe not in blood or bullets, but in something else. Something I couldn't name yet.
I just hoped the price wouldn't be more than I could pay.
Chapter 2
Maya
Thebloodonmyhands was fresh, sticky, and—thankfully—not mine. My patient lay on the table beneath me, his knife wound still gaping. Boris—not his real name, they never gave real names—breathed in shallow gasps while I irrigated the wound with saline stolen from Brooklyn Methodist's loading dock. The camping lanterns threw shadows that danced across the basement walls, and the flashlight duct-taped to the shelf kept sliding, making me adjust my angle every few minutes.
"More pressure on his shoulders," I said to the stockier of Boris's two friends. "He's going to thrash when I hit this nerve."
The man nodded, pressing down harder while his partner held Boris's legs. Neither of them looked at the wound. Most people couldn't handle the reality of what bodies looked like on the inside—all that hidden architecture exposed, the delicate machinery we pretended didn't exist.
I probed the wound with forceps, checking for debris. The blade had gone in clean, thank God. Half an inch to the left and it would have nicked the intestines, turning this from a bad night into a death sentence. I didn't do bowel resections in basements. Not anymore.
