Chapter 26
Izzy
Tone blew on her nails like she was diffusing a bomb.
“I still cannot believe,” she commented, inspecting the glossy coat under the light, “that my brooding warlord of a brother has effectively placed me under house arrest.”
I dipped the brush back into the bottle, careful not to overload it, and reached for her other hand.
“He didn’t say house arrest,” I reminded her.
“He locked the gates,” she shot back. “There are dozens of men at the perimeter. I had to inform three separate security checkpoints that I was walking to the kitchen for tea. That is not security. That is madness.”
I suppressed a smile.
“I don’t know.” I gave a small shrug. “I guess he knows best what threats are out there. He did say it was only for a little while. Then things would go back to normal.”
Tone stared at me like I had just defended a dictator.
“Normal?” she repeated flatly. “Define normal, Izzy. Because if normal involves me being trapped inside a fortress with armed men and restricted movement, I would have packed differently.”
She leaned back in her chair with a dramatic sigh, carefully keeping her hands suspended in the air like a surgeon preserving sterile conditions.
“If I had known he was going to imprison me inside his… fortress,” she gestured vaguely around the lavish room, “I would have stayed with a friend. A colleague. A stranger. Literally anyone with a door I could exit freely.”
I carefully painted the edge of her nail, steadying her finger when she tried to move it mid-rant.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I am being inconvenienced,” she countered. “There is a difference.”
She wiggled her fingers in the light, unimpressed.
“And we had an appointment today, remember? We were supposed to go together to get our nails done and do some shopping. Now look at us. Reduced to amateur nail care in captivity.”
I glanced at her hands, then at mine, then back at her.
“They look fine.”
“That is not the point,” she shot back immediately. “The point is autonomy. Freedom. The simple joy of walking into a salon and letting someone else deal with cuticles while I judge their life choices in silence.”
Despite myself, a small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
I finished the last nail and blew gently across her hand.
“We’ll survive,” I pointed out.
Tone turned her head slowly, narrowing her eyes at me.
“You are far too calm about this,” she observed.
I leaned back in my chair, studying my own freshly painted nails.
“I’m not scared,” I admitted. “Annoyed, maybe. But not scared.”
Tone hummed, unconvinced.
“Mm. That is either emotional resilience, or denial. I’ll diagnose later.”
A small silence settled between us, comfortable in a strange way. Then I glanced at her.
“So, who’s this boyfriend you broke up with but haven’t told me about yet?”
Her reaction was immediate. Subtle, but immediate. Her shoulders stiffened just a fraction before she rolled her eyes.
“He was a nobody.” She was dismissive, waving me off. “I don’t even know why I wasted my time on him.”
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she revealed. “Charming in public. Incompetent in private. And emotionally exhausting. A tragic combination.”
I tilted my head slightly.
“Kind of like me.” I thought of Nathan.
Her gaze snapped back to mine, sharper now.
I gave a small, humourless smile.
“I dated a man who lied about everything, dealt drugs, cried poor, and lived off me while pretending he was struggling. I’d say that qualifies as wasted time.”
Tone studied me for a moment, her expression losing some of its sarcasm.
“He sounds parasitic.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it.”
She clicked her tongue softly.
“Well, by leaving him, you’ve upgraded significantly.”
My cheeks warmed slightly at that, so I changed the subject.
“What about the tall Russian who keeps popping in like a bad rash?” I asked her.
Tone blinked. Then she smirked.
“Oh,” she said with relish. “That imbecile.”
I laughed.
“Yes. That one.”
She leaned back in her chair, clearly amused now.
“I met him while he was bleeding out on the ground with two busted kneecaps.”
I stared at her.
“Excuse me?”
“My wonderful cousin shot him.” She seemed to be enjoying retelling the story too much for my liking.
I blinked again.
“Shot him?”
“Yes. Quite dramatically, too. It was all very messy.”
“And then?”
“And then,” she continued, ticking off fingers, “one cousin shot him, another saved him from certain execution by refusing to let him die, and yet another—me—stitched him back together like a very expensive, very irritating patchwork project.”
I stared.
“You stitched up a Russian criminal your cousin shot.” I felt like I had to clarify that point.
“Yes.”
“And he just… comes over now?”
“Like a stray cat that refuses to acknowledge it was once nearly euthanized,” she replied dryly.
I laughed despite myself. “He seems harmless enough.”
“He is. When he’s unconscious,” she said. “But he’s actually arrogant and obnoxious. I really don’t know how he’s managed to stay alive this long.”
I shook my head, smiling. I leaned forward slightly, genuinely curious now.
“How did you get into medicine?”
She paused, considering.
“My family is… complicated. Chaos is not unfamiliar to me. Hospitals made sense. Order. Protocol. Structure. Blood is easier to manage when it is clinical.”
I swallowed lightly.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Tone went very still. For once, she didn’t make a joke. Instead, she exhaled.
“A scene call. Post-gunfight. Multiple casualties in an enclosed space.”
My stomach tightened.
“I arrived after the shooting stopped,” she revealed. “The floor was… saturated. Blood everywhere. Walls, furniture, clothing. You could smell iron before you even crossed the threshold.”
Her voice remained calm. Clinical. Detached.
“I stepped forward to check the first body, and my shoe made a sound.”
She glanced down at her feet like she could still see it there.
“A soft, wet sound.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“I looked down,” she went on, voice steady, almost bored, “and realized I’d stepped into brain matter. Grey. Mixed with blood. Spread all over the floor.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
“It clung to the sole,” she added. “Viscous. Warm. There were bone fragments in it. Tiny ones.” A pause. “I remember thinking I’d need to disinfect my shoes before getting back into my car.”
Of course she did.
She blinked once, then leaned back like she’d just finished explaining a minor inconvenience.
“They were my new Jimmy Choos.”
I stared at her, trying to process the priorities on display.
Truth be told, I’d seen a lot of unhinged in my life. But turning up to a murder scene in designer heels—and worrying about the dry-cleaning bill while standing in someone’s brain? That was a different breed entirely.
“You learn quickly,” she started again, “that panic is inefficient. People expect surgeons to be delicate. In reality, we are very good at functioning in environments most people would never psychologically recover from.”
I stared at her.
“You just… kept working?”
“Of course. Someone was still alive.”
A long silence followed. Then she looked at my nails.
“You smudged your thumb,” she quipped suddenly.
I blinked.
“What?”
She grabbed my hand and inspected it critically.
“This is why professionals exist,” she muttered. “Emotional discussions should not occur mid-manicure.”
Despite everything she’d just told me, I laughed. And for the first time since the gates closed and the house grew dark around us, the sound felt real.