Chapter 3
Konstantin
Surveillance was boring.
I adjusted the lens, snapped another photo of the orderlies loading containers.
White coolers with medical transport labels, the kind used for legitimate organ transfers.
Except legitimate transfers didn't happen through service entrances at eleven at night with no paperwork visible and orderlies who kept checking over their shoulders.
The driver leaned against the van's hood, smoking.
Even from across the street, I could make out the tattoo crawling up his neck—a snake wrapped around a dagger.
Willem Torgev's crew. One of Anton Belyaev's bottom-feeders who'd stayed loyal even after the exile.
I zoomed in, captured his face in profile.
Another piece of evidence for Nikolai's war room.
This was what intelligence work looked like. Sitting. Watching. Documenting. Not breaking fingers until someone talked. Not using violence to solve problems. Just . . . observation.
Boring. Boring. Boring.
My body hated every second of it. The monster in my chest kept stretching, restless, wanting action. Wanting to cross the street and make that driver tell me everything while his bones snapped like dry twigs.
But Nikolai had been clear: quietly. Subtly. Like I was capable of either.
I'd been doing this for three days now. Learning the patterns.
Tuesday and Friday pickups, always between 11 PM and midnight.
Always the same van with license plate VRM-4421.
Always heading toward Red Hook when they left, probably to a warehouse near the docks.
I had photographs, timestamps, facial recognition on three of the regular orderlies.
Professional surveillance, exactly what my brother wanted.
The problem was, every instinct screamed to just grab one of these orderlies, apply the right pressure, get answers in twenty minutes instead of twenty days. But that would start another war. Sophie was pregnant. We couldn't afford a war.
I shifted in the seat, vertebrae popping. Through the lens, I watched an orderly emerge with another cooler. This one had different markings—hazmat symbols, biohazard warnings. The kind of thing that should have been going through official channels with a paper trail a mile long.
My phone buzzed. Maks: "Still playing photographer?"
I typed back: "Still watching. Same pattern."
"Boring?"
"You have no idea."
The truth was, it wasn't just boring. It was torture of a different kind.
Sitting here knowing what these containers probably held—organs, tissue, pieces of people who might not have consented—and doing nothing about it.
The monster wanted to paint that loading dock red.
Make examples of everyone involved. Send a message written in blood and broken bones.
Instead, I took another photo.
That's when the second van arrived.
This one was different. Newer. Black instead of white.
No medical markings. It pulled up beside the first van, and four men climbed out.
Even from across the street, I could see the telltale bulge of weapons under their jackets.
The way they moved—checking sightlines, positioning themselves at corners—screamed security detail.
This wasn't part of the pattern.
I straightened in my seat, suddenly alert. One of the men spoke to the driver with the snake tattoo, who nodded and stubbed out his cigarette. They weren't here for a pickup. They were here for protection. Which meant something more valuable than usual was moving tonight.
Through the lens, I watched them form a perimeter around the loading dock. Professional. Paranoid. Whatever was happening, they expected trouble or were making sure it couldn't happen.
I grabbed my phone, snapped photos of the new arrivals, the second van's plates, the formation they'd taken. Sent everything to Maks with a message: "Change in pattern. Additional security. Something big happening."
His response was immediate: "Do NOT engage. Document only."
Right. Document only. While potentially dozens of organs were being harvested from people who'd come to this hospital for help. While Dr. Brand and the Belyaevs turned Brighton Medical into a chop shop. While I sat in my comfortable car playing tourist with a telephoto lens.
The monster in my chest wasn't just restless now. It was angry.
I watched one of the security team speak into a radio. Whatever was happening, it was coordinated. Planned. This wasn't opportunistic organ theft—this was an operation. They'd done this before, would do it again, unless someone stopped them.
Someone like me.
I set down the camera, pulled on the baseball cap I'd brought to hide my face. Dark clothes, nondescript jacket. Still too big to be truly invisible, but in the dark, from a distance, I might pass for just another hospital employee on a smoke break.
I typed one more message to Maks: "Going for closer look. East service door."
His response came as I was already opening the Escalade's door: "Kostya, NO."
But I was already moving, crossing the street in the shadows between streetlights.
I'd watched this hospital for three days.
Knew that the emergency room service door on the east side was propped open with a brick—staff used it for smoke breaks, avoiding the ten-minute walk around the building.
Security cameras had a blind spot there, probably deliberate.
The door was exactly where I'd expected, the brick holding it open just enough to slip through.
The hallway inside smelled like industrial disinfectant and that particular hospital smell—sickness and cleaning products and fear-sweat.
My boots were silent on the polished floor.
All those years of learning to move quietly despite my size finally useful for something other than intimidation.
Signs pointed toward the surgical wing. I followed them, keeping to the edges of hallways, ducking into doorways when I heard footsteps. This was insane. I was investigating a hospital like it was enemy territory. But then again, maybe it was.
Voices ahead, speaking Russian. I pressed myself against the wall, edging closer.
"—wants the girl prepped now. Buyer is paying double if we harvest tonight."
My blood turned to ice. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Tonight. Right now. Someone was about to lose organs they hadn't consented to give, and I was close enough to hear it being planned.
The monster in my chest stopped being restless. It went perfectly, dangerously still. The kind of still that came before violence.
This was no longer surveillance. This was a rescue mission.
I moved toward the voices, each step deliberate, my hand already reaching for the gun in my shoulder holster. The surgical wing was quieter than the emergency department—fewer people, more shadows. Perfect for what was about to happen, though I didn't know yet what that would be.
The voices led me down a corridor lined with operating suites. Most were dark, but light spilled from under the door of Surgery Suite 4. I pressed myself against the wall beside it, listening.
"—told you to use more sedative," someone said in Russian. "She's fighting too much."
"We need her kidneys viable," another voice responded, clinical and cold. "Too much sedation affects organ quality. The buyer is specific about that."
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. Through the small window in the door, I saw everything.
A young woman—maybe twenty, Asian features, terrified eyes—was strapped to an operating table. She was awake. Fully conscious. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled against the leather restraints. Her mouth moved around a gag, muffled pleas that didn't need translation.
A man in surgical scrubs and mask stood over her, arranging instruments on a steel tray.
Scalpels. Retractors. Everything needed to open someone up and take what wasn't freely given.
Three guards stood around the room's perimeter—Belyaev soldiers, all armed, all watching the girl like she was merchandise.
The smart move was to leave. Call Nikolai. Get backup. Document everything and let my brother handle it strategically, the way Pakhans did. That's what I'd been sent here to do—observe and report. Not engage. Not start a war over one girl I didn't know.
But she looked at me through that window. Our eyes met for half a second, and I saw everything in that look. The terror. The desperation. The complete understanding that she was about to be butchered while awake, and no one was coming to save her.
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. For once, breaking things would save someone instead of just leaving wreckage.
My phone came out. One message to Maks: "Brighton Medical, Surgery 4, going in."
Then I turned it to silent, pulled my gun, and kicked the door hard enough to splinter the frame.
The first guard turned toward the sound, hand moving for his weapon. I shot him in the kneecap before his fingers reached the holster. He went down screaming, blood spreading across the white floor. The sound echoed off the walls, sharp and final.
"Girl leaves. Now." My voice came out steady, calm. The kind of calm that preceded catastrophic violence.
The man in scrubs—he had to be Dr. Brand, though the guards had called him something else—didn't run. Didn't panic. He just looked at me with dark eyes visible above the surgical mask, calculating. His hand moved slowly, deliberately, to a red button on the wall.
"You have no idea what you've just done," he said, voice muffled but clear as alarms began to wail throughout the building.
The other two guards opened fire.