Chapter 5
Konstantin
Ihated getting told off.
Ever since I was a kid.
Nothing got me more angry than being told, over and over again, that I’d done something stupid. Even more so when I knew that I hadn’t.
We were in the war room, which is where the dressings down normally happened.
Nikolai sat behind the huge table like a king on his throne, fingers steepled, that particular brand of stillness that meant he was seconds away from violence.
Maks paced behind him like a caged animal, laptop abandoned on the side table, his usual smooth-talker mask completely gone.
And me? I stood there like a naughty boy, trying not to think about the basement doctor who I’d be seeing in a few short hours.
I’d managed to put this meeting off for three days. Claimed I was recovering. But now I had to face up to it.
The office still smelled like Mikhail's pipe tobacco, even though our grandfather hadn't been up here in days.
Outside the bulletproof windows, the Verrazano Bridge stretched across gray November sky, and I focused on counting the support cables rather than meeting my brother's eyes.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.
"You went in without backup." Nikolai's voice cut through the silence, each word precise as a scalpel.
"You engaged Belyaev soldiers in a public hospital.
You nearly died." He paused, and I could feel his gaze boring into me even without looking.
"And now they know we're investigating their operation. "
The words hung in the air like an indictment. He wasn't wrong. I'd blown months of surveillance in ninety seconds of violence. But he hadn't seen that girl's eyes.
"We had a plan," Maks exploded, stopping his pacing to glare at me.
"A fucking plan, Kostya. Gather intel. Build a case.
Strike strategically. Not—" He gestured wildly at me.
"Not whatever the hell that was. You turned it into a bloodbath.
Three dead in a surgical suite? Security footage that's probably already in police hands?
Christ, you might as well have signed your name on the walls in their blood. "
"There were no cameras," I said, keeping my voice flat. "I made sure of it."
"Oh, well then." Maks's laugh was bitter. "Everything's fine. Except for the part where Brand knows someone's onto him, where the Belyaevs are mobilizing, where you've got two bullet wounds and a knife hole that nearly turned you into confetti."
My shoulder throbbed at the reminder, the fresh stitches Dr. Cross had placed pulling with every breath.
Three days since she'd saved my life, and I could still feel the ghost of her steady hands on my skin.
Small hands. Competent hands. Hands that wouldn't shake even while she pulled a bullet from my shoulder blade.
"There was a girl on that table," I said, finally meeting Nikolai's eyes.
"Awake. Conscious. They'd strapped her down like an animal, and she was crying.
Begging. They were going to harvest her organs while she could feel everything.
" My hands clenched involuntarily, remembering the terror in her eyes.
"What was I supposed to do? Take pictures?
Document it for your files while they carved her up? "
The room went silent except for the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner—another remnant of Mikhail's reign that Nikolai hadn't changed. Even Maks stopped moving, his face shifting from anger to something more complicated.
"You saved her life, Kostya."
The quiet voice came from the leather sofa, where I'd almost forgotten Sophie was sitting. She looked small among the cushions, but her presence filled the room anyway. She had that effect—making hardened killers remember they were human.
Nikolai's expression softened fractionally when he looked at his wife, the way it always did. The ice in his eyes thawed just enough to show the man underneath the Pakhan mask.
"Yes," he said, turning back to me. "You did save her.
And I'm not saying you made the wrong choice.
" He stood, moving around the desk with the controlled grace of a predator.
"But you also painted a target on yourself, and by extension, on this family.
The Belyaevs know someone interfered. Brand knows someone is investigating. They'll be looking for you."
"Let them look." The words came out harder than I intended. "I'm not good at hide go seek. Not my style."
"No, but what about the people around you?" Nikolai's voice dropped lower, more dangerous. "What about Sophie? The baby? What about whoever patched you up when you were too stubborn to come home?"
My chest tightened. He didn't know about Dr. Cross specifically, but Nikolai always knew more than he should.
The basement clinic. The shadow doctor who worked outside the system.
The woman who'd commanded me with a voice that brooked no argument and had saved my life without asking a single question about who I was or who I'd killed.
She was probably in danger just from treating me. Brand had connections everywhere.
The monster in my chest stirred, restless and protective. Not her. They couldn't touch her.
"I'm going back for my follow-up appointment," I said, the words coming out as a statement, not a request. "Tonight."
Maks threw his hands up. "Of course you are. Why would you stay away from an obvious point of vulnerability?"
"Because I gave my word." I looked at Nikolai, not Maks. "She told me to come back in three days to check for infection. I said I would."
"She?" Sophie's voice held a note of interest that made me want to leave the room immediately.
"The doctor. That's all. Some doctors are women." I kept my voice carefully neutral, but Sophie's smile said she heard what I wasn't saying anyway.
Nikolai studied me for a long moment, and I could see him calculating risks and probabilities the way he always did. Finally, he sighed—a sound that meant he knew he couldn't stop me even if he tried.
"Take your phone," he said. "Location services on. If anything happens—anything—you call immediately. And Kostya?" He waited until I met his eyes. "If this doctor is in danger because of what you did, you bring her here. We protect our debts."
I nodded, already heading for the door. The meeting was over, and I had a wounded shoulder that needed checking and a doctor to warn about the storm I'd brought to her door.
The basement door looked exactly the same as three nights ago, except now I knew what waited behind it. Not just medical care. Not just another underground doctor.
Her.
Dr. Cross, with her exhausted eyes and steady hands and the kind of competence that made me want to know every secret she was hiding.
I knocked slowly, loudly. My shoulder ached with each movement, the gunshot wound protesting despite the medication I'd taken. The knife wound in my side pulled with every breath, a constant reminder of how close I'd come to bleeding out on her table.
Footsteps on the other side, hesitant. A pause that stretched too long. Then locks disengaging—one, two, three. The door opened a crack, safety chain still engaged, and her face appeared in the gap.
Christ. She looked worse.
The dark circles under her eyes had deepened to purple-black, like someone had hit her.
Her hands trembled slightly where they gripped the door frame before she forced them still—a tell she probably didn't know she had.
She'd lost weight in three days, her cheekbones sharper, the hollows beneath them more pronounced.
Her dark hair was pulled back in the same messy bun, but strands had escaped, hanging limp around her face.
She looked like someone being hunted.
"Thank you for being on time," she said flatly, unhooking the chain. No greeting. No acknowledgment that I'd survived the three days since she'd saved my life. Just that clinical detachment, like I was a appointment in her calendar, nothing more.
The door swung open fully, and I stepped inside. The clinic smelled the same—bleach and that underlying copper scent that never quite went away.
"On the table, please," she said, already pulling on latex gloves with brisk efficiency.
I obeyed, watching her move through the familiar space. She avoided my eyes, focusing on her instruments, on the bandages she'd need to change. Professional. Distant. Safe.
The table creaked under my weight as I pulled off my shirt, careful not to pull the stitches.
She approached with that same clinical precision, her face a mask of medical assessment.
No reaction to the bruising that had bloomed across my torso.
No acknowledgment of how much worse I looked than when I'd left.
Her fingers were cold through the latex as she unwrapped the shoulder bandage. I could feel the slight tremor in them, though she tried to hide it. Exhaustion or fear? Both, probably.
"No infection," she murmured, probing the wound edges with gentle pressure. "Healing well. The sutures are holding. You got lucky."
She moved to the knife wound, peeling back the tape with careful movements. Her breath caught slightly—so quiet I almost missed it. The wound had opened slightly. A thin line of blood had dried along the suture line.
"You've not been careful," she said. Not a question.
"Not my strong suit."
She didn't respond, just cleaned the wound with antiseptic that burned like acid. I didn't flinch. She noticed that too—I could tell by the slight pause in her movements.
"My name is Konstantin Besharov," I said, breaking the clinical silence. "Kostya. I wanted you to know who you saved."
Her hands paused on my skin, just for a second. The touch lingered a heartbeat too long before she continued working, applying fresh gauze with unnecessary focus.
"I don't need to know," she said, but her voice had lost some of its clinical edge. "This is what I do. You paid. We're even."