Chapter 5 #2
"Are we?" I watched her face, saw the micro-expressions she couldn't quite control. The tightening around her eyes. The way she pressed her lips together. "Because from where I'm sitting, saving someone's life creates a different kind of debt."
"There's no debt." She started rebandaging with too-quick movements, like she was racing against something. "I'm a doctor. Or I was. This is just . . . reflexes. Muscle memory. Nothing more."
"You are a doctor," I corrected. "License or no license."
She froze completely then, hands still on the bandage roll. Her eyes snapped to mine, wide with something between fear and shock.
"How did you—"
"I didn't. Until now." I kept my voice gentle, non-threatening. "But someone that skilled doesn't learn in basements. You were trained. Properly trained. And something happened that put you here."
She jerked back, putting distance between us like I'd become dangerous. The bandage roll clattered to the floor.
"That's not your concern," she said, voice sharp now, defensive. "You're done. Wounds are healing. Take antibiotics for four more days. Keep the sutures dry. Don't come back."
I didn't move from the table. "You're in trouble."
It wasn't a question, and she knew it. Her whole body went rigid, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Fight or flight response, barely contained.
"Everyone in Brighton Beach is in trouble," she said. "That's why we're here instead of somewhere else."
"This is different." I pulled my shirt back on slowly, watching her track my movements like a spooked animal. "Someone's hunting you. Someone specific."
"Stop."
"You've been running for a while. Months, maybe more. You're exhausted. You're scared. And you're alone."
"Stop." Louder this time, with an edge of panic.
"Whoever it is, they're connected. They have resources. They—"
"I said stop!" The words exploded from her, raw and desperate.
She pressed herself against the wall, as far from me as the small space allowed.
"You don't know anything. You don't know who I am or what I've done or why I'm here.
You got your medical care. You're healed enough to survive. We're done. Don't come back."
Her chest heaved with rapid breaths, and for a moment, I saw past the clinical mask to the terrified woman underneath. Someone had hurt her. Badly. Someone had taken her life apart piece by piece until all that was left was this—a basement clinic and the constant fear of being found.
The monster in my chest wanted to find whoever had done this and take them apart slowly. Make them understand what real fear felt like. But that wouldn't help her now. She needed something else. Something I didn't know how to give.
"Okay," I said quietly, sliding off the table. "I won't come back."
The relief on her face was immediate and painful to see. She moved to the door, hand on the locks, ready to secure them the moment I left. I walked past her, close enough to catch her scent—antiseptic and exhaustion and something sweet underneath, like vanilla.
I opened my mouth to tell her she didn't have to do this alone. That I could help. That my family had resources, protection, power.
But before I could, the door exploded inwards.
Three men in black tactical gear and ski masks had flooded the clinic, weapons drawn and aimed.
Professional formation—one covering the door, one securing the corners, one with his gun pointed directly at Maya's chest. She'd stumbled backward against the surgical table, eyes wide with the kind of terror that comes from recognizing your own death.
"Dr. Cross," the lead man said, his voice cold and American and carrying the kind of casual cruelty that made my blood ice over. "Brand sends his regards."
Not here to question. Not here to threaten. Here to execute.
The lead man's finger moved to the trigger, and time slowed to nothing. Maya's eyes found mine over his shoulder—a flash of recognition, of desperate hope, of goodbye.
But I wasn’t going to let it be goodbye.
The thing about being six-five and two-forty is that physics works differently for you.
I didn't need to reach the gunman. I just needed to reach her.
My body crashed into Maya like a freight train, sending us both tumbling behind the table as the first shot cracked through the air where her head had been.
The second shot caught me in the already-injured shoulder as I covered her with my body. The pain was immediate and blinding, a white-hot explosion that nearly dropped me. Blood soaked through the fresh bandages she'd just applied. More fucking bullet wounds to deal with.
Later.
"Stay down," I growled in her ear, then rolled off her and surged upward.
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. These men had come to kill her. My doctor. The woman who'd saved my life with steady hands and exhausted eyes.
They'd already lost. They just didn't know it yet.
The lead gunman was adjusting his aim, trying to track my movement.
I grabbed his wrist before he could fire again, twisted with every ounce of strength I had left.
Bones ground together, then snapped with a wet crack.
The gun clattered across the floor as he screamed, but I was already moving, bringing my elbow down on his temple with enough force to drop a horse.
He crumpled, unconscious or dead, I didn't care which.
The second attacker fired, and I felt the bullet graze my ribs—a line of fire that would have mattered if I wasn't running on pure adrenaline and rage. He was backing up, trying to get distance, but the clinic was too small for tactical retreats.
I closed the gap in two strides. His next shot went wide as I grabbed his throat, lifted him off his feet, and drove him backward into the concrete wall.
His skull made a satisfying crack against it.
Once. Twice. His gun fell from nerveless fingers.
I let him drop, watched him slide down the wall leaving a red smear.
The third man made a mistake. Instead of shooting me, he went for Maya.
She'd started to stand, probably trying to run, and he grabbed her arm, yanking her against him as a shield. His gun pressed to her temple, and I saw her eyes go blank with terror.
"Back off," he shouted, voice muffled by the ski mask but high with panic. These weren't special forces. These were hired killers, used to victims who couldn't fight back. "Back off or I'll—"
I didn't let him finish. Grabbed the surgical table—the same one where she'd saved my life—and flipped it at him with every bit of violence I had left.
It caught him full in the chest, sending him flying backward.
Maya stumbled free as he crashed into the shelving unit, medical supplies raining down on him.
He tried to get up. I didn't let him. My boot connected with his face once, twice, three times. The wet crunch of his nose breaking. The way his body went limp. The blood pooling beneath his mask.
Then silence, except for our breathing—mine harsh and ragged, hers in short, panicked gasps.
The fight had lasted maybe ninety seconds, but looking at the clinic now, it might have been ninety years of war compressed into this single room.
Blood painted the walls in arterial sprays and smears where bodies had hit concrete.
The surgical table lay overturned, its metal legs bent from the force I'd used to weaponize it.
Medical supplies littered the floor—gauze soaking up blood, scattered pills from shattered bottles, syringes cracked under tactical boots.
The fluorescent light flickered where someone's head had cracked the fixture, casting everything in a strobe of horror and shadow.
Two men weren't moving at all. The one I'd driven into the wall had a dent in his skull that meant he'd never move again. The other, the one I'd kicked, was still breathing but wrong—the wet, rattling breaths that meant internal damage. Maybe minutes left, maybe less.
The lead gunman, the one whose wrist I'd snapped, was unconscious but alive. His arm bent at an angle that would need surgery to fix. Blood seeped from his temple where I'd dropped him, but his chest rose and fell steadily.
Sirens wailed nearby, maybe four blocks now. In Brighton Beach, that meant two minutes, maybe three if we were lucky. Someone had definitely called it in—gunshots in a basement tended to draw attention, even in neighborhoods where people minded their own business.
Dr. Cross stood exactly where I'd left her, pressed against the wall like she could disappear into it.
Her eyes tracked across the destruction but didn't seem to actually see it.
Shock—complete dissociation from a reality too violent to process.
She was a doctor, had probably seen death before, but not like this.
Not violent death meant for her, prevented by more violence done in her name.
"Dr. Cross," I said, keeping my voice low, steady. "We need to go."
Nothing. Not even a blink.
I moved closer, careful to stay in her line of sight, not to surprise her.
My shoulder was screaming, blood soaking through my shirt and jacket.
The graze on my ribs had opened wider, adding to the mess.
But she needed me functional, needed me to be the one who could handle this, so I ignored it all.
"They know where you work," I said, trying different words to break through.
"They know Dr. Brand sent them. In about ninety seconds, this place becomes a crime scene.
Your name, your face, everything goes into the system.
And then Brand won't need to send killers. He'll just let the police deliver you."
That did it. Her eyes snapped into focus, intelligence flooding back as survival instinct kicked in. She looked at the bodies, the blood, the absolute devastation of her carefully maintained sanctuary, and I saw her process it all in about three seconds.
"Oh God," she whispered. Then, stronger, clinical: "We need to go."
She pushed off the wall and moved with sudden purpose.
Go-bag from beside the destroyed door—black backpack, already packed.
Medical bag from the floor where it had fallen, checking its contents with quick, efficient movements.
She grabbed one more thing—a small flash drive from a hidden spot behind what was left of the shelving unit.
It went into her pocket, not the bags. I’d need to check that.
"That's it?" I asked.
"Everything else is just things." Her voice was flat, emotionless. "I can replace things."
She stepped over the lead gunman without looking down, but I saw her hands shake as she did it. She was running on autopilot, but autopilot would get us out of here.
“What’s your name? Your first name?”
“Maya,” she said, shaking.
“Maya,” I confirmed. “Come on, we’ve got this.”
The alley was empty, thank God. The homeless man who usually slept by the dumpster had vanished—smart enough to recognize the sound of gunfire and clear out.
I kept Maya close, my hand on her back, guiding her toward where I'd left the Escalade.
Every shadow could hide another shooter.
Every window could have eyes. But nothing moved except us and the rats scattering from our footsteps.
Sirens screaming now, close enough to hear the engines. We turned the corner as the first patrol car screamed past, heading for the clinic. Blue and red lights painted the buildings, but we were already ghosts, invisible in the shadows between streetlights.
The Escalade sat where I'd left it two blocks away, front tire still properly on the curb this time.
I opened the passenger door, and Maya climbed in without prompting, moving like a robot programmed for survival.
Her bags went in the back. I slid behind the wheel, biting back a groan as every injury made itself known.
"Seatbelt," I said, starting the engine.
She clicked it into place with mechanical precision. In the dome light, I could see her clearly for the first time since the attack. No physical injuries—I'd gotten to her in time. But her eyes had that thousand-yard stare that meant the damage went deeper than skin.
More sirens now, converging on the clinic from multiple directions. I pulled out slowly, casually, just another car on a Brooklyn night. No rush. No panic. Nothing to draw attention.
In the rearview mirror, I watched emergency lights gather where her clinic used to be.
By morning, it would be wrapped in crime scene tape.
The bodies would be photographed, catalogued, removed.
The blood would be sampled, analyzed, entered into databases.
And somewhere, Dr. Brand would get a phone call telling him his assassination attempt had failed.
Maya sat rigid beside me, staring straight ahead at nothing. She hadn't asked where I was taking her. Hadn't protested or argued or demanded answers. She just sat there, clutching her bags, breathing in careful, counted intervals like she was rationing oxygen.
"It's over," she said suddenly, so quiet I almost missed it. "Everything I built. My practice. My safety. My anonymity. It's all over."
I wanted to tell her it wasn't over, that it was just beginning.
That my family could protect her, that we had resources, that she didn't have to run anymore.
But right now, she didn't need promises.
She needed distance from those bodies and blood and the knowledge that someone wanted her dead badly enough to send a tactical team.
So I just drove, weaving through Brooklyn's late-night traffic, taking her somewhere safe.