Tone
The smell of blood refused to be ignored.
No matter how clean the room was—no matter how much alcohol and surgical soap tried to scrub the night away—it always found a way to linger. Copper-thick. Warm. Persistent.
Tonight, it clung to the walls like it belonged there.
The small medical room, buried deep within the estate, had seen its share of damage. But this… this felt heavier. Like the kind of mess that didn’t wash out, no matter how hard you tried.
My cousin Gianni sat on the examination table with the patience of a man who had learned long ago that complaining did absolutely nothing to improve his situation.
Which was fortunate. Because I was in no mood for it tonight.
“Hold still,” I said.
“I am holding still.”
“You twitched.”
“I breathed,” he corrected.
“That counts.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose and gritted his teeth as the heat of antiseptic penetrated his skin.
The cut across his thigh was ugly. Not catastrophic—if it had been, he wouldn’t be sitting here making sarcastic comments—but deep enough that ignoring it would have been a very poor decision.
I finished irrigating the wound and reached for the sutures.
“Remind me again,” I said calmly, threading the needle, “why exactly you thought chasing three armed men down a narrow stairwell was a good idea.”
“They insulted my suit.”
“Ah.”
I glanced up.
“That does justify a war.”
Gianni smirked faintly.
“Thank you for your understanding.”
I pushed the needle through the skin.
He didn’t flinch.
Most of the men around here were good about pain. Not because they were particularly brave—though some of them were—but because they understood that reacting dramatically in front of the others would never be forgotten.
Reputation was currency in this world. Whining devalued it.
I worked methodically, stitching the torn muscle with steady precision. The rhythm was familiar: pierce, pull, knot, repeat.
Another one of the wounded men sat in a chair across the room while one of Atlas’s medics finished wrapping his shoulder. The atmosphere was quiet, almost routine.
I tied off the last stitch and trimmed the thread.
“There,” I said. “Try not to tear it open.”
Gianni glanced down.
“Beautiful work.”
“Of course it is. That’s why you called me.”
He slid carefully off the table.
“Your body is starting to resemble a map,” I added, looking him over.
“Battle scars are attractive.”
“To whom?”
He considered that.
“Fair point.”
I looked up when the door opened.
Archie Popovich stepped into the room like he had just wandered in from a quiet dinner somewhere civilized instead of arriving to inspect the aftermath of a violent operation.
His suit jacket was gone, the sleeves of his shirt rolled neatly to the elbows. The white fabric was immaculate—no blood, no grime, not even the faint smudge of gunpowder.
Which meant, of course, that he had arrived after the fun part, which wouldn’t sit well with him.
My eyes dropped briefly to his legs without meaning to.
They moved smoothly when he walked now. Strong. Controlled. A slight limp which sometimes flared up and was more pronounced at peculiar times, a phenomenon that no-one had an explanation for.
Months ago, my cousin Gianni had shot him through both knees. It hadn’t been an accident, but a very deliberate act of violence.
I still remembered the moment clearly—the way Archie lay collapsed on the ground, blood pouring out of him while the rest of the world dissolved into chaos. Most men would have been screaming, or cursing, or begging someone to do something.
Archie had simply looked down at the damage like it was an inconvenience. Then he had looked at me.
“You are the doctor,” he had said calmly. “Yes?”
I had spent the next four hours elbow-deep in blood trying to save his legs.
The ligaments were shredded. There were bone fragments where bone had no business being.
It was the sort of damage that usually ended with a wheelchair and a lifetime of bitterness.
But somehow—against probability and logic—I had put him back together again.
And now he walked like nothing had ever happened.
Which was impressive. And mildly irritating. Because since that night, Archie had developed a habit of appearing in the periphery of my life like a particularly well-dressed parasite.
I had started privately referring to him as the Russian bug.
Not because he behaved like one—Archie was far too controlled, far too refined for that—but because he kept showing up when I least expected him.
In hallways. In meeting rooms. In the middle of bloody wars he had no business finishing. Each time with that same calm expression and faintly amused eyes, like he had wandered there entirely by accident.
He was a humorous bug, admittedly. But still a bug.
And I had a job to do. Men bled. Bones broke. Bullets had to come out of people before they died. There wasn’t time in my life for distraction. Especially not the kind that wore tailored shirts and observed the world like a chessboard.
His gaze swept the room now in one quiet, assessing pass. He didn’t speak immediately. Archie rarely wasted words before deciding if they were necessary.
His eyes landed briefly on the medic across the room. Then on Gianni. Then on me. Something shifted in the air when his attention settled there. Subtle. Almost invisible. But I felt it.
It wasn’t obvious. Archie wasn’t the type of man who stared like a fool or lingered long enough to draw attention. But there was something in the way his gaze sharpened—something quietly attentive that made it impossible not to notice.
“Well,” he said mildly. “The surgery looks like it was relatively successful.”
Gianni gestured lazily toward his leg.
“Depends on your definition of successful.”
Archie moved closer, his gaze dropping briefly to the fresh stitches I had just finished tying.
“You’ll live. Same way I did.”
“How comforting. Why does it feel like you’re gloating, Archie?”
Archie’s mouth twitched slightly. Which, for him, was practically laughter.
“You shot out my knees, remember?”
Archie moved to the counter beside me and rested his hands against the edge, studying the instruments I had spread out with quiet curiosity.
“You were nearby?” he asked.
“I was dragged here,” I corrected.
His eyes flicked toward me again.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “That sounds more accurate.”
Gianni leaned back in his chair, frowning as he looked at the quiet interloper.
“Why are you here, Archie?”
Archie glanced at him.
“I came as soon as I heard. First, to gloat,” he smirked. “Then to offer any assistance should you need it.”
Gianni huffed. “You should see the other guys.”
“I suppose I already have,” Archie said, rather cryptically, a wistful look on his face. I could only imagine the crazy Russian had already sorted out the gang of merry men who thought it wise to try to mug my cousin Gianni.
His attention drifted back to me.
“Any serious injuries?”
“Nothing catastrophic.”
I began gathering the instruments, rinsing them carefully in the basin.
“Shame.”
“Yes.”
I dried my hands on a towel and glanced over my shoulder at Gianni’s leg.
The stitches held clean and tight.
“Try not to do anything heroic for at least forty-eight hours,” I said.
He shrugged.
“No promises.”
I sighed. Then looked directly at Archie.
“And if you get your knees blown out again,” I said casually, “don’t expect me to come to your rescue again.”
For a moment, the room was quiet.
Archie’s expression didn’t change. But something behind his eyes shifted—something warm and dangerous all at once. Then the corner of his mouth lifted in what looked suspiciously like the beginning of a smile.
“Noted,” he said.
His gaze lingered on me a second longer than necessary.
Long enough for something unspoken to pass quietly between us.
Then he straightened and turned his attention back to the room. But the air had changed. And judging by the way Gianni looked between us with sudden interest—I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.