Chapter 3 #3
Behind me, the door burst open. Gunfire erupted, bullets sparking off cars, shattering windows. I didn't look back, just ran—or tried to run. It was more of a controlled fall forward, momentum and stubbornness keeping me upright.
The Escalade's door handle was slick with my blood by the time I got it open. I collapsed into the driver's seat, fumbling for keys with numb fingers. The engine roared to life, a beautiful sound.
In the rearview mirror, I saw them pouring out of the hospital. Four, maybe five men, all armed, all running toward me. Brand's voice carried across the parking lot: "Stop him!"
I threw the vehicle in reverse, tires screaming, then shifted to drive and punched it. The Escalade lurched forward, clipping a sedan as I swerved toward the exit. More gunfire, rear window exploding in a shower of safety glass.
But I was out, tearing onto Neptune Avenue, leaving Brighton Medical Center and its organ-harvesting operation behind. The problem was, I was also leaving most of my blood behind too.
My hands on the steering wheel were pale, shaking. The shoulder wound had gone numb, which was bad. The abdominal wound felt like someone was continuously stabbing me with a hot poker, which was worse. I needed medical attention. Real medical attention.
But I couldn't go to a hospital—gunshot wounds meant police reports, and police reports meant questions I couldn't answer. Couldn't go to the compound either. If Brand had connections to the Belyaevs, they might follow me there. Lead them straight to Sophie and the baby.
The monster in my chest had gone quiet again. Not satisfied this time—worried. It could feel what I was trying to ignore: we were dying. Actually dying, not action movie dying where the hero walks it off. This was real, permanent, lights-out dying.
But maybe not yet. Maybe there was one option left.
The Escalade's steering wheel was slick with blood, making it hard to grip as I took a hard left onto Brighton Beach Avenue. My vision kept doing this thing where it would narrow to a tunnel, then expand again, like someone was playing with a camera lens. Not good. Really not good.
Eight blocks. The shadow doctor was eight blocks away. I'd written down the address three days ago during surveillance, just another piece of information in my notebook. Never thought I'd actually need it.
"Shadow doctor in Brighton Beach," Maks had laughed over drinks last week. "Patches up lowlifes, no questions asked. Can you imagine? Some back-alley hack playing surgeon."
Right now, that back-alley hack was my only option.
I pulled over twice to check my notes, unable to trust my memory.
Blood loss did that—made everything fuzzy, uncertain.
The notebook was in my jacket pocket, pages now decorated with red fingerprints.
Brighton 6th Street. Basement entrance, east side of the building. Condemned structure, supposedly empty.
A horn blared as I drifted into oncoming traffic. I jerked the wheel back, overcorrected, sideswiped a parked car. The impact jolted through my abdomen, and I might have screamed. Hard to tell. Everything was becoming distant, like I was watching myself from outside my body.
Three more blocks. Then two. Then one.
The building was exactly as surveillance had described—a rotting brick thing with boarded windows, graffiti, and a condemned notice that had been there so long it was mostly weathered away.
I parked badly, front tire up on the curb, engine still running.
Reached to turn it off, missed the key twice before managing it.
Getting out of the Escalade required planning. Open door. Swing legs out. Use door frame to stand. Simple steps that felt like climbing Everest. My legs shook, threatened to fold. The sidewalk tilted at an impossible angle.
The basement entrance was down three concrete steps, hidden in shadows. I made it down one step before my knee gave out. Caught myself on the railing, left a bloody handprint on the rusted metal. Second step. Third.
The door was steel, painted black sometime in the last decade. No window. No nameplate. Just a door that could have led to storage or utilities or nothing at all.
I raised my fist to knock and missed, my hand hitting the wall instead.
Tried again. This time my whole body followed the motion, and I crashed against the door, shoulder first. The impact sent lightning through my wounds.
I slid down the metal surface, leaving a red trail, until I was on my knees, forehead pressed against the cold steel.
Had to knock. Had to make noise. But my arms weren't responding properly anymore. I managed to hit the door once with my fist—barely a tap. Then my body decided it was done taking orders, and I slumped completely against the door, my weight making a dull thud.
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. The monster in my chest was quiet now, probably dying too. We'd had a good run, the monster and I. Killed a lot of people who needed killing. Saved one girl tonight. Maybe that balanced the scales a little.
I tried to knock again, but my hand just twitched against the door. Blood was pooling beneath me now, seeping under the door gap. If the shadow doctor was real, maybe they'd see it. Maybe not.
"Doctor," I whispered in Russian, though I doubted anyone could hear it. "Need . . . help."
The lock turned with a click that cut through my fading consciousness.
Light spilled out, harsh fluorescence that made me squint, and then there was a figure in the doorway—small, maybe five-three, backlit so I couldn't make out features.
Just a silhouette that went very still when it registered the bloody mess collapsed against the door.
"Jesus Christ." A woman's voice, sharp with shock but not panic.
Professional. The light shifted as she crouched down, and I could see her face—sharp features, dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, eyes that were assessing damage even as they widened.
She was young, maybe thirty, with the kind of exhaustion written in her features that came from too many nights without sleep.
She was holding a scalpel. Smart. Opening doors at midnight in Brighton Beach without protection was a good way to end up dead.
"Doctor," I managed, though the word came out slurred, wet. Blood in my mouth now. When had that started? "Need . . . help."
My right hand was still wrapped around my gun, fingers locked in place.
Couldn't let go. Letting go meant admitting weakness, vulnerability, and the monster in my chest—quiet as it was—still had opinions about that.
But the gun was also why most people would have slammed the door, called the police, done anything except what she did next.
She looked at the gun, then at my face, then at the spreading pool of blood beneath me. Her expression shifted from shock to something else—calculation, medical assessment, the same look I'd seen on field medics who had to make split-second decisions about who could be saved.
"How many wounds?" Her voice had changed completely. Gone was the shock. This was pure clinical authority.
"Two. Maybe three." Everything was fuzzy. There'd been the knife. The gunshot to the shoulder. Was there another one? Hard to remember. "Knife in the . . . the side. Bullet in shoulder."
"How long ago?"
Time had become elastic, meaningless. "Twenty minutes? Hour? Don't know."
She stood abruptly, and for a moment I thought she was going to leave me there. Made sense. I was too big to move, too dangerous to help, too far gone to save. But then she was back, wedging herself under my arm on my good side.
"Get up," she commanded. Not a request. Not a suggestion. An order, delivered in a tone that cut through the fog of blood loss and pain. "Table. Now. You lie down or you die. Your choice."
Something about that voice—the absolute certainty in it, the complete lack of fear—made my body respond when my mind couldn't. I got one knee under me, using the doorframe for leverage.
The world tilted sickeningly, but her small frame was there, surprisingly solid, taking more of my weight than should have been possible for someone her size.
"Leave the gun," she said.
My fingers wouldn't uncurl. Fifteen years of training, of never being unarmed, of the gun being an extension of my body—all of it fought against the simple act of letting go.
"Can't—"
"I'm not treating an armed patient. Drop it or bleed out. Choose."
The monster in my chest should have roared at that, at being given ultimatums by someone half my size. Instead, it just . . . agreed. Like it recognized something in her, some similar creature that understood necessary choices.
The gun clattered to the floor.
"Good. Now move."
The journey to the table might have been ten feet.
Felt like ten miles. Every step sent fresh agony through my abdomen, and I could feel blood running down my leg with each movement.
Her shoulder dug into my ribs, and she grunted under my weight but didn't buckle.
Didn't slow. Just kept moving forward with grim determination.
The basement was exactly what I'd expected—industrial sink, metal shelving units packed with medical supplies, a surgical table that had seen better days.
But it was clean. Obsessively clean. The sharp smell of disinfectant couldn't quite mask the copper undertone of old blood, but everything gleamed under the harsh lights.
"Up," she ordered when we reached the table.
I tried. Got halfway before my strength gave out and I collapsed onto the metal surface, rattling everything.
She didn't waste time commenting, just grabbed my legs and swung them up, surprisingly strong for someone so small.
Then she was moving, pulling scissors from somewhere, cutting through my blood-soaked shirt with efficient strokes.