Chapter 17 #3
Testing, probably. Final compatibility work. Blood typing, tissue matching, the careful assessments that preceded any transplant surgery. They'd want to verify I was the universal match the bounty had claimed. Make sure the merchandise was as advertised before they started cutting.
I tried to scream, but my throat was raw, shredded from earlier—from screaming Frank's name, from the sounds I'd made as they dragged me into the van. What came out was barely a croak.
The gown I wore was hospital-standard. Thin cotton that did nothing against the table's cold. When I managed to lift my head—the only movement my restraints allowed—I could see my own body laid out beneath the lights.
And I saw them.
Black lines. Surgical marker. Traced across my abdomen in patterns I recognized because I'd drawn them myself, on other patients, in other operating rooms.
Organ mapping.
Someone had drawn incision points on my skin while I was unconscious. Neat, precise marks indicating where to cut to access my liver. My kidneys. The careful notation of anatomical landmarks, the kind of surgical planning I'd done hundreds of times before I opened someone up.
Except this time, I was the one being planned.
I pulled against the restraints with everything I had.
My muscles burned with the effort. The padded cuffs held, designed specifically for this—for patients who woke up and fought, who realized what was about to happen and tried to escape.
The cardiac monitor beeped faster, tracking my panic in real time.
They'd done this before. The setup was too professional, too practiced. This wasn't a makeshift operation—it was infrastructure. A harvesting facility that had processed people before me and would process people after.
Frank's face flashed in my mind. The way he'd looked at me in that last moment, confused, trusting, not understanding why this was happening. He'd died because I'd walked out of safety. Because I'd been so certain I knew better than Kostya, so determined to prove that my compassion wasn't weakness.
My compassion had killed a twenty-one-year-old kid and delivered me to a surgical table.
Kostya would be looking for me by now. Would have woken to empty sheets and understood immediately. Would be tearing the city apart, calling in every resource, hunting with the single-minded focus of a man who'd promised to protect me.
But he didn't know where to look. I'd left my phone behind specifically so he couldn't track me. Had congratulated myself on my cleverness, on thinking three steps ahead, on being smart enough to evade his protective surveillance.
Smart enough to get myself captured with no way for anyone to find me.
The markers on my skin seemed to pulse under the lights.
I counted the incision points involuntarily—medical habit, the automatic assessment of surgical complexity.
Primary access point for liver retrieval.
Secondary access for kidney extraction. The markings were textbook perfect, drawn by someone with extensive surgical training.
Someone who knew exactly how to take me apart piece by piece.
I screamed then. Really screamed, throat be damned, raw and primal and desperate.
The sound bounced off sterile walls, echoed through what I now recognized as a proper surgical suite.
Tiled floors. Drain in the center for easy cleaning.
Equipment trays positioned within arm's reach of the table, covered with sterile cloths but clearly ready.
Everything ready. Everything prepared. Just waiting for the surgeon to arrive and begin.
The door opened, and I didn't know how long I'd been screaming.
Minutes, probably. Long enough for my throat to shred itself completely, for my voice to become a ragged whisper, for the cardiac monitor to alarm twice at my heart rate before I'd forced myself to calm down through sheer will.
The steady beep had become my enemy and my anchor—proof I was still alive, countdown to when I wouldn't be.
The man who entered was older than I remembered.
There were new lines there, and silver hair swept back from a distinguished face.
The kind of face that belonged on hospital fundraising brochures, on medical journal covers, on the wall of the surgical department where promising residents came to learn their craft.
I knew that face.
He wore surgical scrubs with the ease of someone who'd lived in them for decades. Moved through the sterile space like it was his living room, comfortable and unhurried. When he saw me awake, strapped down and wild-eyed on his table, he smiled.
The smile was warm. Paternal, almost. The smile of a mentor greeting a former student who'd done something disappointing but understandable.
"Maya," Dr. Richard Brand said, and his voice carried genuine regret. "I really hoped it wouldn't come to this."
My throat made a sound that wanted to be words. Nothing coherent emerged. But my body went rigid against the restraints, every muscle locking as recognition flooded through me.
I knew that voice. Heard it in lecture halls when I was twenty-two, explaining the intricacies of transplant surgery with passion that made residents lean forward in their seats.
Heard it in operating theaters, calm and confident, guiding my hands through my first liver resection.
Heard it in the hallway outside the ethics board, cold and dismissive, as he denied everything I'd reported and watched my career burn.
The man who'd trained me. The man who'd destroyed me. The man who'd been running an organ trafficking operation from inside my hospital while I'd admired his surgical technique.
He pulled up a stool beside my table, settling onto it like we were about to have a consultation. Like this was rounds, and I was a particularly interesting case.
"You should have walked away," he continued, his tone conversational, almost kind.
"After the board revoked your license, you could have disappeared.
Started over somewhere else. Gotten a job at a clinic in another state, changed your name, built a new life.
" He shook his head, that same disappointed expression I remembered from when I'd fumbled a suture during residency.
"Instead, you kept helping people. Kept gathering evidence. Kept being a problem."
I tried to speak. My throat burned, raw from screaming, but I forced sound through anyway. "You—" The word came out broken, barely audible.
"I framed you, yes." He said it simply, without guilt.
"The opioid theft, the malpractice accusations.
You gave me no choice, Maya. You were too good at finding things.
Too stubborn to look away when you should have.
" He leaned forward slightly. "Do you know how many years I've built this operation?
How many lives I've saved by making sure organs go to the people who need them most? "
The justification hit like a physical blow. He actually believed it. Believed he was doing good work, saving lives, making hard choices that lesser people couldn't stomach.
"You kill people," I managed, the words scraping my throat like broken glass.
"I redistribute resources." His voice stayed calm, reasonable.
"Some people die anyway—terminal patients, accident victims, people who won't survive regardless of intervention.
Why shouldn't their organs go to someone who can use them?
Someone who has value, who contributes to society, who can pay for the privilege of continued life? "
He reached out then, and I flinched violently against my restraints. But he only touched the surgical markings on my abdomen, tracing the lines with clinical detachment. Examining his handiwork.
"Universal donor," he said, almost admiringly.
"Do you know how rare that is? O-negative blood, compatible tissue markers, young and healthy organs with years of function left in them.
" His finger followed the primary incision line.
"Your heart could go to a Saudi prince whose old one is failing.
Your liver to a tech CEO who drank himself into cirrhosis.
Your kidneys—" He smiled again. "Your kidneys are the real prize.
Two wealthy clients fighting over who gets priority. "
The scream that tried to escape came out as a wheeze. My body convulsed against the restraints, accomplishing nothing except making the cardiac monitor spike again.
"I have six buyers waiting, Maya." He said my name like we were still colleagues. Still friends. "Six important people who will live because of you. Isn't that what you always wanted? To save lives?"
Tears streamed down my temples, pooling in my ears. The horror of it wasn't his evil—it was his sincerity. He genuinely saw this as medical practice. As healing. As the logical extension of his surgical calling.
"Someone—" I tried again, voice barely a whisper. "Someone will—"
"No one's coming for you," he said gently. Like he was delivering a terminal diagnosis to a patient's family. Like this was bad news he wished he didn't have to share but would share anyway because honesty mattered.
"The bratva enforcer you've been staying with?
" Brand shook his head. "My people have been watching the compound for days.
We knew you'd leave eventually. People like you always do—can't stand to let others suffer when you might help.
" He patted my arm, a gesture that had once meant reassurance during difficult surgeries.
"Your body will never be found. As far as anyone knows, you simply disappeared.
Another tragic victim of the underground medical world you chose to inhabit. "
He stood, brushing imaginary lint from his scrubs.
"The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning.
We need to run some final compatibility tests tonight, verify the organ function, ensure everything is optimal for extraction.
" He moved toward the door, then paused, looking back at me with what appeared to be genuine sorrow.
"I am sorry, Maya. You were one of my best students.
If you'd just stayed quiet, we could have been colleagues.
Instead—" He gestured at the surgical suite, at my body mapped and measured on his table. "This is what stubbornness gets you."
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
The cardiac monitor beeped steadily. My tears kept falling. And somewhere in the city, Kostya was searching for a woman who'd walked out of safety and straight into the hands of someone who planned to sell her piece by piece.
I stared at the ceiling, at the OR lights positioned to illuminate my eventual dissection, and tried to remember how to pray.