The Tracker (Rogue Extraction #1)

Chapter 1

The woman’s wrists told Dr. Harper Fox everything she needed to know.

Bruises circled both, dark purple shading to yellow at the edges beneath the fluorescent light.

Five days old, maybe six. The pattern was unmistakable—ligature marks from prolonged restraint.

Harper had seen similar injuries during her rotation in the ER back in London.

Domestic violence cases. Women who’d been held down.

She kept her face neutral as she cleaned the abrasions on the woman’s forearms. The small examination room smelled of antiseptic and the dusty-burned smell of the portable heater struggling against the Siberian cold.

Through the thin walls, Darya, her translator, was speaking rapid Russian to someone in the waiting area.

“Can you tell me how this happened?” Harper kept her voice gentle as she applied antibiotic ointment to the broken skin.

The woman stared at the floor. Polina Lebedeva. Hospitality worker, according to Harper’s paperwork. She was only twenty-two, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy bun. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath her eyes.

“I fell.” Polina’s Russian was barely a whisper. “At work.”

Harper’s medical training kicked in before common sense could stop it. “These bruises on your wrists—”

“I fell.” The woman’s voice was colorless. “I’m clumsy. The floors were wet.” Her fingers worried the hem of her sleeve, twisting the cheap fabric until the seam strained.

Harper opened her mouth to push, then read the fear in Polina’s eyes.

The exam room door opened, and Polina flinched. Darya stuck her head in, her weathered face carefully blank. “The men are waiting for her, Doctor. They have another appointment.”

“I’m not finished.”

“They’re waiting,” Darya repeated, and something in her tone made Harper’s stomach clench.

She wrapped Polina’s forearms in gauze. The way she folded into herself—shoulders curved inward like she was apologizing for taking up space—struck something hot and furious inside Harper.

“You should come back in three days.” Harper wrote on Polina’s chart. “So I can check the healing.”

Polina nodded but didn’t look up.

Harper walked her out to the waiting area. Two men sat on the plastic chairs, smoking beneath the No Smoking sign she’d put up in her first week. They wore heavy coats and expressions of bored patience. When Polina appeared, the taller one stood, flicking his cigarette onto the floor.

“All finished?” His English was accented but confident.

“She needs to come back for a follow-up.” Harper dug her hands into the pockets of her white coat.

“Of course, Doctor. We’ll make sure she does.” He smiled, showing large teeth. “Come, Polina. The van is outside.”

Harper watched through the clinic’s front window as they walked Polina to a white panel van. Three other women sat in the back, all around Polina’s age, all with the same downcast eyes.

She’d always believed people showed you what they needed if you paid close enough attention, and Polina’s wrists had told her everything.

Darya appeared at Harper’s shoulder. “You should not ask too many questions.”

“Those injuries—”

“Mining towns are rough,” Darya said. “Girls get hurt.” She straightened chairs without looking at Harper. “You learn not to notice certain things.”

Harper stared at her. Darya had worked in this region for twenty years, first as a nurse in Ulaanbaatar, then here after she married a Russian mechanic. She knew the border towns, the mining operations, the rhythms of life in a place most people only saw on maps.

“Those were restraint marks, Darya. Prolonged restraint—"

“There are things here you can survive seeing.” Darya’s gaze flicked to hers. “And things you can’t. Excuse me. I have to clean the other exam room.” Darya walked away, her shoes scuffing on the cracked linoleum.

Harper stood alone in the waiting area, breathing in wet wool and cigarette smoke. The cigarette butt smoldered on the floor. She crushed it under her boot, the knot in her chest constricting, then headed outside to where the men were closing the rear doors of the van.

Diesel fumes hung low in the frozen air, and Harper was halfway across the lot before she realized she hadn’t taken her parka. She pulled her white coat tight and took shallow breaths through the cold.

The men had moved to the hood of the van. The tall man was lighting another cigarette, while the shorter one, built like a concrete block with a shaved head, was checking his phone. Both men turned when Harper approached.

She lifted her chin, ignoring the rattle of her pulse at the base of her throat. Every sensible part of her knew better than to corner two men beside an idling van in a town where no one asked questions.

Harper walked toward them anyway. “I need to speak with you about your workers’ conditions.”

The tall one smiled. “Of course, Doctor. What seems to be the problem?”

Harper jerked her head toward the van. “The women you are bringing to me have injuries that aren’t consistent with what you’d receive carrying out normal hospitality roles.”

The men exchanged a look, and the shorter one pocketed his phone.

“Doctor,” the tall one said, his voice warm with fake concern. “I understand your worry. These women work in difficult conditions. Mining town bars, you know how it is. Some customers don’t behave well—"

“Those injuries aren’t from bar fights.”

Silence.

Her cheeks heated, and she dug her fingernails into her palms. “I know what restraint marks look like.”

The tall one’s smile didn’t waver, but something reptilian flashed in his eyes. “The local authorities already understand.” He bared his teeth. “And you’re not the first foreign doctor to have concerns.”

“I’ll be documenting this.”

“That would be unwise.” The shorter one spoke for the first time. “You’re very dedicated to your work, Doctor. It would be a shame if something happened to you.”

Harper pressed her elbows against her sides. “Are you threatening me?”

“We’re advising you.” The tall one took a drag from his cigarette. “You’re far from home, Doctor. Things are different here.”

He flicked the cigarette past her, onto the ground near the clinic door. “Stay safe, Doctor.”

They got in the van and drove away, tires spitting stones. Harper noted their registration plate as the dust settled.

The sun was already low, the day thinning toward dusk. The air bit through her coat, but she barely felt it over the adrenaline singing through her system.

International Health Outreach had warned her the posting would be isolated.

Nine months in, she’d treated everything from difficult births to frostbite to a man mauled by a dog who’d waited three days before seeking help.

Out here, no one cared about her CV or what she should have been by now. They just cared whether she showed up.

She’d adapted to the cold, the isolation, the wary looks, the conversations that stopped when she entered a room. She hadn’t come here to build a life. Just to do some good, breathe for a while, and decide what came next—on her own terms.

But this was different. This had teeth.

Harper stalked back to her office, heart still hammering beneath her ribs. The office was a converted storage room with a desk and a space heater that worked when the planets were aligned with Jupiter. She pulled Polina’s file and stared at the notes she’d just written.

Patient presents with bruising consistent with ligature restraint. Physical abuse? Patient denies, states injuries from fall. Recommend follow-up in 3 days.

She yanked open the filing cabinet but the drawer stuck halfway.

“Come on,” she muttered, jerking it harder until it screeched loose.

The folders were color-coded by year, a legacy from her predecessor, and sorted alphabetically within each section. Harper pulled the ones from the past nine months, and then selected all the women and spread them across her desk. She pulled every file listing Vostok Hospitality as the employer.

Waitresses, cleaners, kitchen staff in the mining camps. Harper’s pulse picked up as she flipped through charts. Thirty women aged between nineteen and twenty-five.

All worked hospitality.

Bruised ribs. Broken noses. Fractured fingers that healed crooked. Burns. UTIs. All missing follow-ups.

Her fingers shook as she opened the appointment calendar. The ancient clinic computer hummed and flickered, taking its time. She scrolled back through nine months of entries, cross-referencing follow-up appointments with the files spread across her desk.

Oksana Federova. Sutures needed checking after one week. Failed to attend for follow-up.

Irina Smirnova. Follow-up for possible UTI. No return for follow-up. Outcome unknown.

The cursor blinked against the dim screen.

Maria Kuznetsova. Second-degree burns across both hands.

Harper remembered how carefully Maria had cradled a glass of water during the examination.

Did not return for follow-up.

Harper picked up her desk phone, punched in the number for Vostok Hospitality listed on the file.

It rang twice. “Da?”

“This is Dr. Fox from the IHO clinic. I’m calling about Oksana Federova. She missed her follow-up appointment—”

“She doesn’t work here anymore.”

“When did she leave? I need to ensure proper medical—”

“She found other employment.” The line went dead.

Harper set the phone down. The walls of her office, papered with fading cabbage roses, closed in around her. The space heater clicked, struggling against the icy air seeping through the single-pane window.

These weren’t accidents or unlucky women with bad employers. It was a system, and the clinic was part of it. Her clinic. Her hands had cleaned the cuts, wrapped the burns, and signed the discharge notes. She’d patched them up, made them presentable, and sent them back.

Nine months.

She’d been doing this for nine months while everyone around her looked away. Harper shut down the clinic desktop and stood. She needed fresh air.

And a plan.

Because the men in the van were going to come back.