Time is money
The smell of copper and cheap bleach always clung to the basement of the abandoned auto shop. It was 3:00 AM, and Zoya Rosvitch was up to her wrists in someone else's blood.
Under the flickering, uneven glow of a single halogen lamp that buzzed like a dying insect, she pulled a curved suture needle through the jagged, torn flesh of a man's shoulder. She didn't know his name. She hadn't asked when he stumbled through her door, clutching his leaking arm, and she hadn't cared to check his ID. To Zoya, the men and women who crept into this subterranean sanctuary weren't people; they were mathematical equations. This particular equation equaled twenty two stitches, a localized dose of lidocaine, a standard round of antibiotics, and a hundred and fifty dollars in clean, untraceable cash.
The man groaned heavily through the thick leather belt she had shoved between his teeth, his eyes rolling back as sweat pooled in the deep, grime caked wrinkles of his forehead. The grease from the auto shop above had leaked through the floorboards over the years, leaving a permanent, slick film on the concrete below.
"Keep still," Zoya muttered. Her voice was flat, entirely devoid of sympathy or warmth. She didn't look up from her work, her fingers moving with a practiced, mechanical precision. "If you tear the artery now, I’m letting you bleed out on this fucking table. I don't do do overs, and I certainly don't work for free. Sit tight and let me finish."
The man whimpered behind the leather, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edges of the rusted metal examination table, but he forced his body to go rigid.
Zoya worked in absolute silence, the steady, rhythmic snip of her medical scissors the only sound breaking the quiet of the damp room. A year ago, she would have been doing this under the brilliant, shadowless LED arrays of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital. She had been Dr. Rosvitch then. A prodigy who had clawed her way out of the dirt to claim a piece of the sky. She had possessed a future, a title, and a career that should have guaranteed her safety. Now, she was a ghost in the city's rotting underbelly. Her medical license had been stripped away, her name wiped from the registry, and her reputation entirely blacklisted.
She didn't have the luxury of mourning her ruined career, and she didn't waste her energy nursing a bitter grudge against the people who had orchestrated her downfall. Pride was a commodity for people who weren't starving, and desperation was a brutal, relentless taskmaster. The bills did not care about justice. The bank did not care that she had been wronged.
As she carefully tied off another knot in the black silk thread, her mind drifted away from the bloody shoulder in front of her, wandering back to the cramped, three-bedroom apartment on the bruised, neon lit edges of the city. To her family.
Zoya had spent her entire life being the anchor for the people she loved. When she and her twin brother, Kirill, were just ten years old, a reckless driver had stolen their parents from them in a single, devastating winter heartbeat. There had been no wealthy relatives to take them in, no hidden trust funds to cushion the blow. There had only been State care, a succession of cold, indifferent foster homes, and the fierce, unyielding realization that if Zoya didn't protect her brother, no one else would. Kirill was the sensitive one, the dreamer who looked at the world with soft, hopeful eyes. Zoya was the shield that kept the world from breaking him.
She had practically raised him, acting as a parent before she even understood what childhood was supposed to look like. And then, when they were seventeen just as they were trying to navigate the grueling transition into adulthood Kirill had made a beautiful, terrifying mistake. He had knocked up his high school girlfriend, a sweet but fragile girl named Alina.
Most seventeen year-old boys would have run, or crumbled under the weight of an unexpected pregnancy, but Kirill, with his impossibly gentle heart, had married her. And Zoya, without a single second of hesitation, had rearranged her entire universe to accommodate the new life coming into theirs. She had taken on double shifts at a diner, scrimped for groceries, and studied for her exams by the dim hum of laundromat vending machines while holding a crying baby.
Now, at twenty five, Zoya found herself the undisputed matriarch of a makeshift clan. Her nephew, Leo, was eight years old. He wasn't just a nephew to her; he was the center of her gravity, a bright, laughing boy who didn't belong in the dark world she now inhabited. She loved him with a fierce, maternal intensity that sometimes frightened her. When Leo had been diagnosed with pediatric leukemia at age six, Zoya’s world had shattered and reformed into a single, desperate mission: keep the boy alive at all costs.
They had beaten the cancer. Leo was in remission now, but the victory had come at a staggering, ruinous price. The mountain of medical debt from his chemotherapy, his specialized medications, and his ongoing oncology checkups was a crushing weight that threatened to bury them all. Kirill was still trying to do things the right way he was currently drowning in eighty-hour weeks as a first-year medical intern at a city hospital, making absolute pennies while trying to care for Alina and Leo. His meager paycheck barely covered the rent and basic groceries.
If Zoya stopped bringing in money, the carefully balanced house of cards they lived in would collapse. Leo wouldn't get his vital checkups. Kirill would have to drop out of his residency. They would be out on the street.
Outside of that tiny, cramped apartment, Zoya felt absolutely nothing for the world. She didn't care about the laws she was breaking, she didn't care about the morality of the people bleeding on her table, and she certainly didn't care about the city's ongoing turf wars. Compassion was a liability she couldn't afford. She cared about exactly two things: the survival of her family, and the money required to guarantee it.
She zipped open her vintage medical bag, retrieving a fresh vial of antiseptic. Every movement was fluid, an unconscious attempt to block out the damp chill of the room. This basement was a far cry from the pristine, temperature-controlled environment of her past life, but she had learned to adapt. Humans were resilient creatures when backed into a corner, and Zoya was more resilient than most.
She snipped the thread with a sharp, definitive click of her scissors. Pulling the leather belt from the man's mouth, she tossed it onto a stainless steel tray of soiled instruments.
"Done," she said, pulling off her blood-stained latex gloves and throwing them into a hazardous waste bin. "Twenty two stitches. You have a mild concussion, but the bullet missed the bone. Two weeks of absolute rest, or you’ll rip the artery wide open. Understand?"
The man nodded weakly, swallowing hard as his trembling hand reached into his leather jacket. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks, doc. I got the cash right here …”
Before his fingers could even grasp his wallet, the heavy metal security door at the top of the basement stairs groaned violently on its hinges. The sudden draft of freezing night air rushed down into the room, causing the hanging halogen lightbulb to sway wildly on its cord. Long, erratic shadows danced across the cracked concrete walls like reaching fingers.
Two men stepped into the room.
The air in the basement instantly shifted, turning heavy, suffocating, and terrifyingly cold. Zoya froze, her eyes narrowing as she assessed the intruders. They were massive, easily clearing six feet, with broad, imposing shoulders hidden beneath expensive, tailored wool overcoats that cost more than she made in a year. They were identical twins, clearly with sharp, aristocratic facial features, harsh jawlines, and short, dark hair. But while they shared the exact same physical blueprint, they carried themselves with entirely different, lethal energies.
The one on the left walked with a rigid, calculated grace. His eyes were a piercing, frozen blue devoid of empathy, carrying the weight of absolute, unyielding authority. The one on the right was looser, dangerous in a chaotic, unpredictable way. His coat was unbuttoned, revealing a dark silk shirt, and a twisted, mocking smirk played constantly on his lips. Dark, intricate ink crept up his throat like strangling vines, disappearing into his jawline.
Zoya didn't know their names, but she knew the type. These weren't street thugs or desperate drug runners. These were the monsters at the very top of the food chain, the kind of men who ordered executions over breakfast and slept perfectly fine afterward.
The patient on her table went completely translucent, his breath catching in his throat as he tried to scramble backward, his freshly stitched shoulder pulling painfully against the metal. "L-Lev. Ivan. I swear to God, I didn't know…I didn't have anything to do with it…”
"Quiet," the cold one Lev said. His voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a gravelly, resonant weight that instantly sucked the air out of the room. He stepped up to the table, completely ignoring Zoya’s presence, his frozen gaze fixing entirely on the trembling smuggler. "The shipment from the north docks, Mickey. Where is it?"
So his name is Mickey, Zoya thought indifferently, standing back and crossing her arms over her chest. She didn't care about their stolen shipments or their grievances. She just wanted them to hurry up so she could get paid and get home before Leo woke up for school.
"I don't know!" Mickey stammered, tears of pure terror finally spilling over his grime caked cheeks. "The hijackers... they ambushed us before we could even get the delivery trucks moving! I barely got away with my life! I don't know who they were!"
The tatted one, Ivan, chuckled. It was a dark, raspy sound that grated against the nerves. He stepped closer, leaning over the table, his massive shadow completely enveloping the terrified man. "You see, Mickey, my brother and I don't like fairy tales. And we really don't like thieves who think they can play dumb with us."
"I'm not lying! I swear on my mother's life! I don't know where the crates are!"
Bang.
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed, concrete basement. Zoya didn't even see Ivan draw the weapon from his coat.
Mickey’s body jolted violently, a neat, smoking hole opening directly between his eyes. The light left his expression instantly, his head snapping back before his limp body slumped sideways onto the table. A thick torrent of dark crimson blood erupted from the wound, splattering directly across the pristine, perfectly spaced white silk stitches Zoya had just spent the last forty-five minutes meticulously weaving.
Ivan casually spun the silenced pistol around his finger before sliding it back into his jacket, his smirk never wavering. "Fairy tales bore me."
Zoya stood frozen for a fraction of a second, her eyes staring at the ruined, blood soaked stitches on the corpse.
Then, a hot, blinding fury roared to life in her chest.
She didn't feel fear. She didn't care that a man had just been executed three feet away from her. All she saw was her wasted time. Her wasted lidocaine. Her wasted medical supplies. She saw forty-five minutes of grueling labor, labor that was supposed to buy Leo’s next round of medication erased in less than a second by a man who thought his temper was more important than her clock.
In one swift, fluid motion, Zoya snatched her heavy, professional surgical scalpel from the stainless steel tray. Before either brother could react, she lunged forward, stepping directly into Ivan’s personal space. She slammed her left hand flat against his chest to steady him and pressed the razor sharp edge of the steel blade directly against the soft skin under his jaw, right over his pulsing carotid artery.
Ivan didn't flinch. He didn't even reach for his gun. If anything, his dark eyes flared with sudden, dangerous amusement, his smirk widening as he felt the cold bite of the scalpel against his throat.
Behind her, the distinct, metallic click of a firearm echoed through the room. Lev had drawn his weapon, the heavy black barrel aimed squarely at the back of Zoya’s head.
"Step back, doctor," Lev warned, his voice dropping into a deadly, low register that vibrated through the floorboards. "Move the blade, or I will paint this wall with your brains."
Zoya didn't move the scalpel an inch. Her hand was as steady as a mountain, her knuckles white but unwavering. She kept her eyes locked onto Ivan’s chaotic gaze, her breathing shallow but controlled.
"Are you out of your miserable minds?" Zoya hissed, her voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated rage. "Why make me treat him first if you were just going to put a bullet in his skull? I just wasted an hour of my life on a corpse!"
Ivan tilted his head back slightly, entirely unbothered by the fact that a fraction of a millimeter of pressure would send him to the floor in a spray of blood. "He was a traitor, doc. Needed to be put down. It’s just business."
"Then shoot him before you walk into my fucking clinic!" Zoya snapped, her eyes blazing. "I don't care who you are. I don't care what you do. I hate wasting time, and down here, my time is money. You just ruined my work. You owe me for the stitches, you owe me for the medicine, and you owe me for the cleanup of this disgusting mess. Pay me."
For a long, agonizingly tense moment, the only sound in the basement was the rhythmic, steady drip drip drip of Mickey's blood hitting the concrete floor.
Then, Ivan let out a low, genuine laugh that echoed off the damp walls. He tilted his eyes toward his brother, though he kept his head perfectly still against Zoya’s blade. "Look at this one, Lev. Most people beg for their lives when we walk into a room. She’s demanding a refund."
Lev didn't lower his gun, but his piercing blue eyes locked onto Zoya, studying the fierce, unbroken defiance in her posture. He looked at the lack of tremor in her hands, the intelligence burning in her eyes, and the sheer audacity it took to hold his brother hostage while staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Put the scalpel down, Dr. Rosvitch," Lev said quietly, his eyes drifting to her name embossed on the vintage medical bag on her counter. "And maybe we'll let you live long enough to invoice us."
