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Dr. James Harper had performed over ten thousand cosmetic procedures in his twenty-seven-year career, but his finest work was the man he presented to the world. He'd sculpted this persona with more precision than any nose job or facelift: the renowned surgeon with steady hands, impeccable taste, and just enough aristocratic detachment to make his patients believe that cosmetic surgery was more than just altered flesh.

He stood at his consultation room window and looked out over the parking lot. He hated this mild December sunlight. It lacked commitment. Too weak to warm anything, too bright to ignore. Like a relationship you kept around just to avoid being alone.

Today, as every day, Harper wore a bespoke suit beneath his white coat – Tom Ford, charcoal gray, tailored to accommodate the slight paunch he'd developed in his fifties but couldn't be bothered to fix. His silver hair was cut weekly by the only stylist in Granville he trusted, and his tortoiseshell glasses were purely cosmetic (the irony wasn't lost on him), but they completed the scholarly image that reassured patients they were purchasing expertise.

His watch said it was 11:54 AM. His next consultation was due at noon. Some religious speaker from Cleveland who'd contacted him via email last week. Harper hadn't been able to find the man online, which was unusual in this age of digital footprints, but maybe that was the point. Discretion was his stock in trade, after all.

That's what the private entrance was for. The one that bypassed his main waiting room and led straight to this sanctuary of secrets. It was his secret consultation space tucked behind his already-exclusive clinic, hidden behind a nondescript door that masqueraded as storage. Harper called it his VIP suite. His staff called it ‘the vault.’ His accountant called it a tax write-off. Harper’s regular patients – the mommy makeovers and the Botox fillers – they came through the front. But the back entrance was for special clients. The ones who needed their vanity catered to behind closed doors .

Not that Granville crawled with celebrities needing discreet nips and tucks, but the occasional high-profiler did waltz through his doors. Politicians, public speakers, wannabe models. James Harper was particularly grateful of the latter.

Harper returned to his desk and opened the client's pre-consultation form on his tablet. Most of the fields were blank, which irritated him. He'd designed the form himself to identify both medical issues and financial capacity. This client had completed only the required fields; name, contact information, and general area of interest: ‘facial restoration.’ Vague enough to be meaningless, specific enough to justify the appointment.

Vague requests were actually the norm in this business, because a lot of people thought that plastic surgery was as simple as copying and pasting Cillian Murphy’s cheekbones onto their own face. It didn’t work like that. There were a lot of factors that went into molding beauty, and when vague requests came in, Harper saw it as an opportunity to educate – and then profit. Sure, that young actress might want Jennifer Lawrence’s nose, but higher set cheekbones and fuller lips would really make that nose pop too.

A glance at his watch. 11:59. Where the hell was his twelve o’clock? Usually, nervousness had people on his doorstep fifteen minutes before appointment time.

Harper pulled up the morning's patient files. Paperwork never slept, even if clients ran late. He had three rhinoplasty revisions scheduled for next week. One chin implant that needed tweaking. A brow lift for a woman who'd already had three.

He hesitated a moment. The revision cases always gave him pause lately. Not guilt exactly, because guilt was for people who lacked conviction. But they gave him a certain awareness. Of lines crossed. Of documentation massaged into more favorable shapes. Of patients who'd signed liability waivers while riding waves of Valium-induced compliance.

The Thompson case had come closest to causing problems. The woman had gone to three different lawyers claiming he'd performed procedures she hadn't approved. But signed consent forms were signed consent forms, even if the signatures looked slightly different from her driver's license. And who could prove when exactly she'd signed them? Or what medications might have affected her memory of the consultations ?

Then there was Margaret Brownstone. She’d wanted a simple rhinoplasty but ended up with a deviated septum, asymmetrical nostrils, and breathing difficulties. She'd threatened to go public. Threatened a lawsuit. She even had photographs – before and after – documenting James Harper’s apparent butchery.

But photographs could be manipulated. Medical records could be amended. And small-town judges played golf with men like Dr. James Harper, not women like Margaret Brownstone.

It was Margaret’s word against his, and after all, perception was reality. James Harper had spent a career altering perception, so in that scenario there could only be one winner.

There'd been at least six others. The Benson woman's nerve damage. The Atkins boy's scarring. The Rodriguez liposuction that turned septic. Each time, the same playbook: deny, document, discredit. Harper had survived each scandal, emerging unscathed in the public eye. His practice had actually grown afterward, as though each whispered accusation only enhanced his mystique. That was the benefit of small-town practice, he reasoned. People respected success more than they valued ethics. The Granville elite, with their desperation to look like they belonged somewhere more cosmopolitan, would forgive nearly anything in exchange for the right cheekbones.

The sound of the clinic's outer door opening reached him through the walls. He’d sent his assistant to the shops for an hour – another protocol for these special consultations.

A knock on the door. Harper smiled. Right on time.

‘Come in,’ he called, rising from his chair.

The door didn’t open.

‘Hello? The door’s unlocked.

Nothing.

Harper smoothed his tie and moved to the door. He assumed his professional smile – confident but not arrogant, friendly but not familiar. The expression that said: I can fix what's broken in you .

He opened the door.

The person on the threshold wasn't what Harper expected.

No flashy suit or imposing profile. Just dark clothes, a beanie hat and a scarf around his face.

‘Dr. Harper?’ the voice had no bass to it. It was soft, perhaps muted by the fabric .

Harper opened his mouth to respond, but something found his throat before words could form. Fire erupted across Harper's throat. Not pain, not yet. Just liquid heat that sprayed his pristine white coat and the suit beneath. Harper grabbed his neck and tried to catch life between his fingers, but his limbs wouldn’t respond. Shock took over, and Dr. James Harper collapsed onto his Italian marble floor.

His attacker stepped fully into the room and closed the door with delicate care, like a considerate houseguest.

The names drifted through his mind like anesthesia counting backward. Thompson. Brownstone. Benson. Atkins. Rodriguez. His private gallery of masterpieces gone wrong.

But no. These weren't memories surfacing in his dying brain. They were coming from this stranger’s mouth.

The figure crouched down, removed their scarf and hat.

Even seconds from death, Harper’s compulsion for aesthetic perfection wouldn’t let him avert his gaze from the botched skin dominating the figure’s forehead.

Because there, imprinted into the skin, was a W.