Page 75 of Toxic Temptation (Krayev Bratva #1)

VESPER

The grilled cheese sandwich sits in my hands, a love letter of lactose and rye. Caramelized onions peek out from between perfectly golden bread, and there’s a small container of pickles nestled beside it—the good kind, the dill spears I mentioned liking exactly once, in passing, three weeks ago.

“You brought me lunch.” I look up at Kovan. “You. Brought. Me. Lunch…?”

Kovan leans against the doorframe of the break room.

Six-foot-four, Russian, beautiful, mystifying.

He looks completely out of place among the institutional beige walls and flickering fluorescent lights of the hospital, but he doesn’t seem to care.

I, for one, could get used to seeing him here more often.

Especially when he comes to feed me.

“You’ve been working for eighteen hours,” he says simply. “In case you lost track. And you’ve got at least six more to go. So, yes, I brought you lunch. God knows you need it.”

I want to argue, but we both know he’s right. The pediatric ward has been absolutely crushed since yesterday morning. It’s like every person under eighteen in the whole damn city decided to get sick or injured at once.

But I can’t help being feisty with him. It’s just an instinct. “Who says I haven’t eaten already?”

“Oh, I bet you have,” Kovan agrees, his mouth quirking at the corner. “One piece of burnt toast and ten cups of coffee. Am I wrong?”

I blush. “In my defense, they were small cups of coffee.”

“How many ‘small cups’?”

“It might’ve been ten. Could’ve been nine or eleven. It’s not like anyone was counting.”

He shakes his head as he laughs. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

I unwrap the sandwich and take a bite. The flavors explode across my tongue—sharp cheddar, sweet onions, butter-crisp bread. It’s perfect. Of course it’s perfect. Kovan doesn’t do anything halfway.

I swallow and look up at him. “Who did you kill to get this?”

“Made it myself, actually.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “ You made this?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I can do more than intimidate people and look pretty.”

He can certainly do those two things as well as anyone, though.

Proof is in the pudding—the nurses at the station behind us are practically drooling.

I catch sight of Rebecca from pediatric oncology craning her neck to get a better look, and Sandra from the NICU has abandoned all pretense of working in favor of gawking openly.

I can’t blame them. Kovan Krayev in a hospital corridor is like a Ferrari parked at a bus stop. It’d take a blind woman to ignore him.

“You’re causing quite a stir,” I murmur, nodding toward the growing audience.

He follows my gaze and shrugs. “Let them talk.”

There’s something possessive in the way he says it, something that makes my stomach flip. Like he wants them to know exactly who he belongs to.

I close the lunch container and stand. “I only have thirty minutes before my next surgery.”

“Then eat. You need?—”

“The problem is,” I interrupt, “I’m not hungry for food right now.”

Kovan’s gaze darkens. “Vesper…”

I reach for his hand. “Come with me.”

We walk down the corridor together, getting faster and faster with every step. I can feel every pair of eyes tracking our movement. By tomorrow, the entire hospital will be buzzing with speculation about Dr. Fairfax and her mysterious visitor.

To steal a phrase from Kovan: Let them talk.

I pull him into the first on-call room I find and lock the door behind us. The space is cramped—just a narrow bed, a small desk, and a closet barely big enough for scrubs.

But it’s private. Private enough for what I have in mind, at least.

“Vesper…” he warns again. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

I press him back against the door, my hands already working at the buttons of his shirt. “Don’t tell me you’re shy all of the sudden.”

“I’m telling you that you have a surgery in twenty-seven minutes, and you should probably focus on that instead of?—”

I silence him with my mouth, kissing him hard enough to bruise. He tastes like coffee and whiskey. When I pull back, we’re both breathing hard.

“I focus better after,” I whisper against his lips. “You relax me.”

“Is that what I do?” His hands go to my hips. “Relax you?”

“After you get me riled up first, of course.”

He spins us around, pressing me against the door in his place. The metal is cool against my back, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from his body.

“What other things?” His mouth finds the ticklish spot just below my ear. I have to bite my lip to keep from giggling, moaning, or both.

“You make me feel powerful,” I whisper. “Like I can do anything.”

“You can do anything.” His hands sneak under my scrub top. I shiver and hiss at the contact. “You’re going to save that little girl in there. You’re going to give her a future.”

Despite being very thoroughly occupied with what my hands and mouth are doing, I can’t stop myself from running through her file in my head.

Mia Callum. Eight years old. Brain tumor the size of a golf ball pressing against her temporal lobe.

Her parents have been camped out in the waiting room for three days now, taking turns sleeping in plastic chairs and surviving on vending machine chips.

“What if I can’t, though?” The fear steals its way out of me before I can swallow it. “What if I mess up?”

Kovan pulls back to look at me, his green eyes serious. “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.” His thumb grazes my cheekbone. “I know that you’d rather die than let a child suffer. I know that you’ve spent every spare minute for the past week studying that MRI, planning every possible angle of approach.”

He’s right. I have the scan memorized, every millimeter of tumor mapped in my mind.

“I also know,” he continues, “that you’re the best pediatric surgeon in this building. Maybe in the city. Maybe in the world.”

“Kovan—”

“And I know that when you walk into that operating room, you’re going to be brilliant. Because that’s who you are, Vesper. That’s what you do.”

The confidence in his voice settles the nerves inside me. The knot of anxiety in my chest loosens, replaced by something steadier.

Determination.

Trust.

Love.

“Thank you.” I reach up to cup his face. “I needed to hear that.”

“Good.” He leans down to kiss me again, softer this time. “Now, take off your clothes and let me ‘relax’ you, Doctor.”

A few hours later, I’m riding the highest high of my career.

The surgery was flawless. Textbook perfect. I got every last cell of that tumor, and Mia Callum is going to wake up with a bright future in front of her.

I feel like Superwoman.

I’m still buzzing with adrenaline as I change out of my surgical scrubs. This is why I became a doctor. This feeling—the knowledge that I just gave a child her life back.

I grab my phone to text Kovan the good news, but freeze when I see I already have messages from him.

KOVAN : How did it go?

KOVAN : The girl okay?

KOVAN : Call me when you’re done.

I’m about to respond when I hear voices in the hallway outside the locker room. One of them makes my blood run cold.

Jeremy Fleming’s oily laugh echoes off the walls, but it’s the voice responding that makes me drop my phone.

Russian accent. Deep and gravelly.

Ihor.

I crack the locker room door and peer out. Sure enough, Jeremy is standing near the nurses’ station, gesticulating wildly while Ihor listens with that cold, calculating expression I remember all too well from when he arrived with Yana to pick up Luka for his birthday visitation.

What the hell is Luka’s stepfather doing here?

I grab my phone and text Kovan immediately.

VESPER : Surgery went perfectly. Mia’s going to be fine. But we have a problem. Ihor is here talking to Jeremy. This can’t be good.

The response comes faster than I expected.

KOVAN : Don’t worry about it.

I stare at the screen. That’s it? Don’t worry about it?

VESPER : Kovan, this is serious. What’re they doing here? How do they know each other?

KOVAN : I said don’t worry. I’ll handle it.

There’s something strange about his responses. Too casual. Too dismissive. Almost as if…

VESPER: Do you know something I don’t?

This time, there’s no immediate response. I watch the typing indicator appear and disappear several times before he finally answers.

KOVAN : Just trust me.

Three words that should reassure me, but somehow make everything worse instead.

I peek out the door again. Ihor and Jeremy are still deep in conversation, their heads bent together. As I watch, Jeremy pulls out his phone and shows Ihor something on the screen. Whatever it is makes Ihor smile, and that smile makes me feel sick to my stomach.

People like Ihor don’t smile unless someone else is about to suffer.

I slip out of the locker room through the back exit, taking the long way around to avoid them. But I can’t shake the feeling that something is very, very wrong.

The feeling follows me all the way to the elevator bank, where I nearly collide with Dr. Preston Smith.

“Dr. Fairfax.” His usual warm smile is nowhere to be found. “I need to speak with you.”

My stomach drops. “Is this about the Callum surgery? Because everything went perfectly?—”

“It’s not about the surgery.” He rakes a hand through his graying hair. “I just wanted to give you a heads up… There’s been a complaint filed against you.”

I do a shocked double-take. “A complaint?”

“Anonymous complaint,” he clarifies. “But it’s serious enough that the administration wants to investigate.”

The elevator dings, but neither of us moves to get on. Around us, the hospital continues its endless rhythm—doctors rushing between rooms, nurses checking charts, the constant hum of machines keeping people alive.

I feel like I’m having a bad dream.

“What kind of complaint?”

“Professional misconduct. Specifically, allegations that you’ve been abusing your position to engage in inappropriate relationships with hospital donors.”

The words don’t make sense at first. Then they do, and the world tilts sideways.

“Hospital donors?” I repeat stupidly.

“Large donors,” Dr. Smith confirms. “The complaint suggests you’ve been trading sexual favors for funding.”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out at first. This is insane. Completely insane. “Dr. Smith, I would never?—”

“I know.” His frown softens slightly. “I’ve worked with you for years, Vesper. I know the kind of doctor you are, the kind of person you are. But the complaint was detailed. Specific. And coming so soon after Mr. Krayev’s substantial donation…”

The pieces click together with horrible clarity. Kovan’s ten-million dollar donation to the pediatric wing. Our very public relationship. Just a few hours ago, when we raced down the hall hand-in-hand, giggling like schoolgirls, to have sweaty sex in a call room…

Someone has weaponized our relationship against me.

“This is ridiculous,” I say finally. “Completely ridiculous.”

“I agree. But until the investigation is complete, you’re suspended from surgery.”

If the first bombshell made me double-take, this one makes my jaw hit the floor. “Suspended?!”

“Pending investigation. You can still see patients, handle consultations. But no surgical procedures until this is resolved.”

I think about Mia Callum, sleeping peacefully in recovery. About all the other children who need surgery, who need someone to fight for them.

I’m supposed to be that someone. I’m supposed to be their superhero.

“How long?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Could be weeks. Could be months.”

The elevator dings again. This time, Dr. Smith steps inside. “For what it’s worth,” he says as the doors begin to close, “I think this is bullshit. But my hands are tied.”

The doors slide shut, leaving me alone in the hallway.

Superwoman just came crashing down to Earth.