Page 82 of Toxic Temptation (Krayev Bratva #1)

VESPER

I’m an idiot.

The thought pounds through my skull like a migraine as I pace the empty hospital corridor. An idiot with a medical degree and eight years of surgical training, but still—a world-class, grade-A fucking idiot.

There were so many red flags. So many questions that went unanswered. So many glaring inconsistencies that I chose to ignore because I was too busy playing pretend.

Why didn’t I see it?

Because I was distracted. Preoccupied with tummy butterflies and stolen kisses and whether the man sharing my bed actually loved me back. I let myself get swept up in the fantasy of being wanted, of mattering to someone, of finally having the family I never knew I craved.

And while I was busy being a lovesick fool, something horrible was happening right under my nose.

The realization makes me want to vomit all over the pristine hospital floors.

I check my watch. 11:30 A.M. Jeremy won’t be here for another hour, and his secretary Mandy is notorious for taking long lunch breaks. If I’m going to do this, it has to be now.

My hands shake as I wait outside Jeremy’s office, watching Mandy gather her purse and coat. She’s a mousy woman in her fifties who’s worked for Jeremy for over a decade. The kind of person who follows orders without asking questions.

“Going to lunch, Dr. Fairfax?” she asks as she passes me in the hallway.

“Just finishing some paperwork,” I lie smoothly.

The moment she disappears around the corner, I’m moving. My keycard shouldn’t work on Jeremy’s office, but hospital security has always been laughably inadequate. I swipe it anyway, holding my breath.

The lock clicks open.

“This is insane,” I whisper, slipping inside and closing the door behind me.

Jeremy’s office is exactly what you’d expect from a man who values appearances over substance. Mahogany desk, leather chairs, diplomas covering every inch of wall space. Everything designed to intimidate and impress.

I rush to his desk and start yanking open drawers. If he’s smart, everything incriminating will be password-protected on his computer. But Jeremy Fleming has never struck me as particularly brilliant—just cunning and shameless enough to manipulate his way to the top.

The first three drawers contain nothing but office supplies and expired medications. The fourth is locked.

“Shit.” I dig through the desk supplies until I find a letter opener, then jam it into the lock mechanism. It takes three tries, but eventually, something gives way with a satisfying click.

Inside are manila folders. Dozens of them, organized by date. I grab the most recent one and flip it open.

Patient names. Reference numbers. Nothing else.

I scan the list, my blood freezing in my veins when I spot a familiar name near the bottom.

Leo Sawyer.

I pick it up and start leafing through. But I don’t get far before something catches my eye in the uppermost corner.

A stamp. It looks like a crest of some sort, nothing I’ve ever seen before.

But in the middle of the crest is something I do remember.

Something I have come across, whispered about in shadowy corners, brushed over, swept out of sight, repressed.

One word.

Five letters.

Keres.

“Did you find what you’re looking for, Doctor?”

I spin around so fast that the folder goes flying, papers scattering across Jeremy’s Persian rug. Standing in the doorway is the last person I want to see.

Ihor Makhova.

His eyes are hooded, face gaunt, hair thin and swept back over his skull. He looks wrong somehow, like a skinwalker. Like someone reanimated a dead man and is going around committing atrocities in the costume of a corpse.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to be brave.

“Mandy called me the moment you walked in here.” He steps into the office and closes the door behind him. “Loyal woman, that Mandy. Been on our payroll for years.”

Our payroll. It doesn’t take a genius to start seeing the bigger picture.

“You and Jeremy,” I say. “You’re partners.”

Ihor chuckles, a sound like dragging a saw over concrete. “No, no, of course not. Partners implies equality. Jeremy is an employee. A useful one, but still just another cog in my machine.”

I back up until I hit the file cabinet, trapped between Ihor and the wall. “What machine?”

“Come now, Dr. Fairfax. You’re a smart woman. I’m sure you can piece it together.” His pale eyes gleam with amusement. “You’ve already found our patient lists. You’ve begun to guess what happened to poor little Leo. What do you think the machine does?”

The answer trickles from between my numb, horrified lips. “Organ harvesting.”

“Very good.” He claps slowly, mockingly. “Though ‘harvesting’ makes it sound so agricultural. We prefer to think of it as ‘redistribution of resources.’”

Bile rises in my throat. “You’ve been stealing organs from hospital patients.”

“Again with the deplorable vocabulary! ‘Stealing’ is such an ugly word, don’t you agree? We provide a service. Skip the waiting lists; bypass all that tedious bureaucracy. As long as you can pay our prices, you get what you need when you need it.”

“From children ?” I croak. “Leo is eight years old.”

“Oh, yes. Children have the best organs. Young, healthy, undamaged by years of poor lifestyle choices.” He says it so casually.

Merely another man of capitalism, offering up another hot consumer good.

“A pediatric kidney can sell for half a million dollars to the right buyer! It’s made our organization quite wealthy, of course. ”

I’m going to be sick. Actually, physically sick all over Jeremy’s expensive carpet.

“The Keres,” I say. “That’s you.”

He nods. “That’s what we call ourselves. Appropriate, don’t you think? In Greek mythology, the Keres were spirits of violent death. They fed on human blood and delighted in the slaughter of war.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m practical.” He takes a step closer, and I grind myself back against the file cabinet like I can teleport through it if I try hard enough. “The world is full of two kinds of people: those who need organs and those who have them. We simply facilitate the exchange.”

“Does Kovan know?”

Ihor’s smile widens, revealing teeth that are too white, too sharp.

“Now, that’s the interesting question, isn’t it?

” He slouches against Jeremy’s desk, calm as could be.

“What do you think, Vesper? Does the man with whom you’ve been sharing a bed know that his organization profits from the suffering of children? ”

“No.”

“No? Are you sure about that?” Ihor pulls out his phone and scrolls through something.

“Because according to our financial records, the Krayev Bratva has been taking a percentage of our profits since the very beginning. Fifteen percent of everything we make goes directly into accounts controlled by… your boyfriend.”

Everything goes quiet except for the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” He turns the phone screen toward me.

I don’t want to look at it, though. “He would never. He would?—”

Ihor cuts me off with a laugh. “Vesper, sweetheart, where do you think all his money comes from? The organ trade isn’t some side business we run without Kovan’s knowledge. It’s our most lucrative operation. And your precious boyfriend has been reaping his cut from day one.”

I can’t breathe. The air in this room has become too thick, too heavy. My lungs aren’t working properly.

“He wouldn’t,” I whisper. “He loves Luka. He would never put children at risk.”

“Luka is family. These other children, though?” Ihor shrugs. “Simply collateral damage.”

“Other children” is such a cruel and callous way to put it. They aren’t “other children”—they’re innocent souls with faces and laughs and stories. They’re Leos and Mias and Harpers and dozens of other children whose parents brought them here believing they’d be safe.

They’re my patients. They’re my responsibility.

“I’ll report you,” I say. “I’ll go to the police, the FBI, whoever will listen.”

Again, Ihor simply laughs. “With what evidence? And even if you could prove something, who do you think they’ll believe? A respected surgeon with decades of experience, or a discredited, repeatedly disciplined malcontent who’s been sleeping with a known criminal?”

He’s right. I have no proof, only these cryptic files—assuming he even lets me walk out of here with those in hand—and my credibility has already been compromised by my relationship with Kovan.

Still, the last thing I’m going to do is let this creepy bastard intimidate me into silence.

“Fuck you.” I spit at his feet. “I’m not scared of you.”

Ihor sighs and taps at his chin. “That’s disappointing. I had hoped you’d be more like your father.”

“What the hell do you know about my father?”

He licks his lips, his eyes homing in on me. “More than you do, it would seem. Would you like to hear a story?”

I shake my head, but he doesn’t care. He keeps talking anyway. “When we first started this business, we needed a surgeon, of course. Someone respected, trustworthy, someone who could win over patients and command loyalty.”

He can’t be… Surely he’s not… There’s no fucking way.

“Wh-what?” is all I can manage to stammer out.

He pushes off the desk and starts to walk toward me.

“Who better than the finest San Francisco had to offer? Who better than Thomas Fairfax? A respected physician, beloved father, pillar of the community.” Ihor’s voice drips with false sympathy.

“Also one of the founding members of our little organization. The first of the Keres, as it were.”

“Y-you’re lying.”

“Am I? Well, who do you think taught Jeremy everything he knows? Who do you think recruited Dr. Fleming in the first place?” Ihor comes closer and closer and there’s nowhere for me to run.

“Your father built this operation from the ground up. Every technique Jeremy uses, every contact we have, every system we’ve put in place—it all came from Dr. Thomas Fairfax. ”