Page 42 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

Surveillance was my personal version of hell.

I shifted in the passenger seat, stretching my legs in the cramped van. My bladder had been screaming for hours. We'd been parked across from Wright's house since sundown.

The cold seeped through the van's metal skin, straight into my bones. January had teeth, gnawing through my layers like tissue paper. My fingertips had gone numb despite the gloves.

"Stop fidgeting," War muttered, not looking up from his tablet. "You'll fog the windows."

"I'm not fidgeting," I lied, immediately fidgeting more to annoy him. "Keeping my blood moving before it freezes solid."

War's eyes narrowed. "If you compromise this operation because you can't sit still, I'll give you something real to fidget about."

"I'd like to see you try," I said, voice dropping lower. "I'm just bored out of my mind."

"It's a stakeout, not an execution," War said through clenched teeth. A muscle jumped beneath the stubble on his jaw, the twitch so subtle most people wouldn't notice. "We watch. We wait. We strike when it's time."

Xander snickered from the back of the van, where he monitored our surveillance equipment. "Children, play nice or I'm turning this van around."

I flipped him off without looking. My phone buzzed against my thigh, the vibration sending heat straight to my core. I fished it out, knowing who it was.

Hunter

Still nothing at the clinic. Just a janitor and someone pacing by the windows.

Misha

Wright's expecting someone. He's at the door watching.

Hunter

This stakeout is bullshit. We should've just grabbed him after work.

Misha

Patience, mon loup. We need to learn his patterns first.

Hunter

I'll show you patience when I see you tonight. Your knees will remember every minute you made me wait.

My mouth went dry. A week ago, that text would have been flirtation. Now it carried the weight of ownership. I reached up to touch my upper arm where the birth control implant sat beneath my skin, still tender from War's insertion.

"Movement," Xander interrupted from the back where he monitored our surveillance equipment. "Someone on foot approaching from the bus stop."

I shoved my phone away and grabbed the binoculars. Wright stilled, his head tilting forward like a predator scenting blood.

"That has to be our subject," I said, focusing on the approaching figure. "Young, male, maybe early twenties. Looks unsteady on his feet."

"Another lab rat," War said, his voice cold. "Watch how Wright interacts with him."

The thin man limped toward the house, pausing often, one hand pressed against his side as he climbed the steps.

"That's not security," Xander said, camera whirring.

War's jaw tightened. "That's a patient."

The bitter taste of adrenaline flooded my mouth. Wright ushered the man inside, closing the door. The wrongness crawled over my skin like spiders with steel legs.

Wright reappeared minutes later with a metal waste bin, carrying it to the side of the house. Blue flames leapt from the container as he added more papers, watching intently as they curled into ash.

"He's burning records," I said, nausea rising as memories of Roche destroying evidence flashed through my mind. "Covering his tracks."

War reached for his phone. "I'm calling Annie. If he's treating patients at home—"

The front door opened again. The patient stumbled down the steps, leaning to one side, hand grasping at empty air. He made it halfway to the sidewalk before collapsing like a marionette with cut strings. His body convulsed once, then went still.

Wright abandoned the burning bin and rushed to the fallen patient, a curse escaping him loud enough to carry across the street. He looked around frantically before grabbing the patient's arms and dragging him back toward the house.

"That fucker. He's not even checking for a pulse," War said, voice hollow with disbelief. "Not calling 9-1-1."

The image of Tyler's body on my mortuary table flashed before my eyes—cold skin, blue lips, dignity stripped away by Wright's callous disregard for human life. Another disposable test subject. Another victim no one would miss.

I threw my binoculars onto the seat. "We're going in. Now."

"The plan—" War started.

"Fuck the plan." My voice cracked with rage. "That patient is dying while we sit here. I won't let another Tyler happen."

War studied me for a moment, then nodded. "Front door or back?"

"Front," I decided. "Less time to waste."

"Move your ass, Misha," Xander called, already halfway out of the van. "That patient has minutes, not hours."

I shoved my phone into my pocket. The van door slid open, winter air rushing in like an ambush. I stepped into the night, boots crunching on frozen grass. The neighborhood stretched silently around us. No witnesses, no backup. Just three of us against whatever waited in that house.

War reached the front door first, testing the handle. Locked. He stepped aside, and Xander moved forward with his lock picks. Thirty seconds later, we were inside.

Inside, an elegant and sterile entry hall greeted us.

The heat felt obscene after the winter air, wrapping around me like silk.

Framed diplomas lined the walls, Wright's accomplishments displayed like trophies.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. Roche had displayed their photography awards the same way.

"Split up," War directed, voice barely above a whisper. "Xander, check upstairs. I'll take the main floor. Misha, find the basement. That's where he'd have a lab."

"If you find Wright?" I asked.

War's eyes met mine, cold and certain. "Secure him. Don't eliminate unless absolutely necessary. We need him talking."

Xander checked his watch. "Five minutes to search, then regroup. No heroics."

I nodded, already moving toward the back of the house. My hand rested on the knife in my pocket, the weight comforting against my palm. If Wright got in my way...

No. Focus on the patient first. Vengeance later.

The basement door wasn't hard to find. The heavy wooden door sat beneath the staircase, secured with a deadbolt. Another thirty seconds with Xander's picks, and I was through.

Darkness greeted me on the other side. I found a light switch, and fluorescent bulbs flickered to life overhead.

The basement had been converted into a makeshift laboratory. Medical equipment lined the walls, creating a narrow path to three examination tables. Storage cabinets stood against the far wall, with record-keeping equipment in an alcove. The stairs behind me offered the only exit.

The smell hit me in layers: antiseptic cleaners at the top, formaldehyde in the middle, and beneath it all, the copper-penny stench of old blood ingrained in the concrete floor. This room had seen death before.

My lungs seized, throat closing as memories tried to drown me.

Examination tables stood in the center, complete with restraints that sent ice through my veins. Roche's studio flashed in my mind—different restraints, same helplessness. My pulse spiked as my body remembered being strapped down, photographed, violated.

But this time I wasn't the victim. I could fight back.

The revelation steadied me. For years, those memories had been poison in my veins. Now they were fuel. Every patient freed would be a blow against every predator who'd used power to hurt the vulnerable. Every cut of the restraints would cut myself free from Roche's legacy.

I wasn't the beautiful broken thing in the photographs anymore. I was the one with the knife.

Three figures lay on gurneys, hooked to IVs and monitors. The three patients were all unconscious. A woman, maybe early thirties, the patient we’d seen collapse, and another young man who was a little older.

I checked the first patient's pulse. Weak but present.

Blood crusted around his nostrils, lips tinged blue.

His face—gaunt with hollow cheeks and dark circles—mirrored Tyler's with such exactness that my chest constricted painfully.

The same desperate thinness. The same evidence of a life spent on society's edges.

My fingers brushed his cold skin, and rage surged through me so violently my vision flashed white.

Another disposable person. Another victim whose death would be filed away as a statistic.

My throat closed as memories of cleaning Tyler's body superimposed themselves over this stranger.

This could have been prevented. This should have been prevented.

His breathing came in ragged gasps. The IV in his arm was connected to a bag labeled only with a code number. No standard medical markings.

Wright wasn't just pushing boundaries at his clinic. He was running a full underground trial in his basement. Testing drugs that would never pass ethical review boards on people who couldn't fight back.

I reached for my phone to call War, but stopped when I heard voices from upstairs. Not War's. Not Xander's. New voices. Multiple people moved through the house above me.

I checked my phone. No signal. Dammit.

"Primary package secure," a man's voice said, professional and cold. "Moving to secondary objective."

Another voice answered. "Clock starts now. Full sanitization protocol."

The metallic tang of fear coated my tongue.

Sweat prickled across my scalp while my stomach twisted into a hard knot.

My father had used those same terms when describing cleanup operations for the Russian mob.

Primary package could mean anything. Wright?

Another patient? Both? Something else entirely?

Whoever these people were, they'd arrived with a mission.

And "secondary objective" usually meant only one thing in these operations: eliminating evidence.

The basement. The patients.

Us.

I moved to the basement door, pressing my ear against it. Footsteps echoed overhead as multiple people moved through the house. Equipment rattled and thudded as it was unpacked.

"What about the others?" someone asked.

"No witnesses," came the reply. "Same as always."