Page 1 of Fixation
1
ANDERSON
As an ER surgeon, you could say I’ve seen a lot.
Blood. Guts. Hearts stopping and starting again against all odds.
I’ve stood beside crying patients, accepted their shaky thanks, then slipped out as they turned to loved ones, relieved yet distraught, shouting,“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, you hear? I love you too much to lose you.”
As the Bratva’s secret assassin in New York, I’ve seen things no one, especially not a surgeon, should ever witness. Men and women dying without a sound. One prick of my syringe, and they’re gone.
Thankfully, that part of my life is almost over. Three months, and I’m done with murdering people.
At least that’s what my contract with the head of the Russian mafia says, the one my father passed on to me when I was eighteen. Sixteen years later, I’m still paying for his mistakes.
Three months, I repeat, then shake it off, taking stock of my new home instead. Where I get to start my new life early.
It’s supposed to be a fresh start. A better one.
At the thought, resentment simmers low in my chest. Because let’s be honest—a man like me will never be able to truly start over.
Some things will follow me around no matter where I go.
My only comfort is that in three months, I won’t have the physical reminder of the wrongs I’ve done.
Like the chemical toxins I use to end lives.
Like the hospital bed I’ll set up in my basement.
Or the medical tools I keep to treat two bastards I’m obligated to take in whenever they get injured. The Bratva’s boss, the Pakhan, and his second-in-command. They’re the ones who turned my father and me into secret weapons.
There’ll be relief when my contract ends. When I’m finally free of them.
Relief, not happiness. I haven’t experienced joy in forever, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Restaurants and movies aren’t my thing. I brushed off a resident’s movie invite just last week. Outside of work relationships, I don’t have any friends. And women? I haven’t been with one in years.
Voices rise in the otherwise quiet evening, cutting into my thoughts. Two of my three movers talk as they climb the stairs to my home, carrying boxes full of my clothes.
They have no idea I’m a murderer. A man who heals to make up for the blood on his hands.
For them, I’m nothing but a job. It’s better this way, when the filthiest parts of me are hidden.
They’re inside the house now, and I drift back to thoughts of my other life and?—
My train of thought gets cut abruptly when a movement in the brownstone next door catches my attention.
What’s this?
Or more like…who.
A woman. And not just any woman.
A force, pulling me to her. Tugging. Yanking.
The world fades. All I see is her.
She’s in her home, my neighbor, taking a seat at what seems like a dining table. Something in front of her demands all her focus.
