Blood had never meant much to them before. They’d rinse it off in cold sinks, brush the flakes from their sleeves, shake out their pants, and walk away. Another night, another body, another tally mark on a life already scarred beyond counting. Simple. Mechanical. Forgotten by dawn.
Not this time.
The hallway outside the operating room was colder than it had any right to be, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like distant, indifferent insects. Lorenzo sat against the wall, knees pulled tight to his chest as though he could fold himself small enough to disappear. His shirt had gone rigid with someone else’s blood—dark, sticky, already cracking along the folds—and the copper smell of it clung to him, almost inescapable.
Across from him, Dimitri sat motionless, his tuxedo jacket discar
