San Francisco.
A city cloaked in lights, steel, and cold promises.
It was past 9:00 p.m., and winter had painted the hospital windows with frostbite. Inside her private cabin, Dr. Isha Shenoy sat alone under the soft buzz of sterile lights, her white coat still crisp despite a fourteen-hour shift. Her long, dark hair was tied in a neat bun — not a strand out of place, like her mind, like her world. Her skin, pale and luminous under the fluorescent glare, made her black almond-shaped eyes stand out all the more — deep, still pools where emotions rarely surfaced. She was the hospital's youngest and most brilliant behavioural psychologist, a woman known more for her precision than her smile.
She scrolled through tomorrow's schedule with her usual quiet discipline — every patient, every minute accounted for — when her phone lit up: Kritika calling. Isha's voice, when she answered, was soft, composed, sweet in a way that made silence want to lean in closer.
"Hello?"
"Doctorrr," Kritika teased, "How's the brain whisperer tonight?"
Isha smiled, rare and fleeting. "Didn't we talk this morning?"
"So?" Kritika huffed. "You need permission to talk to your best friend twice a day? I just got home from work and remembered—you're leaving for Sausalito tomorrow, right?"
"Mmhmm. It's not a vacation," Isha replied, already flipping through her planner. "Hospital exchange program. Just five days."
"Yeah yeah, I know. But you're staying at Veloria Heights, aren't you? That place is like... Gatsby's wet dream. Five-star views, glass ceilings, scandalously expensive towels."
Isha smirked faintly. Luxury didn't tempt her. It never had. "Sir booked the Hotel. I didn't ask."
"Typical Isha," Kritika sighed dramatically. "I swear you could get proposed to at the Eiffel Tower and say, 'What's the Wi-Fi password?' Anyway, send me pictures. Especially of the hotel bathroom."
Isha laughed softly. "Okay, bye now. I have work."
"Bye, babe. Have fun — even if you don't want to."
The call ended. Silence returned.
But something had shifted — a ripple, barely there, like a breath before thunder. Isha didn't know it yet, but her world had already tilted. The moment her feet would touch Sausalito soil, she wouldn't be walking into a hospital visit.
She'd be walking straight into the eyes of Shshank Drakov.
And nothing — not logic, not science, not her own rules — would save her after that.
The clock struck 5:30 a.m., and San Francisco still slept under a blanket of fog and sodium-orange streetlight. But Isha Shenoy was already awake — sharp, precise, quietly radiant in the hush of her apartment. She moved like muscle memory, her routines embedded deep. A quick shower, a fresh change, and a final sweep of her luggage. Clothes, documents, patient files, lip balm, books — all accounted for.
She tied her hair into a soft bun, letting a few strands fall loose. Her reflection blinked back at her from the mirror — calm, prepared, unreadable.
Then, for a moment, she let herself soften.
She tapped her phone. A Hindi song floated through the air — gentle, nostalgic, a lullaby for her nerves. She hummed under her breath, the sound barely louder than her heartbeat. It was the kind of song her mother would have hated, too sentimental. But Isha sang it anyway.
A slice of calm before departure.
Her family, thousands of miles away in India, had sent her here for greatness — not comfort. No good morning texts, no check-ins. Just expectations. She didn't resent them. She understood them. But it still stung sometimes.
At exactly 6:00 a.m., the cab arrived.
She ran a final checklist in her mind, then locked the door, pulling her coat tighter against the dawn chill. The city felt slower this early — quieter, more honest. As the cab pulled away, she dialed her junior associate.
"Hi, Trisha. Did everyone gather?"
Trisha's voice crackled back, half sleepy, half excited. "Yes, Isha ma'am — the team's waiting downstairs."
"Good. I'm on my way."
By 6:15 a.m., she joined her group outside the apartment, where a sleek black vehicle sent by the hospital was already waiting. Polished to perfection, manned by a driver in gloves and a pressed suit — it looked like something out of a different life.
The team climbed in, half-drowsy, half-awestruck. Luggage stacked neatly, seat belts clicked, and the hum of the engine filled the silence.
Sausalito was only forty minutes from San Francisco, but as the city's skyline shrank behind them, the world seemed to shift. Fog thinned. Roads curved. By the time the car crossed the Golden Gate and wound toward the coast, dawn had spilled into full morning.
The sun stretched golden fingers across the Sausalito sky — hills rolling gently in the distance, mist clinging to the edges of red-roofed houses, the air cleaner, softer, more expensive.