Chapter 2 - THE REFLEX THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Nobody moved.
Sebastian Lombardi stared at his right foot as though it had betrayed him.
I could still feel the tiny contraction beneath my fingers.
It had not been random.
It had not been imagination.
His Achilles tendon tightened beneath my thumb, followed by another faint movement through the arch of his foot.
Sebastian’s voice dropped dangerously low.
“Do it again.”
I looked up.
“You told me I’d lose my hand if I touched you without permission.”
His expression hardened.
“You have permission.”
I pressed the same point.
Nothing happened.
A muscle jumped in Sebastian’s jaw.
Gabriel shifted beside the fireplace.
Then I changed the angle of his ankle and pressed slightly higher along the tibial nerve.
Sebastian’s toes curled.
One of the guards actually cursed.
Sebastian’s hand clamped around the armrest of his wheelchair.
“What the hell is happening?”
I sat back slowly.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That isn’t an acceptable answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
His stare could have frozen Lake Michigan.
I continued anyway.
“If your spinal cord had been completely severed the way you were apparently told, I wouldn’t expect that response. Reflexes can exist without voluntary control, but what I’m feeling here doesn’t match the story you gave me.”
Sebastian glanced toward Gabriel.
“Get Mercer.”
Gabriel hesitated.
That tiny hesitation caught my attention.
Sebastian saw it too.
“Now.”
Gabriel left.
I turned back to Sebastian.
“Who’s Mercer?”
“My doctor.”
“For twenty years?”
“Eighteen.”
That made something in my stomach tighten.
“One physician has controlled your treatment for eighteen years?”
“He coordinates specialists.”
“And your records?”
“Yes.”
“Imaging?”
“Yes.”
“Medication?”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes.”
I rose.
“I want to see everything.”
A quiet laugh escaped him, but there was no humor in it.
“You think you’re in a position to demand my medical records?”
“I think someone paid me ten thousand dollars because every famous doctor in America supposedly failed you, and within thirty seconds I found a neurological response nobody mentioned.”
I pointed at his foot.
“So either I’m the luckiest physical therapist in Illinois, or somebody stopped asking the right questions a very long time ago.”
His expression changed.
Not softer.
More dangerous.
Before he could answer, the bedroom doors opened.
A silver-haired man in an expensive overcoat hurried inside carrying a leather medical bag.
Dr. Elias Mercer looked to be in his late sixties. Perfect posture. Perfect suit. Perfect expression of professional concern.
Until he saw me kneeling beside Sebastian.
For less than a second, his face went pale.
Then the mask returned.
“Sebastian, Gabriel said something happened.”
“My foot moved.”
Mercer stopped.
“It what?”
“You heard me.”
Mercer approached.
“That can occur. Involuntary spasms are common in chronic spinal injuries.”
I shook my head.
His eyes snapped toward me.
“And you are?”
“Claire Bennett.”
“Physical therapist?”
“Yes.”
His mouth tightened.
“I’m familiar with your reputation.”
That surprised me.
Sebastian noticed.
“How?”
Mercer ignored the question.
He crouched beside the wheelchair and tapped Sebastian’s knee with a reflex hammer.
The leg barely responded.
“Nothing unusual.”
I watched his technique.
Then I watched Sebastian.
His eyelids had grown heavier during the last few minutes.
“Did you take medication before I arrived?”
Sebastian looked irritated.
“My evening medication.”
“What?”
Mercer answered immediately.
“Standard management for spasticity and neuropathic discomfort.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His polite expression cooled.
“Ms. Bennett, Sebastian has an old, catastrophic spinal injury. I appreciate enthusiasm, but one muscle contraction doesn’t overturn two decades of medicine.”
“Then why are his feet ice cold?”
“Circulatory impairment.”
“And why does the medication list matter?”
“You haven’t seen the list.”
“No. But I’d like to.”
Mercer stood.
“That would be inappropriate.”
Sebastian’s voice cut through the room.
“Show her.”
Mercer froze.
“Sebastian—”
“Show her.”
Gabriel returned carrying a tablet.
Mercer shot him a look I almost missed.
Gabriel noticed me noticing.
He handed me the device.
The medication list was long.
Pain medication.
Muscle relaxants.
Sedatives.
Antispasmodics.
Sleep medication.
Several prescriptions had been continued for years without meaningful adjustment.
One name caught my eye.
Baclofen.
The dosage was significant.
I scrolled.
There were others capable of causing weakness, sedation, and reduced muscle activity.
I looked at Sebastian.
“Do you ever feel tingling?”
“No.”
“Heat?”
“No.”
“Pressure?”
“No.”
“Do you ever wake up with your legs feeling different before taking your morning medication?”
Silence.
Mercer stepped between us.
“This is irresponsible.”
Sebastian ignored him.
“Sometimes.”
Mercer turned sharply.
Sebastian continued.
“Very rarely. I wake up feeling… something. Like electricity beneath the skin.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
“What happens after medication?”
“It disappears.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Mercer laughed too quickly.
“A predictable fluctuation in neuropathic symptoms.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Not maybe.”
He pointed toward the door.
“This examination is finished.”
I didn’t move.
Sebastian looked at him.
“Sit down, Elias.”
Mercer’s confidence finally cracked.
“Sebastian, you’re tired.”
“I said sit.”
He obeyed.
That scared me more than shouting would have.
Sebastian rolled closer.
“For eighteen years, you told me every unusual sensation was meaningless.”
“Because medically—”
“You told me additional testing was pointless.”
“Because it was.”
“You told me rehabilitation beyond maintenance would cause damage.”
“In your condition, aggressive rehabilitation—”
“I want new imaging.”
Mercer went completely still.
“Tomorrow,” Sebastian added.
“At Northwestern. Doctors you don’t choose. Specialists you’ve never worked with.”
“Sebastian—”
“And Claire attends.”
My heart kicked.
Mercer looked at me as if I had just signed my own death warrant.
Then he smiled.
It was small.
Controlled.
Terrifying.
“Of course.”
He closed his medical bag.
“I only want what is best for you.”
Sebastian’s laugh was cold.
“So does everyone who lies to me.”
Mercer left.
The second the doors shut, Sebastian pointed toward Gabriel.
“Follow him.”
Gabriel nodded and disappeared.
I stood there wondering how my desperate attempt to pay for Oliver’s medicine had turned into a conspiracy inside a mafia mansion.
Sebastian looked toward me.
“What do you actually believe?”
“I believe we need evidence.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I hesitated.
Then I told him.
“I think the original injury may have been severe but incomplete.”
His face became unreadable.
“And?”
“I think years without proper rehabilitation caused enormous secondary damage.”
“And?”
I looked toward the closed doors.
“And I think somebody may have benefited from you believing recovery was impossible.”
Sebastian stared into the fire.
For the first time since I met him, he didn’t look powerful.
He looked twenty-two again.
A young man waking up after an explosion and being told his life was over.
“What are the chances I walk?” he asked.
I hated the hope buried inside the question.
“I don’t know.”
“Ten percent?”
“I don’t know.”
“One?”
“Sebastian.”
His eyes met mine.
I forced myself not to lie.
“I can’t promise you walking. I can promise you this: your body has been trying to tell somebody something, and I’m willing to listen.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then Gabriel suddenly burst back into the room.
His breathing was heavy.
His gun was in his hand.
“Boss.”
Sebastian turned.
“What?”
“Mercer didn’t leave through the main gate.”
Gabriel held up a phone.
“He went to the west courtyard and made a call.”
“To whom?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“We intercepted part of it.”
He tapped the screen.
A recording played.
Mercer’s voice filled the room.
“She found the reflex.”
Silence.
Then another man answered.
A voice Sebastian clearly recognized.
“Then deal with the therapist before Sebastian learns what really happened in 2006.”
Sebastian’s face lost every trace of emotion.
I whispered, “Who is that?”
He looked directly at me.
“My uncle.”
And suddenly I understood.
Sebastian Lombardi had not simply survived an explosion twenty years ago.
May you like
Someone had been waiting twenty years for him to discover the wrong truth.
And now that someone knew my name.
