Chapter 5 - SEBASTIAN TRIES TO STAND
The mansion became a fortress under attack.
Red emergency lights flooded the lower corridors while guards rushed toward the eastern wing.
Gabriel moved beside Sebastian.
“Stay here.”
Sebastian gave him a look that would have stopped most men.
Gabriel didn’t blink.
“For once in your life, Boss, do what you’re told.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have enjoyed that.
Instead, I was thinking about Oliver upstairs.
I ran.
Two guards followed.
Oliver was awake when I reached him.
The gunshots had frightened him, but his breathing remained stable.
I grabbed his coat.
“We’re leaving.”
One guard shook his head.
“Mr. Lombardi ordered—”
“I don’t care what Mr. Lombardi ordered.”
A voice behind me interrupted.
“She’s right.”
Sebastian.
His wheelchair appeared in the doorway with Gabriel beside him.
Sebastian looked at the guard.
“Take Claire and Oliver through the service tunnel.”
I stared at him.
“You have a service tunnel?”
“My family has trust issues.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then an explosion shook the house.
Not large.
A security door somewhere downstairs.
Sebastian looked at Gabriel.
“Go.”
I crouched beside Oliver.
“We’re going on an adventure.”
He pulled on his coat.
“I don’t like this adventure.”
“Me neither.”
We made it halfway down the service corridor when Sebastian suddenly stopped.
His right leg had slipped from the footplate.
I knelt to reposition it.
Then I felt it.
Resistance.
“Wait.”
Sebastian looked down.
“What?”
“Push your foot against my hand.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
His expression darkened.
“Claire—”
“Try.”
He exhaled.
Nothing.
Then—
Pressure.
Faint.
Almost imperceptible.
But deliberate.
My eyes lifted.
“Again.”
His jaw clenched.
The pressure increased.
Gabriel whispered, “Jesus.”
Sebastian stared at his own leg.
“That’s me?”
“Yes.”
For twenty years, the man had been told there was nothing below his waist.
Now, in a concrete escape tunnel while armed men invaded his mansion, Sebastian Lombardi voluntarily moved his foot.
A strange sound escaped him.
Half laugh.
Half broken breath.
Oliver stepped closer.
“Do it again.”
Sebastian looked at him.
Oliver nodded encouragingly.
“You almost got it.”
Sebastian pushed.
His shoe moved nearly an inch.
Then gunfire sounded behind us.
The moment shattered.
Gabriel drew his weapon.
“Move!”
The tunnel ended inside a detached boathouse near the lake.
Two armored SUVs waited.
Sebastian refused to take the first one until Claire and Oliver were inside.
We drove to a private medical center on the North Shore owned by someone Sebastian trusted enough to call at four in the morning.
By sunrise, three specialists had arrived.
None were connected to Mercer.
For six hours, Sebastian underwent tests.
MRI.
Electromyography.
Nerve conduction studies.
Reflex examinations.
He hated every minute.
I stayed.
Not because he ordered me.
Because I needed to know.
At noon, Dr. Natalie Shah entered the consultation room carrying a tablet.
She looked stunned.
“Mr. Lombardi, your injury is severe.”
Sebastian’s face remained blank.
“But?”
“But it is not anatomically complete.”
No one spoke.
Dr. Shah continued carefully.
“There is significant old damage, severe muscular atrophy, contracture, and degeneration from decades of limited use. I don’t want to create unrealistic expectations.”
“Can I walk?”
“We cannot answer that.”
His expression hardened.
She did not retreat.
“But there are preserved pathways. Your right side appears stronger than the left. With intensive rehabilitation, we may be able to improve voluntary motor function significantly.”
“How significantly?”
“We discover that through work.”
He looked at me.
I raised my eyebrows.
“That sounds familiar.”
Dr. Shah almost smiled.
Then her face became serious.
“There is something else.”
She displayed older scans recovered from Mercer’s files beside current images.
“Your records contain inconsistencies. Some imaging appears to have been mislabeled.”
“Meaning?”
“Two scans supposedly taken four years apart are digitally identical.”
Gabriel stood.
“Copied?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian became very still.
For years, Mercer had been showing specialists the same old images.
Not updated evidence.
A manufactured reality.
I looked at Sebastian.
“This is bigger than bad medicine.”
He didn’t answer.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Gabriel reached for it.
Sebastian answered first.
“Carlo.”
His uncle laughed.
“So dramatic.”
“You attacked my house.”
“I created a distraction.”
“You threatened a child.”
“That was Anthony’s stupidity.”
Sebastian’s expression turned murderous.
“Where is Mercer?”
“Safe.”
“For now.”
Carlo sighed.
“You were always stubborn, Sebastian. Even as a boy.”
“Why did you kill my father?”
Silence.
Then Carlo answered.
“Because your father was going to destroy everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“He was going legitimate.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
Carlo continued.
“Your father wanted out. Hotels. Construction. Shipping. Clean money. He planned to hand the criminal operations to federal prosecutors in exchange for protection.”
Gabriel looked shocked.
Sebastian said nothing.
“You would have inherited respectable businesses,” Carlo said. “And I would have inherited a prison cell.”
“So you bombed him.”
“I protected myself.”
“And me?”
“You weren’t supposed to survive.”
The room went dead silent.
Carlo’s voice softened.
“But then you did.”
My skin crawled.
“And killing the wounded heir would have raised questions. So Mercer offered another solution.”
Sebastian looked down at his legs.
“He told me I would never walk.”
“Yes.”
“And you made sure I believed him.”
“You were useful that way.”
Sebastian’s face became something I never wanted directed at me.
“Useful?”
“You became a symbol. The wounded son. The ruthless survivor. Meanwhile, I built alliances you were too angry to notice.”
“You spent twenty years beside me.”
“Yes.”
“Calling yourself family.”
Carlo laughed.
“Family is the most effective disguise.”
Then he said something that changed everything.
“You’re focusing on the wrong patient, nephew.”
Sebastian frowned.
Carlo continued.
“Ask Claire why Oliver’s medical records were requested by Dr. Mercer six months before she ever touched your foot.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
The call disconnected.
I grabbed Gabriel’s laptop.
“Check.”
It took twelve minutes.
Twelve terrible minutes.
Then Gabriel found it.
An electronic access request.
Oliver Bennett.
Eight years old.
Respiratory medicine.
Requested through a research company linked to Mercer.
Six months earlier.
I stared at the screen.
“They knew about me before Gabriel walked into my clinic.”
Sebastian looked at me.
“Then finding you wasn’t an accident.”
A horrifying possibility formed.
“What if Carlo wanted me here?”
Sebastian understood immediately.
“What if the reflex wasn’t something they feared you discovering?”
I whispered.
“What if it was something they expected?”
Before anyone could answer, a nurse rushed inside.
“Mr. Lombardi?”
She held an envelope.
“This was delivered downstairs.”
Inside was one sentence.
CLAIRE BENNETT WAS CHOSEN FOR A REASON.
May you like
And beneath it was a photograph of me standing beside a man I had not seen since my divorce.
My former husband.
