Chapter 2 - THE WHISPER OF A GHOST NERVE
The silence in the master bedroom was suffocating.
Sebastian’s hands remained clamped to the edge of the padded table.
His knuckles were bone white.
The muscle beneath his jaw ticked like a countdown.
"Move it again," Clare whispered.
Her fingers stayed resting beside his knee.
Light.
Unmoving.
Giving him space to try.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
A bead of cold sweat formed at his silvered temple.
He exhaled through his teeth.
Nothing happened.
The left foot lay inert against the dark velvet covering.
Gabriel Mendes took half a step forward from the doorframe.
The leather of his holster creaked under his dark suit jacket.
"Mr. Lombardi," Gabriel said, his voice taut with quiet dread.
"Be silent, Gabriel," Sebastian rasped.
His chest heaved.
The scars across his lower spine pulled tight beneath his pale skin.
He tried again.
His throat worked as if he were dragging anchor chains through mud.
At the far edge of the examination table, the toe twitched.
Not a tremor.
A deliberate downward curl.
Then release.
Sebastian let out a ragged breath.
He collapsed back onto the table, his forearm covering his eyes.
The fire in the stone hearth crackled.
A log broke into sparks.
"Twelve years," Sebastian whispered into the shadows of his arm.
His voice was raw.
Stripped of all the cruel velvet he had used to terrorize five boroughs.
"Twelve years in that titanium cage."
Clare did not offer comfortable words.
She reached for her diagnostic penlight and small rubber reflex hammer.
"Incomplete lesion," she said.
Her tone remained clinical, steady, and devoid of false pity.
"The motor pathway wasn't completely severed."
"Every neurologist from Mayo to Zurich said the cord was transected," Sebastian said, lowering his arm.
His gray eyes locked onto hers with terrifying hunger.
"They brought me three-dimensional scans."
"They showed me dead tissue."
"Dead tissue doesn't transmit pain signals to the medial thigh," Clare said.
She tapped his inner knee with precision.
A faint deep-tendon reflex answered.
Tiny.
Nearly imperceptible.
"Someone missed a compressed nerve root," Clare said.
"Or someone lied."
The room dropped ten degrees.
Gabriel’s hand hovered two inches from his sidearm.
"Doctor Sterling has managed Mr. Lombardi's care since the ambush in Detroit," Gabriel said coldly.
"He is the head of spinal trauma at Northwestern."
"Then Dr. Sterling should have noticed the hypertrophic scar tissue pressing on the L4 root," Clare replied.
She didn't look at Gabriel.
She kept her eyes on Sebastian’s scars.
"Unless he wanted it there."
Sebastian did not blink.
The vulnerability that had flashed across his face hardened into solid stone.
"You speak treason very easily, Miss Bennett."
"I speak anatomy," she said.
She packed her reflex hammer into her worn leather bag.
"Pain is data."
"Movement is proof."
"If you want me to pretend you're permanently paralyzed, call another therapist."
"I have a sick son waiting for his medication."
Sebastian pushed himself up with his powerful arms.
His shoulders were broad, carved from over a decade of pushing his own wheels.
He transferred himself back into the titanium chair with smooth, effortless precision.
He adjusted his dark cuffs.
"Nobody leaves this estate with that knowledge," Sebastian said.
His voice had recovered its velvet menace.
"If the Commission discovers I have sensation, my cousins will light this house on fire before dawn."
"I don't care about your Commission," Clare said, pulling her coat around her shoulders.
"I care about the ten thousand dollars on my table."
Sebastian studied her.
He looked at her practical rubber-soled shoes.
He looked at the frayed cuffs of her winter coat.
He looked at the dark circles carved under her eyes.
"Gabriel will drive you home," Sebastian said.
"Tomorrow evening. Eight o'clock."
"Double the fee."
Clare swallowed the knot in her throat.
Twenty thousand dollars would clear Oliver's medical machine for six months.
"Eight o'clock," she agreed.
Ten minutes later, the black armored SUV glided down the winding driveway of the Lake Forest estate.
The rain beat against the smoked glass windows.
Clare sat in the back, holding her bag on her lap.
Gabriel drove with his eyes flicking between the rearview mirrors.
"He doesn't trust easily," Gabriel said, breaking the silence.
"He shouldn't," Clare said.
"He didn't trust you, either."
"He trusted the toe."
Suddenly, Gabriel slammed the steering wheel hard to the left.
The heavy SUV skidded across the wet asphalt.
A deafening crack shattered the silence.
A spiderweb of white fractures bloomed across the passenger-side window.
May you like
A high-velocity sniper round had struck the reinforced glass at eye level.
"Down!" Gabriel roared, drawing his weapon.
