Chapter 6 - Dominic Corso Stands Again
Dr. Elena Markham read the report three times.
Then she became furious.
“This changes everything.”
Dominic sat in the rehabilitation room with Fay beside him.
“What exactly?”
“The initial surgical findings indicate your spinal cord was compressed but not completely severed.”
“I was told that.”
“You were told motor recovery was highly unlikely.”
“Yes.”
Elena slapped the file down.
“That wasn’t the original conclusion.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“So what now?”
“Now we stop guessing.”
Tests followed.
Imaging.
Electrical studies.
Muscle response examinations.
Hours of waiting.
Fay stayed through all of it.
Finally Elena entered.
Dominic studied her face.
“Well?”
“You have incomplete spinal cord injury.”
He stared.
Fay gripped his hand.
Elena continued.
“I cannot promise how much function will return. You may always need mobility assistance. But the movement you’ve experienced is real.”
“How much could I recover?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could I walk?”
Elena paused.
“With intensive therapy?”
Dominic held his breath.
“Yes. It is possible.”
Fay started crying before Dominic did.
He looked at her.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.”
“You obviously are.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed.
Then his eyes filled too.
Recovery was brutal.
Dominic discovered anger was useless against muscles that had forgotten their purpose.
The first week, he could stand twelve seconds between parallel bars.
The second, twenty-four.
Then thirty.
He fell often.
He cursed constantly.
Fay learned a remarkable number of Italian insults.
“You know,” she said one morning, “most physical therapists don’t appreciate being threatened.”
“She told me one more repetition.”
“That’s generally how exercise works.”
“She enjoys suffering.”
“Elena or you?”
Dominic glared.
Fay smiled.
Three weeks after DeLuca’s arrest, Dominic took his first assisted step.
His entire body shook.
Fay stood at the end of the bars.
“Come on.”
“I am coming.”
“You haven’t moved.”
“I’m preparing.”
“You’ve been preparing for twenty seconds.”
“Fay.”
“Dominic.”
Elena laughed.
“Move your right foot.”
He did.
An inch.
Then another.
His foot landed.
Fay covered her mouth.
Dominic looked up.
“One.”
“One,” she whispered.
Then the left.
Harder.
Barely controlled.
But it moved.
Two steps.
Dominic stopped.
Sweat ran down his neck.
His arms trembled.
“That’s enough,” Elena said.
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“One more.”
Fay recognized that expression.
Pride.
Stubbornness.
Fear.
“Do one more,” she said.
He looked at her.
Then moved.
Three.
He sat down afterward and stared at the floor.
Fay crouched in front of him.
“You did it.”
“Three steps.”
“Three more than last month.”
He looked at her.
“What if that’s as far as I get?”
Fay thought carefully.
“Then tomorrow you take three again.”
“And if I never walk normally?”
“Then we make the wheelchair faster.”
Dominic stared.
Then laughed.
That evening, he asked her to dinner.
Not upstairs.
Not as an employee.
At the dining table.
Fay wore the nicest dress she owned.
A simple dark blue one.
Dominic wore a black suit.
His wheelchair remained beneath him.
For once, he did not resent it.
Fay sat opposite.
“This is strange.”
“Dinner?”
“Having someone pull out a chair I’m not allowed to clean.”
“You’re no longer cleaning my room.”
Fay blinked.
“Am I fired?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth fell open.
Dominic smiled.
“You are terrible.”
“You climbed out a window during a security lockdown.”
“I saved Mrs. Gable.”
“You disobeyed direct orders.”
“You scream at oatmeal.”
“I’ve improved.”
“Marginally.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“I’m serious.”
Fay’s smile faded.
“I don’t want you working for me.”
“Oh.”
The hurt in her voice struck him.
He continued quickly.
“I want you here because you want to be.”
Fay looked at him.
Not employer.
Not employee.
That distinction mattered.
Dominic reached across the table.
“I can find you work anywhere. Or pay for you to go back to school. Or do absolutely nothing.”
“I’m not taking your money.”
“I expected that response.”
“Then why offer?”
“Because apparently I enjoy losing arguments.”
Fay smiled.
“What do you want?”
Dominic’s expression became serious.
“You.”
Her breath caught.
He continued.
“Not because you helped me. Not because you stayed. Not because you feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
His fingers closed around hers.
“I want the woman who told a mafia boss his tantrums were a vacation.”
Fay laughed.
“That was not my finest professional moment.”
“It was mine.”
“Why?”
“Because it was the first time in six months somebody spoke to me like I was still a man instead of a tragedy.”
Fay’s eyes softened.
Dominic lifted her hand.
“I love you.”
She stopped breathing.
He looked almost annoyed by his own vulnerability.
“I didn’t plan to say it that way.”
“How did you plan it?”
“Better.”
Fay stood.
Walked around the table.
And kissed him.
Dominic froze for half a second.
Then his hand moved to the back of her neck.
The kiss was soft.
Careful.
Everything his reputation was not.
When they separated, Fay whispered:
“I love you too.”
For one moment, the world seemed merciful.
Then Carmine entered.
His expression erased the warmth.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
“The prosecutor called.”
Salvatore DeLuca had agreed to cooperate.
But only if he could speak directly with Dominic.
“Why?”
“He says the ledger contains one final name.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Whose?”
Carmine looked at Fay.
“That’s the problem.”
Fay’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
Carmine placed a document on the table.
The final page of Michael Willis’s ledger.
There were payments.
Dates.
Account numbers.
And at the bottom was a familiar signature.
Mrs. Gable.
Fay stared.
“No.”
Dominic’s expression went cold.
The woman who had managed the Corso estate for twenty-two years.
The woman who had hired Fay.
The woman DeLuca had supposedly kidnapped.
The woman everyone trusted.
Mrs. Gable had been receiving payments connected to Salvatore DeLuca for nearly five years.
And suddenly Dominic realized the kidnapping might never have been a kidnapping at all.
It might have been a performance.
The enemy had not broken into the Corso estate.
May you like
Someone inside had opened the door.
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