Chapter 8 - What the New Scan Revealed
Sebastian did not go alone.
He took Clare.
“Vale said alone,” Adrian reminded him.
“Clare is medical.”
“That isn’t what alone means.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“It does today.”
They traveled in an unmarked SUV to a small town in Wisconsin.
Thomas Vale lived in a weathered house near a frozen lake.
He was seventy-two.
Thin.
White-haired.
And visibly terrified when Sebastian entered.
For several seconds the old doctor simply stared at the wheelchair.
“My God.”
Sebastian said, “You’ve had twenty years to say that.”
Vale looked at Clare.
“Who is she?”
“The reason my leg moved yesterday.”
Vale sat down hard.
“It moved?”
“Yes.”
His hands began shaking.
Clare crouched across from him.
“What did you put beneath his scar?”
Vale closed his eyes.
“I didn’t put it there.”
“But you know what it is.”
“Yes.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“Tell me.”
Vale took a long breath.
“You were injured in the crash, but your spinal cord was not severed.”
Sebastian said nothing.
“You had swelling. Nerve compression. We expected months of rehabilitation.”
Clare’s suspicion became certainty.
“Then there was a second surgery.”
Vale nodded.
“Two nights later.”
“Why?”
“Dr. Bell received instructions.”
“From whom?”
Vale looked toward Sebastian.
“Your family.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“What instructions?”
Vale swallowed.
“To make sure you never regained lower-body function.”
The room went silent.
Clare felt sick.
“How?”
“A specialized compression device was positioned near damaged nerve structures. Small enough to be missed if doctors relied on altered scans.”
Sebastian stared at him.
“You intentionally paralyzed me.”
“I tried to stop it.”
“You were in the room.”
“Yes.”
“You let them do it.”
Vale’s eyes filled with shame.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They had my daughter.”
Sebastian froze.
Vale continued.
“They told me the procedure would happen with or without me. If I interfered, my family would pay.”
Clare asked, “Could it be reversed?”
Vale looked at Sebastian’s legs.
“Possibly.”
The word seemed enormous.
Sebastian’s breathing changed.
“Possibly?”
“You would need new imaging.”
Clare said, “Already arranged.”
They returned to Chicago before dawn.
At an independent imaging center, Sebastian underwent a full spinal scan under a false name.
The radiologist called Clare into the reading room.
She saw it immediately.
A small metallic structure.
Buried near old surgical changes.
Placed in a way that served no legitimate therapeutic purpose.
The radiologist frowned.
“I’ve never seen anything positioned like this.”
“Could it interfere with nerve function?”
“Yes.”
“After twenty years?”
“Potentially.”
“Could removing it help?”
The radiologist leaned closer.
“I would need a neurosurgeon to answer that.”
Sebastian waited outside.
Clare carried the images to him.
He searched her face.
“Well?”
She sat beside him.
“It’s real.”
His eyes closed.
For twenty years he had believed his body had betrayed him.
Now he knew a person had.
“Can it be removed?”
“Maybe.”
“Could I walk?”
“I don’t know.”
He opened his eyes.
For once Sebastian Lombardi looked less like Chicago’s feared crime boss and more like a man afraid to hope.
Clare touched his hand.
“Don’t ask me for promises I can’t make.”
He looked at her fingers on his.
“I stopped asking for promises twenty years ago.”
“Then ask for a chance.”
Before he could answer, Adrian entered quickly.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Vittorio is gone.”
Sebastian’s eyes hardened.
“How?”
“Someone disabled the west gate.”
“Carlo?”
“No.”
Adrian placed a phone on the table.
Security footage showed the person who had opened the gate.
Sofia.
Sebastian’s own sister.
May you like
And she had left the mansion in the same car as Vittorio.
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