Chapter 4 - They Took My Son
There is a sound a mother makes when she realizes her child is missing.
It isn't a scream.
Not really.
It's something older.
Something pulled from a place beneath language.
I heard that sound inside the mansion that night.
Then I realized it was coming from me.
“Oliver!”
I ran toward the broken window.
A rope hung over the balcony railing.
Gabriel reached me seconds later.
He looked once and understood.
“North grounds!” he shouted into his radio. “Seal everything!”
Sebastian appeared in the doorway.
His face was white.
“Where is he?”
I turned on him.
“You promised he was safe!”
The words tore out of me.
“You promised!”
Sebastian flinched.
Not visibly to anyone who didn't know him.
I knew him.
“Clare—”
I hit his chest.
Gabriel moved forward.
Sebastian raised a hand.
“No.”
I hit him again.
“You brought us here!”
“I know.”
“If anything happens to him—”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
That stopped me.
Sebastian Lombardi, the man everyone feared, looked terrified.
Not for himself.
For Oliver.
He took my wrist gently.
“I will bring him back.”
“How?”
His eyes hardened.
“By becoming exactly what everyone thinks I am.”
Within minutes, the mansion transformed.
Phones rang.
Cars left.
Men appeared from rooms I didn't know existed.
Screens filled with security footage, traffic cameras, street maps, vehicle registrations.
I sat in Sebastian's office shaking.
Gabriel found the first clue.
A delivery van had exited through a service road during the blackout.
One guard was unconscious.
Another was missing.
“Inside help,” Gabriel said.
Sebastian's jaw clenched.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
I answered.
“Hello?”
“Mom?”
“Oliver!”
His voice was small.
Terrified.
“Mom, I'm okay.”
I started crying.
“Baby, where are you?”
A man took the phone.
Dominic.
“Good evening, Clare.”
Sebastian's face became ice.
“Give him back.”
“I would love to.”
“You don't need him.”
“No. I need you.”
Dominic's tone remained almost friendly.
“Treatment stops tonight.”
I stared at Sebastian.
Dominic continued.
“No more therapy. No more Dr. Han. No more experiments.”
“Let Oliver go.”
“When Sebastian signs certain documents.”
Sebastian held out his hand.
I passed him the phone.
“Dominic.”
“Cousin.”
“If the boy is harmed—”
“Threats are tedious.”
Sebastian's voice dropped.
“I will erase everything you've ever loved.”
“You have to stand first.”
Silence.
Dominic laughed.
Then the call ended.
Sebastian hurled the phone across the room.
It shattered against the wall.
I covered my face.
“This is because of the therapy.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop it.”
Sebastian stared.
“What?”
“I don't care if you walk.”
The words hurt me, but I meant them.
“I don't care about your empire. I don't care about your family money. I want my son.”
He moved closer.
“So do I.”
“No, you don't understand.”
“I understand more than you think.”
I looked at him.
His voice became quiet.
“When I was twenty-two, there was a woman.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Her name was Elena.”
I had never heard him speak about his past.
“She was pregnant.”
My anger disappeared for one stunned second.
“Sebastian…”
“We were driving to tell my father.”
His eyes shifted toward the windows.
“The explosion that injured me killed her.”
My hand covered my mouth.
“And the baby?”
“Eight months.”
I couldn't breathe.
He continued.
“I woke after surgery and learned I had lost my legs, Elena, and my son on the same night.”
For twenty years, I suddenly understood.
The empty eyes.
The hatred of hope.
The distance.
Oliver hadn't merely made Sebastian softer.
Oliver had reminded him of someone he never got to meet.
Sebastian looked at me.
“I know exactly what it is to imagine your child dying somewhere you can't reach him.”
His hand gripped the wheelchair.
“And I will not let it happen to you.”
Gabriel entered.
“We found something.”
Traffic footage placed the van near an abandoned garment factory west of the river.
Sebastian ordered twenty men ready.
I stood.
“I'm coming.”
“No.”
“He's my son.”
“And you're not trained for this.”
“You think I'm sitting here?”
Sebastian stared at me.
Then nodded once.
“You stay with me.”
The factory was dark when we arrived.
Police weren't called.
I hated that.
But Sebastian said Dominic had officers on payroll and any radio traffic could get Oliver killed.
Gabriel's team entered from three sides.
Sebastian and I waited in an armored vehicle.
Minutes stretched into centuries.
Then gunshots erupted.
I tried to open the door.
Sebastian grabbed me.
“No.”
“Oliver is in there!”
“Gabriel will get him.”
Another shot.
Then another.
Radio static.
“Second floor clear.”
“Movement west corridor.”
“Two down.”
My heart nearly stopped.
Then—
“We have the boy.”
I collapsed.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Gabriel emerged carrying Oliver.
I ran.
Oliver hit me so hard we both fell to our knees.
“Mom!”
I kissed his face.
His hair.
His hands.
Everything.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
He cried against me.
Sebastian remained several feet away.
Oliver looked over my shoulder.
“Mr. Lombardi.”
Sebastian approached.
Oliver stood and hugged him.
Sebastian's eyes closed.
His hand pressed against the back of Oliver's head.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
Oliver shook his head.
“You came.”
Three hours later, the doctor confirmed Oliver was unharmed.
Dominic had escaped.
Again.
But one of his men had been captured.
And what he revealed was worse than anything we'd imagined.
Dominic wasn't simply trying to preserve power.
The conspiracy went back twenty years.
Sebastian's original injury had been severe—but not hopeless.
One surgeon believed substantial recovery was possible.
He disappeared from the case.
Another doctor took over.
Records were altered.
Rehabilitation was deliberately shortened.
Medications that suppressed nerve activity had been continued far longer than medically necessary.
Sebastian stared at the documents Gabriel placed before him.
“My own family did this.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
“Why?”
“Control.”
Sebastian's father had intended to hand major portions of the organization to Sebastian.
After the injury, authority shifted temporarily to his uncle.
Then to Dominic.
Sebastian eventually reclaimed the criminal empire through sheer force of personality, but several legitimate trusts and international assets remained under family administration because he had been legally classified as permanently incapacitated in specific areas.
If he regained significant mobility, the agreements changed.
Billions were involved.
But money wasn't what destroyed him.
It was the knowledge that someone might have stolen twenty years of his life.
He stopped therapy.
For five days, he refused.
He drank again.
Closed his doors.
Wouldn't see me.
On the sixth day, I entered anyway.
He sat in darkness.
“Get out.”
“No.”
“I pay you.”
“Not anymore.”
That made him look at me.
“I quit.”
His expression remained empty.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you made me a promise.”
“What promise?”
“That you would bring Oliver home.”
“I did.”
“And now I'm making you one.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You don't have anything I want.”
“Yes, I do.”
I walked toward the parallel bars.
“A future.”
His face hardened.
“They stole twenty years.”
“So you're giving them the rest?”
Silence.
“They lied to you,” I said. “They manipulated you. They buried your recovery because they were afraid of who you might become.”
I held out my hand.
“So become him.”
His eyes moved toward my hand.
For a long time, he didn't move.
Then Sebastian wheeled forward.
He placed his hand in mine.
And training began again.
Harder.
Fiercer.
More painful.
Three months later, Sebastian stood between the parallel bars without anyone holding his torso.
Ten seconds.
Then fifteen.
Then thirty.
His legs shook violently.
Oliver counted loudly.
“Twenty-eight! Twenty-nine! Thirty!”
Sebastian collapsed into the wheelchair.
Oliver cheered.
I laughed through tears.
Sebastian looked at me.
Something passed between us.
Something neither of us could ignore anymore.
That night, he found me alone on the balcony.
“Clare.”
I turned.
He stopped beside me.
“You saved something in me.”
“I moved some muscles.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“More than that.”
He reached up and touched my cheek.
I should have stepped away.
I didn't.
He kissed me.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Nothing like the dangerous man everyone described.
When we separated, I was trembling.
“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“You're my patient.”
“Fire yourself.”
“You're impossible.”
“I've heard that.”
I smiled.
Then the mansion alarm sounded.
Gabriel ran onto the balcony.
“Boss.”
Sebastian turned.
“What?”
Gabriel's expression was grim.
“We found Dominic.”
“Where?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“At your mother's cemetery.”
May you like
Sebastian went completely still.
“And he's waiting for you.”
