Chapter 3 - The Shadow Doctor
Marco Rossi stepped into the drawing room with his hand resting near his coat button, his sharp eyes taking in the scene instantly—the maid on her knees, the child with the plastic toy, and Aleandro standing near the window without his dark glasses.
"Boss?" Marco asked, his voice low, his body tense. "Is there a problem?"
Marco had been with Aleandro for twenty years. They had grown up together in the streets of Bensonhurst, fought side by side through the territory wars of the early 2000s, and survived the bloody purges that followed the car bomb. If there was one man in the world Aleandro believed was beyond corruption, it was Marco.
Aleandro did not turn toward Marco’s voice immediately. He stood quietly, listening to the small, steady breathing of the three-year-old girl behind him.
"Marco," Aleandro said quietly. "Call Dr. Vance. Tell him I have developed severe ocular pressure on the left side. Tell him I am experiencing sharp pains and need him to bring his full diagnostic kit here immediately."
Marco paused, his brow furrowing. "Vance? He’s not scheduled to come until next Thursday, Boss. Do you want me to call the transport team to bring him from Manhattan?"
"Tell him to come alone," Aleandro added, his voice dropping an octave. "Tell him it is urgent. Tell him I will double his retainer for the month if he is here before six o'clock."
"Right away, Boss." Marco turned on his heel and left the room, his footsteps receding quickly down the polished corridor.
Elena stood up slowly, keeping Mia pressed tightly against her side. She looked at the tall man standing by the window. Without his dark glasses, his eyes were a startling, icy gray—clear, intense, yet staring fixedly at a point six inches above her shoulder.
"Mr. Moretti," Elena whispered, her voice still trembling slightly. "What is happening? What did Mia see?"
Aleandro walked slowly toward his desk. He did not count his steps this time, but his hand found the smooth edge of the mahogany table with practiced precision. He sat down in the heavy leather chair, resting his elbows on the blotter, joining his long fingers together beneath his chin.
"Five years ago," Aleandro said, speaking to the dark room, "an explosion went off three feet from my car door. My wife died instantly. My daughter survived for three hours in an ICU before her heart failed. When I woke up in the hospital, my eyes were bandaged. When they took the bandages off, there was nothing but shadow."
Elena held her breath. No one in the house ever spoke of the explosion. It was the forbidden topic, the ghost that haunted every quiet corner of the estate.
"Dr. Vance took over my care on the second day," Aleandro continued, his tone flat, emotionless, like a prosecutor reading an indictment. "He was recommended by my late uncle, Dominic. Vance brought in specialists from Germany, from Japan, from Boston. Every single one of them looked into my eyes, looked at the MRI scans Vance provided, and shook their heads. They told me the blast wave had crushed the optic chiasm beyond repair."
He turned his gray eyes toward the sound of Elena’s breathing.
"For five years, Vance has given me two blue capsules every morning and two red capsules every night. He told me they were neuro-protective agents designed to prevent encephalic swelling and manage intraocular pressure. He told me that if I stopped taking them, the pressure would rise and cause a fatal brain aneurysm."
Mia looked up at her mother, then back at Aleandro. "The pills make your eyes sleepy?" she asked in her small, clear voice.
Aleandro’s lips twitched—a fleeting, ghost-like shadow of a smile that disappeared as quickly as it came.
"Yes, little one," Aleandro murmured. "The pills made my eyes sleepy."
He looked toward Elena again. "When Vance arrives, I want you and Mia in the adjoining study behind the mahogany bookcase. There is a two-way mirror hidden behind the portrait of the Venetian fleet. I want you to watch everything he does. Can you do that, Elena?"
Elena looked at her small daughter, then back at the blind ruler of New York’s underworld. She saw a man who had been trapped in a prison made of dark lies for half a decade, betrayed by the very people he paid to protect him.
"I will watch, Mr. Moretti," Elena said firmly. "I won't let her make a sound."
"Good," Aleandro said.
Forty-five minutes later, the gravel driveway outside crunching under heavy tires announced the arrival of Dr. Richard Vance’s Mercedes.
Dr. Vance was a man of fifty-five, silver-haired, impeccably dressed in a tailored tweed coat, carrying a high-end black leather medical bag. He walked into the drawing room with the relaxed, authoritative confidence of a physician who owned the room he entered.
"Aleandro, my dear friend!" Vance said warmly, his rich baritone voice echoing off the high ceilings. "Marco said you were feeling some discomfort? Pains in the left orbit? Let’s have a look right away. We can't be too careful with intraocular pressure."
Aleandro sat in his leather chair, his dark glasses back in place, his hands resting motionless on the mahogany desk.
"Thank you for coming so quickly, Richard," Aleandro said softly. "The pain started an hour ago. A sharp, burning sensation behind the left retina."
"Ah, yes," Vance said smoothly, setting his bag on the desk and unzipping it. "It’s likely a minor vasomotor spasm. Highly common in cases of optic nerve degeneration. I brought a stronger sedative compound to stabilize the neural pathway."
From behind the hidden wall in the study, Elena held her breath, her eyes glued to the two-way mirror. She watched as Dr. Vance pulled a small glass vial and a pre-filled syringe from a padded compartment in his bag.
He did not pull out an ophthalmoscope. He did not pull out a light. He did not even look at Aleandro’s eyes.
Instead, he reached for a small amber bottle filled with the familiar blue capsules Aleandro took every morning. Vance unscrewed the cap, pulled out two pills, and poured a glass of water from the decanter on the desk.
"Here, Aleandro," Vance said, his voice dripping with gentle, professional concern. "Take these now. They will dull the pain and keep the pressure stable. I’ll administer the injection in a moment."
Through the two-way mirror, Elena’s eyes widened in horror. She saw something Vance didn't realize was visible from the side angle: on the underside of his wrist, tucked inside his sleeve, Vance was wearing a small plastic dispenser containing a yellow liquid—the same liquid he was drawing into the syringe.
Elena remembered the medical manual she had studied during her brief training as a nursing assistant years ago.
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Pilocarpine compound combined with heavy cholinesterase inhibitors. A toxic drug that, when administered continuously in small doses, forcibly paralyzes the ciliary muscles and constricts the ciliary arteries, preventing the eye from ever focusing, dilating, or transmitting clear signals to the brain.
It wasn't medicine. It was a chemical blindfold.
