Chapter 2 - The Contract of the Damned
The silence that followed was heavier than the darkness outside. Sebastian stared at his leg, his chest heaving, his powerful chest covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Gabriel remained frozen midway across the room, his gun half-drawn, his eyes darting between his boss and me like he was waiting for a command to execute us both.
"Did you..." Sebastian’s voice was barely a whisper, a stark contrast to his earlier arrogance. He reached down, his massive hand trembling as he touched his own thigh. "I felt that."
"It was a micro-release," I said, leaning back and wiping my hands with a small towel from my bag. My own heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "The scar tissue is compressing the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. When I released the pressure on the T12 facet joint, the nerve fired. It's a primitive response, but it proves the neural pathway is still intact. The wire is bruised, Mr. Lombardi, but it isn't cut."
Sebastian slowly pulled his shirt back over his head, his movements uncharacteristically sluggish, as if his brain was struggling to process the sensory overload. He looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time. He didn't see a fraud anymore. He saw a key to a door he had thought locked forever.
"Who taught you to do that?" he demanded.
"No one," I said, packing myPeppermint oil back into my bag. "I studied anatomy at Northwestern, but the rest... it’s just how I see. I feel the restriction, and I release it. But what you just felt isn't a cure. It's a whisper. To get you standing, let alone walking, would require months of intense, agonizing therapy. We would have to break down twenty years of calcified scar tissue, rebuild your wasted core, and retrain your brain to speak to your limbs. The pain would be extraordinary."
Sebastian let out a low, dark laugh that made my skin crawl. "I survived a bullet to the spine and a three-way turf war that left half of the West Side in ashes, Ms. Bennett. Pain is an old friend. I don't fear pain. I fear helplessness."
He nodded to Gabriel. The giant underboss immediately relaxed his posture, stepping back and reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out a checkbook and a sleek black fountain pen, placing them on the small table beside Sebastian’s chair.
"Your clinic," Sebastian said, his eyes locked on mine. "The rundown little box on 26th Street. It belongs to a man named Viktor Radic. He’s a small-time loan shark who uses the wellness center to wash his dirty cash. As of five minutes ago, he no longer owns that building. I do."
My jaw tightened. "I don't want a clinic, Mr. Lombardi. I want to pay my bills and keep my son alive."
"You will have both," Sebastian said. He took the pen and wrote a number on a slip of paper with a quick, decisive stroke. He slid it across the table.
It was a contract. Fifty thousand dollars a week, deposited into a secure offshore trust account that my ex-husband’s lawyers could never touch. In return, I was to be his exclusive physical therapist. I would treat him three times a week at this estate.
But there was a catch.
"You belong to me now, Clare," Sebastian said, his tone turning possessive, almost territorial. "You do not treat anyone else. You do not speak of what happens in this room to anyone, including your son. And if I find out you have shared even a whisper of my condition with the outside world... well, Gabriel told you the consequences. I am a man of my word."
I looked at the number on the paper. It was enough to buy Oliver the best specialized doctors in the country. It was enough to buy us a house away from the smog and the noise of the city. It was safety, wrapped in a gilded cage.
"My son has severe asthma," I said, my voice trembling. "He needs a clean environment. If I work for you, I need a guarantee that my home is secure. No guards near him, but I want a security system. A real one."
May you like
"Done," Sebastian said. "Gabriel will handle the arrangements. Your first session starts tomorrow morning at eight. Do not be late."
As Gabriel stepped forward to blindfold me once more for the journey back to my apartment, I looked at Sebastian one last time. He had returned to his crystal glass, swirling the amber liquor, his eyes fixed on his quiet, useless legs. He looked like a god planning a war—and I had just handed him his weapons.
