Chapter 3 - “What?”
“No.”
“Higher salary.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t get to create a title because you want me nearby.”
The sentence hit too accurately.
Mrs. Gable quietly disappeared.
Coward.
“What would you accept?”
Fay thought.
“Household care liaison.”
“That sounds invented.”
“It is.”
“What does it do?”
“I coordinate your therapy appointments, equipment, medication delivery, and household accessibility work.”
“You already do.”
“Yes.”
“So take the salary.”
“Written duties.”
“Fine.”
“Forty hours.”
“Fine.”
“Overtime paid.”
“Fine.”
“No being available at midnight because you’re angry.”
I frowned.
“What if I need something?”
“Then overnight nursing staff handles medical needs.”
“I don’t need overnight nursing.”
“Then you don’t need me either.”
Point.
“Fine.”
“And I remain allowed to say no.”
“You enjoy that.”
“Yes.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Done.”
Fay nodded.
“Then yes.”
That was the first negotiation I lost and enjoyed.
Disturbing.
Two months after Fay arrived, I stood for the first time.
Not alone.
Not gracefully.
Not really.
Parallel bars.
Braces.
Harness.
Leah on one side.
Ben on the other.
Fay several feet away.
Dr. Bennett watching.
My arms did most of the work.
My legs trembled.
Right side engaged weakly.
Left barely.
Still.
For nineteen seconds, I was upright.
The world looked different from standing height.
That almost destroyed me.
I had forgotten.
Not literally.
Emotionally.
The angle of the room.
Where people’s eyes were.
The way a window looked when your face reached it naturally rather than from a chair.
I lasted nineteen seconds.
Then sat.
Nobody cheered.
Thank God.
I would have fired all of them.
Fay had tears in her eyes.
I pointed.
“Don’t.”
She wiped them.
“Allergies.”
“In February?”
“Severe.”
Leah laughed.
I looked down at my legs.
“Again.”
Dr. Bennett said:
“Rest.”
I almost argued.
Then stopped.
Growth.
“Fine.”
Fay smiled.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Look proud.”
“I am proud.”
That hit harder than applause.
I looked away.
That evening, Carmine brought me business reports.
I had kept working throughout recovery.
Less publicly.
More from home.
People assumed paralysis had weakened my control over the organization.
Some tried testing it.
Carmine handled most of that.
I delegated more than before.
Not because I had become enlightened.
Because I had no choice.
Then I discovered something irritating.
Some people were better at their jobs when I stopped standing over them.
Carmine especially enjoyed reminding me.
He placed a folder on the desk.
“Port contracts.”
“Anything?”
“Normal.”
“Nothing is normal.”
“This is.”
I opened.
Numbers.
Routes.
Schedules.
Then a name caught my eye.
Rinaldi Freight Services.
My jaw tightened.
Rinaldi had been involved in the route I drove the night of the attack.
Not directly.
A subcontractor.
“Why are they still working with us?”
Carmine went quiet.
“Old contract.”
“End it.”
“No.”
I looked up.
Carmine rarely said no.
Interesting.
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to investigate before making changes.”
“Six months ago.”
“And I did.”
He sat.
“The attack wasn’t Rinaldi.”
I stared.
“What?”
“You were convinced.”
“I had reason.”
“They had motive.”
“Yes.”
“Not evidence.”
“What did you find?”
Carmine placed another folder.
Traffic cameras.
Vehicle records.
Security logs.
Phone metadata.
Nothing sensational.
No secret assassin confession.
Just patterns.
The car that followed mine before the crash belonged to a security contractor hired by one of our own companies.
My own.
I stared.
“Who authorized it?”
“Deputy operations.”
“Name.”
“Matteo Verdi.”
I knew Matteo.
Thirty years old.
Ambitious.
My late uncle’s godson.
I had promoted him two years earlier.
“Why?”
Carmine shook his head.
“Still investigating.”
“Bring him here.”
“No.”
My voice hardened.
“Carmine.”
“You’re not handling this from anger.”
I stared.
“Excuse me?”
“You told me to stop people from letting you make stupid decisions while recovering.”
“I did not.”
“You said, quote, ‘If I start acting like pain medication gives me strategic insight, ignore me.’”
I remembered.
Unfortunately.
“This is different.”
“Is it?”
I looked toward the hallway.
Fay stood there.
Of course.
“How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough.”
“Leave.”
She did.
No argument.
That was worse.
Carmine said:
“Police already have what we found.”
I looked back.
“You went to police?”
“Yes.”
Without permission.
Old Dominic would have exploded.
New Dominic came close.
Then:
“Why?”
“Because your accident involved a public road and attempted homicide investigation.”
Attempted homicide.
The phrase still felt unreal.
“You thought keeping it internal was safer.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t.”
No.
Maybe not.
“What did Matteo do?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why show me?”
“Because investigators want to interview you again.”
My chest tightened.
“About?”
“The week before.”
I remembered little.
Business.
Meetings.
Threats.
Normal.
Then something surfaced.
Accounts.
A discrepancy.
I had asked Matteo about a missing reserve account.
He said it was clerical.
I told him to fix it.
“What reserve?”
Carmine’s face changed.
“There.”
“What?”
“You remember.”
“Something.”
“How much?”
I closed my eyes.
“Eight million.”
Carmine swore quietly.
“What?”
“We found irregular transfers totaling 7.8.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“Development accounts.”
“Beneficiary?”
“Shell vendors.”
Old anger returned.
Clean.
Familiar.
Almost comforting.
Money theft.
Betrayal.
Things I understood.
“Matteo.”
“Maybe.”
“Who else had access?”
“Three people.”
“Names.”
Carmine listed them.
Matteo.
CFO Leonard Shaw.
My cousin Serena.
My jaw tightened.
Family.
Of course.
The attack might not have been about rival syndicates.
Maybe it was about accounting.
That was almost insulting.
Police interviewed me two days later.
Detective Ana Ruiz.
Sharp.
Unimpressed.
I liked her.
She asked about the missing funds.
I answered.
She asked whether I threatened Matteo.
“No.”
Carmine coughed.
I glared.
Ruiz raised an eyebrow.
“Mr. Corso.”
“I told him if the discrepancy wasn’t fixed, I’d remove him.”
“From the company?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did he interpret it differently?”
I thought.
In my world, ambiguity was dangerous.
Maybe my reputation supplied threats I never spoke.
“I don’t know.”
Ruiz wrote.
Then:
“Were you driving alone the night of the crash?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed space.”
Carmine looked surprised.
I had never told him.
“From?”
I looked toward the window.
“My house.”
Ruiz waited.
This was not enough.
“Everyone.”
There.
The truth.
Before the attack, I had already been suffocating.
Power had become maintenance.
Every call.
Every problem.
Every loyalty.
I drove because driving was the only time nobody could ask me for anything.
Ruiz said:
“You changed your usual route.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I saw a vehicle behind me.”
“Did you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Did it make contact?”
Memory flashed.
Headlights.
Rain.
A curve.
Pressure from the rear?
Maybe.
I grabbed the armrest.
Fay, seated near the door because I had asked her to stay, noticed.
“Stop.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“Need a break?”
“No.”
Fay said:
“Yes.”
I almost snapped.
Then breathed.
“Five minutes.”
Progress.
The investigation continued.
I continued therapy.
One did not pause for the other.
That mattered.
Old Dominic would have stopped everything until the threat was handled.
Now Leah still arrived at nine.
Detective reports could wait until eleven.
Bodies do not care about conspiracies.
At three months with Fay, I took my first assisted step.
Right leg.
Brace.
Parallel bars.
Mostly upper body.
Still.
Step.
One.
Then another.
I cried afterward.
Not publicly.
I waited until everyone left.
Almost everyone.
Fay stayed.
Of course.
She pretended to organize towels.
“You can go.”
“I know.”
“Then go.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“I don’t want you seeing this.”
“Too late.”
My face tightened.
“I hate this.”
“The walking?”
“The hope.”
She sat in the chair opposite.
I stared.
“I know.”
“No.”
I looked down at my legs.
“Before, the doctors said likely wheelchair permanently.”
“Yes.”
“I adapted.”
“Badly.”
“Still.”
I almost smiled.
“Now every movement makes me think maybe.”
Fay stayed quiet.
“And if maybe becomes no…”
There.
Fear.
No power.
No threat.
Just fear.
“I don’t know if I can lose walking twice.”
Fay’s eyes filled.
She understood.
Because of Eli.
She said:
“Then don’t make walking the only definition of recovery.”
I almost laughed bitterly.
“That’s easy from your chair.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“It’s not.”
I looked at her.
“My brother walked with braces.”
“Yes.”
“He still thought his life was over.”
I went still.
“What?”
“He got movement back.”
She swallowed.
“But he never got back the life he thought he deserved.”
I listened.
“He spent years measuring every good day against who he had been before.”
That hit.
“So even when he improved, he felt behind.”
Fay’s voice broke.
“I wish someone had convinced him that becoming different was not the same as becoming less.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m trying to convince you.”
My throat tightened.
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because I think you might listen eventually.”
That was not an answer.
It was enough.
By month four, I could stand for ninety seconds with support.
Walk eight assisted steps.
Transfer more independently.
Use the wheelchair with less rage.
That last improvement might have been the largest.
Fay noticed.
“You stopped calling it that thing.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The chair.”
“I have always called it wheelchair.”
“No.”
“You called it prison chair.”
I looked away.
“That was private.”
“You said it constantly.”
“Still.”
She smiled.
“Now you call it chair.”
May you like
“So?”
“So nothing.”
