Chapter 4 - The First Touch
The private therapy room on the second floor of the mansion was reinforced with soundproof walls and heavy black curtains.
Sebastian sat on the edge of the cushioned treatment table, stripped to the waist. His upper body was massive, covered in dense muscle built from years of relentless upper-body training to compensate for his useless legs. But across his lower back lay a thick, jagged scar—a stark, angry reminder of the bullet that had shattered his life twenty years ago.
I stood behind him, spreading warm medical-grade oil over my hands.
"You saw Vance's reaction at breakfast," Sebastian said quietly, his gaze fixed on the wall mirror across the room.
"He panicked when you asked for the original 2006 records," I confirmed, stepping closer. "He tried to hide it, but his peripheral nervous system gave him away. He’s hiding something about your initial surgery."
"Harrison Vance was my father's personal physician," Sebastian rasped, his hands gripping the edges of the padded table. "When I was shot during the turf war with the Moretti family, Vance was the lead surgeon who operated on me at St. Jude's Private Hospital. He was the one who came out of the operating room and told my father I would never walk again."
"If Vance deliberately left that bone spur compressing your nerve bundle," I murmured, placing my hands gently against the scar tissue, "he didn't just fail as a doctor. He executed a silent, lifelong crippling of the Lombardi syndicate's boss."
Sebastian let out a low, guttural breath as my fingers dug deep into the rigid, calcified muscle surrounding his L4 vertebra.
"Ah!" Sebastian gasped, his back arching slightly, his hands gripping the metal frame of the table until the steel groaned.
"Hold steady," I instructed, keeping my voice firm and authoritative. "I'm applying deep transverse friction to the adhesions. For twenty years, your body built thick collagen walls around that trapped nerve bundle. It’s going to feel like fire before it feels like freedom."
"Do it," Sebastian growled through gritted teeth, sweat breaking out across his forehead. "I've endured twenty years of psychological hell, Clare. Physical pain is nothing."
I worked in silence for forty minutes. My forearms ached, my thumbs throbbed, but I refused to slow down. I moved millimeter by millimeter, breaking down the stubborn, hardened tissue, coaxing blood flow back into areas that had been starved of circulation for two decades.
Suddenly, as I drove my thumb deep into a trigger point near his left hip joint, Sebastian’s left leg jerked sharply forward.
His foot kicked out three inches, hitting the wooden leg of the treatment table with a clear thud.
The room went completely, terrifyingly silent.
I froze. Sebastian froze.
He slowly turned his head around, staring down at his left foot.
His breathing was ragged, heavy, his grey eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated shock.
"My leg..." Sebastian whispered, his voice shaking—a sound I had never heard from him before. "My foot hit the table."
"It was an involuntary motor reflex," I whispered, tears of validation stinging the backs of my eyes. "The nerve path is open, Sebastian! The signal got through!"
Sebastian reached down, his large hand trembling violently as he touched his left thigh.
He didn't speak. He couldn't. For the first time in twenty years, the mighty, terrifying crime boss of Chicago sat on a treatment table with tears glistening in his eyes, staring at a leg that had just answered his command.
He turned to look at me. Before I could step back, he reached out, his powerful arm wrapping around my waist, pulling me firmly against his bare chest.
"Clare," Sebastian rasped, his forehead resting against mine, his hot breath brushing my lips. "You really are a miracle."
My heart hammered wildly against my ribs—not from fear this time, but from an overwhelming, intoxicating surge of intimacy that made my entire body flush warm.
Before either of us could say another word, the heavy wooden door of the therapy room was violently kicked open.
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Gabriel stood in the doorway, his face pale, holding a smoking digital tablet in his hand.
"Boss!" Gabriel yelled urgently. "Dr. Vance’s private car just left the estate grounds! And he wiped the central server's medical database before he cleared the gate!"
