Chapter 6 - The Midnight Training
The grandfather clock in the main gallery struck 3:00 AM as the private gymnasium became a battlefield. The room was dark, save for the blue neon lighting along the baseboards and the cold moonlight reflecting off Lake Michigan through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Sebastian stood between the parallel bars, his massive arms supporting seventy percent of his weight, his knuckles white as he forced his mind to communicate with his lower limbs through the newly cleared neural pathways.
"Don't lean forward," I said, my hands placed firmly against his lower core, providing the structural feedback his brain was missing. "Your center of gravity has been shifted for twenty years. You're trying to use your shoulders to lift your hips. Stop. Breathe. Let the pelvic floor engage."
Sebastian let out a low, guttural groan, sweat pouring from his jawline and dripping onto the hardwood floor. "My thighs... they feel like they’re on fire, Clara. It feels like someone is pouring boiling oil down my shins."
"That’s lactic acid and neural reactivation," I said, moving my hands down to his knees, which were trembling violently like reeds in a storm. "Your muscles haven't held weight since you were twenty-two. They’re panicked. Tell them they’re safe. Lock the left quadricep... now!"
With a sharp, gasping breath, Sebastian forced his left leg straight. The muscle fibers beneath his skin bunched together, holding the joint lock for one second... two seconds... three seconds.
For the first time in twenty years, his left foot was flat against the floor, bearing thirty pounds of actual skeletal pressure.
"Now the right," I urged, my voice a fierce, intense whisper in the dark room. "Don't let the hip drop, Sebastian. Remember the jewelry store window. Remember the blast. You survived the metal; you can survive the muscle. Lift it!"
"Ahhhh!" Sebastian roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated primal fury echoing through the rafters as he forced his right knee to straighten.
He was standing.
His arms were still resting on the bars, but his legs were holding the structural frame of his body. He was six feet two inches tall—a height he hadn't occupied since 2006. He looked down at me, his face a mask of sweat, tears, and a triumphant, terrifying joy that made him look like a god carved out of granite.
"I’m standing, Clara," he whispered, his chest heaving. "I’m looking down at the world again."
Suddenly, the glass doors of the gymnasium slid open.
Marco Vance stood in the entrance, flanked by Don Maroni and three of his personal enforcers. They had weapons in their hands, but as they looked at the center of the room—at Sebastian Lombardi standing on his own two feet—the enforcers stopped dead in their tracks, their faces turning instantly pale.
Maroni’s heavy cane slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the floorboards as the old Don stared at the man he had spent the last five years trying to undermine.
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"Sebastian..." Maroni whispered, his voice shaking with a sudden, profound terror that reached all the way to his bones. "You... you're on your feet."
"Joseph," Sebastian said, his voice dropping into that quiet, absolute register that controlled the city. He didn't lean on the bars; he held his head high, looking down at the old man with eyes that promised a reckoning. "I believe our meeting wasn't scheduled until Thursday. But since you're here... let's discuss the North Side docks."
