Chapter 3 - The Gathering in the Dark
The lakehouse looked different at midnight.
The warmth of the fire had been replaced by the sterile, clinical glow of overhead LED panels that Gabriel had ordered turned on in the grand library. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with first editions and ledgers of an empire built on blood, concrete, and fear.
Oliver was safe. I had left him with Mrs. Gable, our elderly downstairs neighbor who loved him like a grandson, backed by two of Sebastian’s armed guards stationed quietly outside her door. I couldn't say no to Sebastian’s summons. When a man like that tells you to move, you move.
I stood near the mahogany desk, wearing the same scrubs, my hands folded tightly in front of me.
Sebastian sat in his titanium wheelchair at the center of the room. He wasn't looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the heavy double doors leading to the foyer.
Behind him stood Gabriel and six other men, their hands resting casually on their weapons. The tension in the room was so thick you could slice it with a scalpel.
The heavy oak doors swung open.
Dr. Marcus Vance walked in.
He was in his late fifties now, with silver-streaked hair, rimless glasses, and a tailored gray suit that screamed old money and expensive tastes. He carried a sleek aluminum medical case. Behind him stood two private security guards in plain black suits—men who didn't look like Chicago mobsters, but corporate mercenaries.
“Sebastian,” Vance said, his voice smooth, dripping with the practiced bedside manner of a surgeon who had delivered bad news to billionaires a thousand times. “Gabriel said it was an emergency. I was reviewing clinical trials at the lab, but if your chronic phantom pains are acting up again—”
“Shut the door, Gabriel,” Sebastian interrupted. His voice was terrifyingly calm.
Gabriel kicked the heavy oak door shut with a loud, echoing thud.
Vance blinked, finally noticing me standing by the desk. A slight, imperceptible flicker of confusion crossed his face before he masked it with a professional smile. “Ah. A new physical therapist? I told you years ago, Sebastian, massage therapy and alternative manipulation cannot reverse scar tissue on a T12 transection. It’s medically impossible.”
Sebastian slowly wheeled himself forward, the electric motor humming quietly in the dead silence.
“Is it, Marcus?” Sebastian asked.
“Of course it is. We reviewed your scans together. Multiple times over the last two decades. You know the anatomy as well as I do.”
“I do,” Sebastian agreed, stopping his chair two feet away from the surgeon. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “And that’s why I’m wondering why, twenty years ago, you told me my spine was severed when, according to the physical evidence I just discovered tonight... my spinal cord is entirely intact.”
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The color drained from Dr. Marcus Vance’s face so fast it looked like someone had pulled a plug in his veins.
The pristine, confident surgeon vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by a cornered animal staring down the barrel of a gun.
