Chapter 6 - The House Where Sebastian Lost Everything
The old Lombardi estate had been empty for sixteen years.
Sebastian's father had built it before the family moved north.
The bombing that shattered Sebastian's spine occurred on the road less than two miles from its gates.
"This is a trap," I said.
"Obviously."
Sebastian checked the pistol Gabriel had placed on the table.
I took it away.
"No."
He stared at me.
"You are not walking into a kidnapping unarmed."
"You're not walking anywhere."
The words came out too quickly.
His face changed.
I closed my eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"No. You're right."
He looked toward the window.
"I can't even stand long enough to reach my mother."
"Standing is not the same as saving someone."
"Tell my ego."
I knelt beside him.
"Your ego has survived worse."
We formed a plan.
Gabriel's men would surround the estate quietly. Police were not an option yet; too many officers had appeared in the blue ledger.
Sebastian insisted on going.
I insisted on going with him.
We compromised by making Gabriel furious.
At midnight, we entered through the old wine cellar.
The house smelled of dust and rain.
Sebastian wheeled himself through halls where he had spent his childhood.
Family portraits still hung beneath white sheets.
In the ballroom, a single lamp had been switched on.
Isabella sat in a chair beneath it.
Alive.
A man stood behind her.
He was in his seventies.
Tall.
Thin.
Silver-haired.
Sebastian stopped.
"Uncle."
Vittorio Lombardi smiled.
"My boy."
The voice carried affection.
That was the most disturbing part.
Sebastian's hands tightened on his wheels.
"Let her go."
Vittorio placed a hand on Isabella's shoulder.
"Your mother was always sentimental."
"Let her go."
"I heard your foot moved."
Sebastian's face became stone.
Vittorio looked at me.
"And you must be the therapist."
I said nothing.
"You changed everything, Claire Bennett."
"Good."
He smiled.
"I see why he likes you."
Sebastian's voice dropped.
"Do not say her name."
Vittorio laughed.
"There he is. The child who thought anger made him powerful."
He moved around Isabella.
"Do you know why your father died?"
Sebastian's breathing changed.
"You killed him."
"Eventually."
Isabella began to cry silently.
Vittorio continued.
"Your father was weak. He wanted to pull the family out of narcotics, extortion, all the profitable things. He wanted clean businesses."
"So you bombed the car."
"I ordered the bomb for him."
Sebastian stared.
"You were not supposed to be there."
The room went still.
Vittorio sighed.
"You changed cars that morning. Your father gave you his seat. A small accident of fate."
Sebastian looked sick.
"The bomb killed him and injured me."
"Yes."
"And then you made sure I stayed injured."
Vittorio's expression hardened.
"I made sure you stayed controllable."
Claire's blood seemed to freeze.
"You were twenty-two. Furious. Half the soldiers wanted you as boss because of your name. If you recovered, you would have hunted me immediately."
Sebastian's voice was flat.
"So you bribed Avery."
"I pressured him."
"You put metal in my spine."
Vittorio looked almost offended.
"That was not my idea. Another surgeon believed irritation would produce enough scarring to limit recovery."
I felt nauseated.
Sebastian stared at his uncle for a long moment.
Then he asked, "Why come back now?"
Vittorio looked at me.
"Because hope makes men unpredictable."
He reached inside his coat.
Gabriel's men moved somewhere in the dark.
A red dot appeared on Vittorio's chest.
Sebastian raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
Vittorio smiled.
"You won't shoot me while I stand beside your mother."
"No."
Sebastian's voice was calm.
"But she will."
Isabella moved faster than anyone expected.
She pulled a small pistol from beneath her blanket and pressed it against Vittorio's ribs.
He froze.
She had been pretending to be more confused than she was.
For years.
"You took my husband," she whispered. "You took my son. You took twenty years."
Vittorio's face changed.
"Isabella."
"Sit down."
He obeyed.
Gabriel stepped from the shadows with four armed men.
Vittorio laughed softly.
"So this is how it ends?"
Sebastian wheeled closer.
"No."
He looked at Gabriel.
"Call the federal contact."
Vittorio's smile disappeared.
"You would hand family to the government?"
Sebastian looked at the blue ledger in Gabriel's hand.
"Blood belongs to blood, remember?"
Vittorio nodded.
Sebastian's eyes turned cold.
"So does consequence."
We thought it was over.
It was not.
As Gabriel secured Vittorio, one of the upstairs windows exploded.
A shot struck Isabella's chair.
Then another.
Vittorio shouted, "Down!"
Not warning us.
Warning himself.
His own men had been ordered to eliminate everyone if he was captured.
Chaos erupted.
I pulled Isabella behind a stone column.
Gabriel returned fire.
Sebastian tried to move toward us.
A bullet hit the floor beside his wheel.
His chair tipped.
He fell.
"Sebastian!"
I crawled toward him.
He was on his side, unable to right himself.
Another shot cracked.
He looked at me.
Then at his mother.
Something changed in his face.
He planted both hands on a marble bench.
I knew what he was doing.
"No!"
He pushed.
His left foot found the floor.
His right knee buckled.
He pushed harder.
For one impossible second, Sebastian Lombardi stood.
Not straight.
Not safely.
But upright.
He reached far enough to grab Isabella's chair and drag it behind the column.
Then his legs collapsed.
I caught his shoulders.
He hit the floor shaking.
"Are you insane?"
He was laughing.
Actually laughing.
"I stood."
"You almost got shot."
"I stood."
I started crying.
He touched my face.
"I told you the first time I stood, Oliver should see."
I slapped his shoulder.
"Then that one doesn't count."
His smile disappeared when he looked toward Vittorio.
During the gunfire, his uncle had been hit.
Not fatally.
A bullet had torn through his shoulder.
Federal agents arrived twenty minutes later.
Gabriel had contacted a prosecutor outside Illinois whose name had been hidden in Sebastian's father's records as one of the few people he trusted.
Vittorio survived.
He was arrested.
And for the first time in twenty years, Sebastian slept knowing the man who destroyed his family could no longer reach him.
But morning brought another problem.
The federal prosecutor opened the blue ledger.
Then she looked at Sebastian.
"If I use this," she said, "it doesn't only destroy Vittorio."
May you like
Sebastian understood.
"It destroys me too."
