THE MAFIA BOSS HADN'T WALKED IN EIGHT YEARS

The plan changed after Judge Rebecca Lane agreed to meet.

Until then, Dante had been thinking like a Moretti.

Find the traitor.

Corner the traitor.

Punish the traitor.

Rebecca Lane forced him to think like a witness.

“Your brother expects violence,” she told him in a private conference room at Eleanor Shaw's downtown office. “So does Carlo, if he is alive. Violence is the environment they understand best. If you want to destroy what they built, do not give them the world they know how to survive.”

Dante stared at her.

“What do you suggest?”

“Evidence.”

He almost smiled.

She did not.

“Clean evidence. Documented chain of custody. Financial records. Medical records. Witnesses who remain alive long enough to testify.”

Her gaze moved to Emily.

“Your husband tried to do that alone. We will not repeat his mistake.”

Emily nodded.

Lane had known Michael for only forty-eight hours before he died. He had contacted her through an anonymous tip line, met her once at a diner, and promised to return with originals.

He never made the second meeting.

Lane had tried to investigate, but the evidence she received was too incomplete to establish a prosecutable chain.

Then two witnesses vanished.

Her supervisors closed the matter.

She had never forgotten.

Now, with Reed alive, the syringe preserved, the financial trail emerging, and Victor recorded making threatening statements, the case had teeth.

What it still lacked was Carlo.

Dante volunteered to become bait.

Emily hated the idea.

“No.”

They argued in the rehabilitation room at the lake house while Dr. Chen adjusted parallel bars around him.

Dante had spent the morning learning how to activate muscles that trembled from years of disuse. Sweat darkened the collar of his gray T-shirt.

“I wasn't asking permission,” he said.

Emily folded her arms.

“That sentence may work on armed men. It does not work on me.”

Dr. Chen looked between them.

“Should I leave?”

“No,” both said.

Emily pointed at Dante.

“You can barely stand with two therapists and a harness.”

“I can stand.”

“You can almost stand.”

His eyes narrowed.

Emily refused to be intimidated.

“If Victor learns you're recovering, he panics. If Carlo learns, he acts. You want both. Fine. But you are not rolling into some warehouse alone because your ego finally found something more dangerous than paralysis.”

Dante's mouth twitched.

“My ego survived paralysis quite well.”

“That is not the defense you think it is.”

Dr. Chen covered a laugh with a cough.

Dante glared at her.

She raised both hands. “I'm neutral.”

Emily stepped closer.

“Michael tried to do everything alone because he thought involving me would protect me. It didn't. It left me ignorant and unprepared. If we're doing this, we do it together.”

Dante's expression changed.

Not softened.

Deepened.

He had spent his life around people who followed because they feared him, needed him, or wanted something from him.

Emily argued because she cared whether he lived.

He was still learning what to do with that.

“Together,” he said finally.

“Good.”

“Now stop distracting me.”

“I was not distracting you.”

“You are standing three feet away telling me my ego is dangerous.”

“Because it is.”

“Emily.”

“Dante.”

Dr. Chen clapped her hands.

“Excellent. Save the flirting for when his blood pressure isn't attached to my equipment.”

Both turned toward her.

“We are not flirting,” Emily said.

Dante said nothing.

That was worse.

Dr. Chen clipped the support harness around his waist.

“Hands on the bars.”

Dante obeyed.

His palms pressed against cold steel.

“Feet planted.”

He looked down.

His legs appeared thinner than the ones he remembered before the crash.

Weak.

Unfamiliar.

But his.

“On three,” Dr. Chen said. “One. Two. Three.”

Dante pushed.

Nothing happened.

His arms locked.

His thighs trembled.

His body rose perhaps an inch before collapsing back into the chair.

Rage flashed across his face.

Again.

He failed.

Again.

His knees buckled before they straightened.

On the fourth attempt, he shoved the bars away.

“Enough.”

Dr. Chen remained calm.

“That is not failure.”

“I know what failure feels like.”

“No. You know what being lied to feels like. Different thing.”

He looked at her.

She tapped his leg.

“These muscles have been underused for eight years while someone may have been chemically suppressing your function. You don't get to insult them because they didn't obey you in twelve minutes.”

Emily crossed her arms.

“I like her.”

Dante muttered something obscene.

They tried again.

The fifth attempt lasted two seconds.

The sixth, five.

Then Dante dropped heavily back into the chair, chest heaving.

Emily crouched beside him.

“You felt it.”

He did not answer.

She saw the answer anyway.

After an hour of rest, Dr. Chen allowed one final set of exercises before ending the session.

She placed her fingers along Dante's thigh and asked him to contract the muscle without trying to stand.

At first nothing happened.

Then a faint tightening appeared beneath her hand.

“There,” she said.

Dante looked down. “I can't see it.”

“I can feel it.”

Emily leaned closer.

“Again.”

Dante focused until his jaw hurt.

The muscle tightened.

Small.

Real.

Dr. Chen marked the result in her notes.

“Your body is not starting from zero,” she said. “It is starting from years of suppressed use. That is different.”

Dante leaned back, exhausted.

“Why does everything useful you say sound like an insult?”

“Because you only listen when annoyed.”

Emily laughed.

The rehabilitation plan became brutally simple.

Morning activation exercises.

Afternoon supported weight-bearing.

Electrical stimulation under medical supervision.

Core work.

Balance training.

Rest, which Dante considered a personal attack.

Food, which he considered unnecessary whenever he was frustrated.

Emily corrected both problems.

She left protein shakes on his desk and removed files from his lap when therapy time started.

“You are enjoying this authority,” he told her.

“Immensely.”

“You know I can fire you.”

“Then who will stop you from trying to stand at three in the morning?”

Dante said nothing.

Emily narrowed her eyes.

“You tried that?”

“No.”

“You hesitated.”

“I was offended by the accusation.”

“You absolutely tried it.”

Gabriel walked past the doorway and said, “He did.”

Dante turned. “Traitor.”

Gabriel kept walking.

The humor helped, but some nights Dante woke furious.

He would lie in bed feeling tingling in his feet and imagine eight years compressed into a single stolen moment.

Birthdays missed because travel was too difficult.

His mother's final months, when he stayed downstairs because the elevator at her house was unreliable.

Could he have climbed those stairs if Victor had not interfered?

There would never be an answer.

Emily found him awake one night and sat beside the bed.

“You cannot rehabilitate the past,” she said.

He stared at the ceiling.

“I know.”

“You're trying anyway.”

“Yes.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“So am I.”

He looked at her.

Michael's name lived between them.

Two people grieving different years stolen by the same conspiracy.

Emily touched his hand.

“We work with what is still here.”

Dante closed his fingers around hers.

The next morning, he failed four times before he stood.

On the seventh attempt, Dr. Chen said nothing.

Emily said nothing.

Dante placed his hands on the bars.

He pushed.

His legs shook violently.

His left knee threatened to fold.

Then it locked.

His right followed.

Slowly, painfully, impossibly, Dante Moretti rose out of the wheelchair.

Not fully straight.

Not gracefully.

But up.

For eight years, the world had met him at seated height.

Now Emily had to lift her chin to look at him.

Dante stared at her.

His face was white with effort.

Dr. Chen whispered, “Do not let go.”

He almost laughed.

“I wasn't planning to.”

Five seconds.

Ten.

Twelve.

Then his knees gave.

The harness caught him and guided him back into the chair.

Dante sat breathing hard, staring at the floor.

Emily touched his shoulder.

“You stood.”

His eyes lifted to hers.

“I stood.”

In the doorway, Lily had watched the entire thing.

She held the crayon drawing against her chest.

“Can I change the picture now?” she asked.

Dante looked over.

“Why?”

“Because I made you standing too easy.”

Everyone laughed.

Even Dante.

Standing changed Dante's mood in a way no one expected.

For the first hour, he was almost euphoric.

Then rage arrived.

He demanded to try again immediately.

Dr. Chen refused.

“Your legs are exhausted.”

“I stood twelve seconds.”

“Exactly. And your heart rate behaved like you climbed a mountain.”

“I can do more.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Now.”

“No.”

Dante turned toward Emily as if expecting support.

She folded her arms.

“Don't look at me.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Your functioning nervous system's.”

He muttered something under his breath and wheeled away.

Emily found him twenty minutes later in the library, staring at an old photograph of himself standing beside Victor at a charity gala before the accident.

He was taller than she had imagined.

Confident in a careless way. One hand in his pocket. Victor half a step behind him.

“You miss him?” Emily asked.

Dante did not pretend not to understand.

“The man in the picture?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes.”

She came closer.

“What was he like?”

“Arrogant.”

“I am shocked.”

“Impatient.”

“Unrecognizable.”

He looked at her.

She smiled faintly.

Dante looked back at the photograph.

“He thought strength meant no one could force him to do anything.”

“And now?”

“Now I know people can control you without touching you if they can convince you their version of reality is the only one.”

Emily sat across from him.

“Then don't let walking become another version of that.”

His brow furrowed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means if you need the chair tomorrow, use the chair. If you need it five years from now, use it. Walking cannot become proof that Victor failed or that you won.”

Dante stared at her.

No one had said that.

Every therapist, lawyer, investigator, and guard had treated standing as victory.

Emily alone separated his worth from his legs.

“You really don't care whether I walk,” he said.

“I care because you care.”

“That is not the same.”

“No.”

She leaned forward.

“I cared about you before your foot moved.”

The words escaped before she could edit them.

Both went still.

Emily's cheeks warmed.

“I mean professionally.”

Dante's mouth curved.

“Of course.”

“Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“Look pleased.”

“I am not pleased.”

“You look pleased.”

He definitely looked pleased.

A phone vibrated on the table, rescuing her.

Judge Lane had sent an update. Federal investigators had quietly confirmed that Whitmore Neurological Institute received payments routed through a Carlo-controlled trust. The government was preparing sealed warrants, but Lane wanted more before acting.

Dante read the message twice.

“Victor thinks I am still at the mansion and still uncertain.”

Emily knew that tone.

“What are you planning?”

“I want him to keep thinking it.”

“You just stood.”

“Which he does not know.”

“Yet.”

Dante looked toward the window.

Snow reflected against the dark glass.

“No one outside this house can know.”

It was a reasonable precaution.