Chapter 2 - THE MAFIA BOSS DISCOVERED SOMEONE HAD BEEN WATCHING CAMILLE FOR WEEKS—THEN HER LATE FATHER’S OLD MEDICAL FILE REVEALED THE SAME DOCTOR WHO TREATED A FACTORY WORKER HAD ALSO BEEN SECRETLY CONTROLLING ALESSANDRO’S RECOVERY
Camille woke the next morning to someone pounding on her apartment door.
She checked the time.
6:42.
"Who is it?"
"Rossi security."
Her stomach dropped.
She opened the door only after looking through the peephole.
Nico Santoro stood outside.
"Mr. Rossi needs to speak with you."
"At seven in the morning?"
"It's important."
"Everything about that man seems to become important before normal people have coffee."
Nico almost smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
"Someone has been following you."
Camille stopped.
"What?"
He showed her the photographs.
Her outside the grocery store.
Outside work.
Outside her apartment.
One from three weeks earlier.
Another from fourteen days earlier.
Another from two days earlier.
Fear moved slowly through her.
"Where did you get these?"
"Dr. Sebastian Rossi's office."
"Who is he?"
"Alessandro's cousin."
"The doctor?"
"Yes."
Camille looked again.
"Why would his doctor photograph me?"
"We hoped you could tell us."
"I've never met him."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Then she looked at the oldest photograph.
Her father.
The rehabilitation clinic.
Camille's face changed.
"Wait."
"What?"
"I know that building."
Nico waited.
"My father went there after his accident."
Alessandro was waiting in a private rehabilitation suite when Camille arrived.
She was angry.
Fear often arrived wearing anger in her body.
"You had no right to bring me here."
"I asked Nico to invite you."
"At seven in the morning with photographs of someone stalking me."
"Fair criticism."
That stopped her.
She had expected resistance.
"You're agreeing?"
"I'm trying something new."
"What?"
"Not assuming I'm always right."
"How painful."
"Excruciating."
Camille almost smiled.
Then she remembered the photographs.
"What does Sebastian want with me?"
"We don't know."
"Where is he?"
"Missing."
"Wonderful."
Alessandro gestured toward a table.
Her father's medical records were there.
Camille stared.
"How did you get those?"
"With your permission."
"I didn't give permission."
Alessandro looked at Nico.
Nico cleared his throat.
"We obtained public insurance litigation records, not private medical records."
Camille looked back at Alessandro.
"Important distinction."
"Very."
She opened the file.
Her father, Mateo Duarte, had been injured fourteen years earlier when a loading platform collapsed at Bellini Steel Components.
His hip and lower spine were damaged.
He never walked normally again.
The company paid a modest settlement.
Camille remembered every dollar disappearing into rehabilitation, medication, rent, and equipment.
Then she saw a name.
Consulting physician:
Dr. Sebastian Rossi.
"No."
Alessandro leaned forward.
"You recognize it?"
"I don't remember him."
"You were twenty-one."
"There were dozens of doctors."
She turned pages.
Sebastian had recommended against a second surgery.
Too dangerous.
Low chance of meaningful recovery.
Camille remembered her father wanting that surgery.
She remembered the insurance company refusing.
She remembered the day Mateo came home and said:
"They've decided this is as good as I get."
Her throat tightened.
"He could have had another operation."
Alessandro remained quiet.
"Sebastian said no."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"We don't know."
Camille looked at Alessandro's wheelchair.
Then back at the records.
"Who decided you couldn't have another surgery?"
Silence.
"Alessandro."
"Sebastian."
Her stomach dropped.
"When were you injured?"
"Four years ago."
"How?"
"Car bomb."
Camille stared.
He said it as if explaining rain.
"The explosion damaged my pelvis and spine. I retained movement, but nerve damage affected my right leg."
"Sebastian treated you?"
"After the initial surgeries."
"And he told you this was permanent?"
"Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"I have sensation. Some motor function. Standing is possible with support on good days."
"Then why—"
She stopped herself.
Alessandro's eyes sharpened.
"Why am I in the chair?"
"That's not what I meant."
"It was."
Camille sighed.
"I was going to ask why nobody pursued additional rehabilitation."
"We did."
"How long?"
"Six months."
"My father did it for eleven years."
Alessandro looked away.
Camille immediately regretted the comparison.
"Sorry."
"No."
He looked at her.
"You're right."
Nico brought in another file.
Bellini Steel Components.
The factory where Mateo had been injured.
It had been owned through several companies.
One final holding company appeared.
Rossi Industrial Holdings.
Camille stared at Alessandro.
"Your family owned the factory."
"Minority interest."
"You owned it."
"My uncle controlled the investment."
"Which uncle?"
"Vittorio."
Alessandro's father's younger brother.
Camille stood.
"You brought me here because you think my father's accident connects to you."
"Yes."
"And you waited until I arrived to tell me your family owned the factory?"
"I wanted verified information."
"No. You wanted control of the conversation."
Alessandro went still.
Camille grabbed her bag.
"That's what powerful men call lying when they have good lawyers."
She headed toward the door.
"Camille."
She stopped.
"What?"
"You're right."
Again.
She hated that it made leaving harder.
Alessandro continued.
"I should have told you immediately."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
She looked back.
The apology seemed physically uncomfortable for him.
Good.
It should.
"Why was Sebastian watching me?"
"We think your father knew something about the factory."
Camille's anger weakened.
"What?"
"Three workers died in accidents the year before Mateo was injured."
"I never knew that."
"Two had filed safety complaints."
She became cold.
"And my father?"
"Also filed one."
Camille sat again.
Alessandro continued.
"He claimed someone ordered workers to remove safety locks from machinery to increase production."
She remembered.
Her father complaining about managers caring more about quotas than people.
"Who?"
"We don't know."
Then Nico placed an envelope down.
"This was found inside Sebastian's safe."
Camille opened it.
A copy of an old handwritten statement.
Mateo's handwriting.
I SAW VITTORIO ROSSI PAY THE INSPECTOR.
I SAW DR. SEBASTIAN CHANGE THE INJURY REPORTS.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, CAMILLE KNOWS WHERE I KEEP THE ORIGINALS.
Camille stared.
"No."
Alessandro leaned closer.
"Did you know?"
"No."
"Did he leave records?"
"I don't know."
The final sentence terrified her.
Camille knows where I keep the originals.
Except she didn't.
Or perhaps she did without realizing.
Her father had died two years earlier.
Cancer.
His possessions remained in a storage unit Camille couldn't bring herself to empty.
She stood.
"I need to go."
Alessandro reached for his wheelchair rims.
"I'm coming."
"No."
"This concerns my family."
"It concerns mine too."
"Exactly."
Camille looked at him.
"Then don't turn it into an order."
He stopped.
She waited.
Alessandro took a breath.
"May I come with you?"
That mattered.
"Yes."
The storage unit smelled like dust and cardboard.
Camille found Mateo's old brace inside a plastic container.
She sat beside it.
For a moment she was twenty-five again, helping her father buckle it.
"Too tight?"
"Little bit, mija."
"Here?"
"Better."
She had spent years resenting the brace.
Not because it was ugly.
Because it represented what the factory took.
Alessandro remained several feet away.
He did not interrupt.
Camille eventually found a wooden sewing box.
Her father had made it for her mother.
Inside were buttons.
Needles.
Receipts.
Beneath the removable tray:
documents.
Photographs.
Inspection reports.
Payment records.
And a small digital recorder.
Camille pressed play.
Mateo's voice filled the storage unit.
"If Camille finds this, I'm sorry."
Her hand flew to her mouth.
"I should have told you."
Alessandro lowered his eyes.
Mateo continued.
"The Rossi people paid the inspector after three men got hurt. Dr. Sebastian changed reports so the company wouldn't be responsible. I refused. Two days later the platform collapsed."
Camille began crying.
"I don't know if they caused it. But afterward Sebastian came to the hospital. He told me if I kept talking, Camille might lose her scholarship."
Camille stopped breathing.
Her college scholarship.
She had lost it anyway after leaving school to care for him.
Mateo's voice shook.
"I got scared."
The recording continued.
"I signed the settlement."
Camille cried harder.
"I'm sorry, mija."
Then came something unexpected.
"Years later Sebastian visited again. He wanted to know if I still had copies. I told him no."
Pause.
"He asked about Alessandro."
Alessandro looked up.
Mateo continued.
"Sebastian said Alessandro's injury solved a problem for the family. Said a man in a wheelchair depends on the people around him."
The recording ended.
Silence.
Camille looked at Alessandro.
His face had become empty.
"Your injury."
He said nothing.
"Was the bomb ever solved?"
"No."
"Who benefited?"
Alessandro's expression hardened.
"My uncle Vittorio became acting head of several operations during my recovery."
"And Sebastian?"
"Controlled every medical decision."
Camille understood.
The sabotage at the ballroom had not been designed simply to embarrass him.
Someone wanted Alessandro physically dependent.
Perhaps permanently.
She looked at his wheelchair.
"Have you ever had an independent specialist evaluate you?"
"Sebastian chose every specialist."
"That's not independent."
"No."
"Then we start there."
Alessandro stared.
"We?"
Camille wiped her tears.
"Don't make it romantic."
"I wasn't."
"You looked like you were about to."
A faint smile appeared.
"You're difficult to impress."
"Good."
An independent neurological surgeon arrived from Boston the following morning.
Dr. Naomi Chen spent four hours examining Alessandro.
MRI.
Nerve studies.
Strength testing.
Old surgical images.
Then she entered the consultation room.
Her expression was careful.
"Mr. Rossi, I need to be precise."
"Please."
"Your original injuries were severe."
Camille sat near the window.
"But?"
Alessandro asked.
"But I don't agree with the conclusion that your current limitations are entirely permanent."
Nobody moved.
Dr. Chen continued.
"You have significant nerve preservation. There is muscular atrophy, but also measurable activation."
Alessandro stared.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I cannot promise you'll walk independently."
His face closed.
Camille noticed.
Dr. Chen continued quickly.
"But I believe you should have been offered intensive neurorehabilitation years ago."
"Why wasn't I?"
"I can't answer that."
Camille could.
Sebastian.
Vittorio.
Control.
Dr. Chen added:
"There's something else."
She opened the medication list.
"You're taking gabapentin, baclofen, and a low-dose sedative."
"Yes."
"Who prescribed the sedative?"
"Sebastian."
"Why?"
"Spasms."
Dr. Chen frowned.
"This medication isn't normally used as your primary antispasmodic."
"What does it do?"
"At this dose? Fatigue. Muscle weakness. Slower reaction."
Camille's stomach dropped.
Alessandro looked toward her.
Someone had not only hidden his rehabilitation potential.
Someone had been chemically reinforcing his weakness.
For four years.
Alessandro looked at the wheelchair.
Then asked one quiet question.
"How much of the man I became after that bomb was actually my choice?"
Camille wanted to tell him all of it.
Wanted to comfort him.
But she knew better.
"I don't know."
His eyes lifted.
"But we can find out what they took."
She paused.
"And what they didn't."
That evening Delphine appeared at Camille's apartment.
She was crying.
"Cam."
Camille didn't let her inside.
"What do you want?"
"I didn't cut the brace."
"I know Sebastian was in the room."
Delphine went pale.
"He told me Alessandro had changed medication and asked me to leave a case on the dressing table."
"What case?"
"Medical supplies."
"Why?"
"He said Alessandro needed them."
"And you believed him?"
"He's his doctor!"
Camille stared.
Delphine began crying harder.
"I didn't know."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because after the brace broke, Sebastian called me."
Camille's blood chilled.
"What did he say?"
"That if anyone asked, I was never in the dressing room."
"Why would you agree?"
Delphine looked ashamed.
"Because he knew something."
"What?"
"My father's company has debts."
Camille waited.
Delphine whispered:
"Vittorio Rossi owns them."
There it was.
The connection.
Delphine hadn't been introduced to Alessandro as a possible bride by chance.
Her family owed Vittorio millions.
Camille stepped closer.
"Was your marriage supposed to pay the debt?"
Delphine cried.
"I didn't know at first."
"But now?"
"Yes."
"Why Alessandro?"
"I don't know."
Camille did.
A wife chosen by Vittorio.
A doctor controlled by Vittorio.
A disabled boss surrounded by people controlled by Vittorio.
Not marriage.
Containment.
Delphine grabbed Camille's hand.
"There's more."
"What?"
"Sebastian called tonight."
"From where?"
"I don't know."
"What did he say?"
Delphine looked terrified.
"He said Alessandro is making a mistake with the new doctors."
"And?"
"He said if Alessandro starts walking again, people are going to die."
Camille's blood went cold.
"Who?"
May you like
Delphine swallowed.
"Starting with you."
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