“That philosophy may run Chicago.
It does not run a spinal cord.”
He fired me three times during the first month.
Each time, Gabriel called the next morning and asked what hour I would return.
I always came back.
Not because Sebastian frightened me anymore, but because I understood the rage beneath his demands.
For twenty years, every failure had confirmed the lie.
Now each failed movement threatened to restore it.
I made him measure progress differently.
A muscle contracting for two seconds.
A foot holding position.
A knee lifting half an inch.
The first time he moved his right leg without my hand guiding it, he stared at the motion and said nothing.
Then he asked everyone to leave the room.
I stayed outside the door while he wept where no one could see him.
Sebastian honored the original agreement.
The ten thousand dollars was deposited into my account that first night.
Later, he offered me ten times that amount to remain exclusively on his medical team.
I refused until his attorney produced a legitimate contract giving me clinical independence, the right to stop any session, and the right to bring in outside specialists without his approval.
I also required transportation that did not involve blindfolds.
He agreed.
Oliver received the respiratory treatment he needed.
The first night after his new medication began working, I sat beside his bed and listened to him breathe without struggling.
I had spent so many nights counting the seconds between breaths that the steady rhythm felt unreal.
Six months after I first entered the mansion, Sebastian returned to the place where I had touched his foot.
The same fire burned behind the marble hearth.
Gabriel stood near the door.
The matte-black wheelchair waited behind Sebastian with its brakes unlocked.
He wore braces beneath dark trousers and gripped a metal walker.
His arms trembled with the effort of supporting himself.
“Don’t rush,” I said.
“I am not rushing.”
“You’re trying to intimidate the floor.”
“Is it working?”
“The floor appears unmoved.”
He almost smiled.
Then he shifted his weight.
His right foot slid forward.
His left followed.
One step.
Then another.
By the fifth, sweat ran down his face.
By the sixth, his knee began to buckle.
I reached for him, but he corrected himself before my hand arrived.
Sebastian stood in front of the fireplace, breathing hard, no longer separated from the room by steel and wheels.
He had not been miraculously cured.
He still needed the chair for distance.
Pain followed every session.
Some nerve damage would remain forever.
But the choice had returned to him.
That was what Crane had truly stolen.
Sebastian looked back at the empty wheelchair.
For years, it had been his throne, his armor, and his prison.
Now it was only a tool.
“Six steps,” Gabriel said quietly.
Sebastian turned toward the tall windows overlooking Lake Michigan.
