Sebastian slowly set his glass on the table, then gave me a smile that chilled me to my core.
“Touch my back?” he repeated.
His tone was almost amused, but the room had changed. Gabriel stood near the door with his hands folded in front of him, his expression unreadable. The two guards beyond the threshold had gone still.
I forced myself to breathe.
“I can’t assess you from across the room,” I said. “And I’m not going to pretend I know anything until I do.”
Sebastian’s smile faded.
Most people, I suspected, rushed to please him. They agreed before he finished speaking. They apologized before they made mistakes. But fear had already taken so much from me—my marriage, my career, my confidence—that I had begun to resent the space it occupied.
Besides, I kept thinking of Oliver.
Ten thousand dollars waited in my bag.
Ten thousand dollars meant medicine, food, heat, and one month without waking at three in the morning to calculate which bill could safely be ignored.
Sebastian studied me for several seconds.
“You understand who I am?” he asked.
“I understand you’re my patient for the next hour.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted.
Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “You’re either very brave or very foolish, Ms. Bennett.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
For the first time, something moved behind his eyes. Not warmth. Not exactly. But interest.
He rolled toward the center of the room.
“Fine,” he said. “Show me what ten thousand dollars buys.”
I placed my bag on a low table and began arranging my equipment: gloves, resistance bands, a reflex hammer, measuring tape, a portable electrical stimulation unit, and a notebook whose cover Oliver had decorated with crooked stars.
Sebastian glanced at it.
“Professional.”
“My son improved the design.”
“How old?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Eight.”
“Does he know where you are?”
“No.”
“Good.”
His answer was quiet enough to sound almost like concern, but the threat Gabriel had made still rang in my ears.
You’ll never see your son again.
I looked toward Gabriel.
“Before I begin,” I said, “I need privacy.”
Gabriel gave a short laugh.
Sebastian did not.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
“Boss—”
“She asked for privacy.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. He looked at me as if memorizing my face, then motioned the guards away. The door closed behind them.
The click of the lock made my pulse jump.
Sebastian noticed.
“Still want privacy?”
“I want accurate results.”
He gave a dry smile. “Then let’s not waste time.”
I moved behind him.
Up close, the wheelchair looked less like medical equipment and more like machinery designed for combat—black titanium, reinforced rims, custom support along the spine. Its cost probably exceeded everything I had earned in the previous five years.
“May I?” I asked, touching the back of his shirt.
“You asked everyone else to leave. Don’t lose your nerve now.”
I ignored the provocation.
With his permission, I unfastened the lower supports of the chair and helped him lean forward. His upper body was powerful, his shoulders broad from years of compensating for what his legs could not do. Beneath the expensive shirt, however, I felt a different story.
His back was a map of old injury.
There was a pale surgical scar running along the lower spine, wider than I expected and slightly uneven. The muscles on the left side had wasted more severely than those on the right. Near the base of his ribs, I found a patch of tissue so rigid it felt almost calcified.
Sebastian remained silent while I worked.
I pressed gently along the lumbar vertebrae.
“Tell me if you feel this.”
“No.”
I moved two inches higher.
“No.”
Lower.
“Nothing.”
I changed pressure and angle, then traced the path of the sciatic nerve.
His fingers tightened around the wheel rim.
I stopped.
“What did you feel?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
His head turned slightly.
“You calling me a liar?”
“I’m saying your right hand reacted.”
“My hand reacts when strangers dig into my back.”
“That wasn’t pain.”
He faced forward again. “Continue.”
I did.
There were patterns I had learned to recognize over the years—tiny changes in breathing, tension in the jaw, movement in muscles far from where pressure was applied. The body often spoke before the patient decided what to say.
When I pressed near the sacrum, Sebastian’s left thigh contracted.
Barely.
A flicker beneath the fabric.
So small I might have imagined it if I had not been watching for exactly that.
I pressed again.
The muscle moved.
Sebastian saw my expression in the reflection of the dark window.
“What?”
I stepped around the chair and crouched in front of him.
“How long since anyone tested your deep reflexes?”
“Doctors test everything.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Six months. Maybe a year.”
I took out the reflex hammer.
“I need access to your knees.”
He stared at me.
“I’m a physical therapist,” I said. “Not a magician. Your trousers will have to survive the indignity.”
A breath escaped him that might have been a laugh.
He loosened the fabric at his knees.
I tested the left side first.
Nothing.
Then the right.
A faint response.
I repeated it.
There.
Not normal, but present.
Sebastian’s amusement disappeared.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not finished.”
I tested his ankles, assessed tone, checked passive range of motion, and looked for signs of complete spinal cord interruption. His legs were atrophied, but not as severely as I would have expected after two decades without meaningful nerve activity. There was stiffness, yes, and poor circulation, but there were also subtle responses that did not fit the history I had been given.
“How old were you when the injury happened?” I asked.
“Twenty-nine.”
“Car accident?”
His face closed.
“That’s what the records say.”
The answer unsettled me.
“What do you say?”
“I say the road was wet.”
I waited.
He did not continue.
“Were you conscious afterward?”
“For part of it.”
“Do you remember the surgery?”
“I remember waking up and being told I would never walk again.”
“Who operated?”
His gaze hardened. “Why?”
“Because your scar doesn’t match what I’d expect from the procedure you’re describing.”
The fire cracked behind us.
For the first time since I entered the room, Sebastian looked uncertain.
Only for a second.
Then his expression became cold again.