Chapter 3 - The Surgical TrapThe basement of the Lombardi estate was not a dungeon of medieval torments; it was a state-of-the-art medical suite equipped with millions of dollars in clandestine surgical gear.
Dr. Alistair Vance sat tied to a stainless-steel examination chair, his silver-rimmed glasses crooked across his nose, trembling violently as Sebastian rolled his wheelchair closer under the harsh glare of the overhead surgical lights.
“Sebastian... this is madness!” Vance cried out, his voice cracking with terror. “After everything I’ve done for you! I kept you alive when the whole city wanted your head on a spike!”
I stood beside the instrument tray, my hands gloved in sterile latex, sorting through scalpels, forceps, and a portable radio-frequency scanner I had improvised using equipment from Vance’s own supply cabinet.
Sebastian didn't speak. He simply reached out, grabbed Vance by the lapel of his immaculate lab coat, and pulled the doctor’s face inches from his own.
“Twenty years, Alistair,” Sebastian whispered, his voice dangerously soft. “Twenty years of sitting in that chair. Twenty years of watching my enemies circle like vultures, waiting for me to die. And every morning, you smiled, checked my vitals, and told me the nerves were permanently dead.”
“It’s true! The trauma was catastrophic! Look at the historical MRI scans!” Vance stammered, sweat pouring down his forehead.
“Show him, Clare,” Sebastian commanded, releasing Vance with a shove.
I stepped forward, holding the portable scanner over Vance’s chest. A small, encrypted receiver clipped to the doctor’s breast pocket began to beep with a steady, rhythmic chirp-chirp-chirp.
Vance’s face turned the color of ash.
“You have a master transmitter on your person, Doctor,” I said coldly. “Every time Sebastian’s nervous system tries to fire a signal past the L1 blockage, your receiver logs it. And if you press that panic button hidden inside your fountain pen... the spinal unit fries him.”
“You’re insane! Both of you!” Vance shrieked, thrashing against the leather straps.
Sebastian didn't waste another breath. He pulled a heavy silver scalpel from the tray, leaned forward, and pressed the flat of the cold blade directly against Vance’s throat.
“Who’s paying you, Alistair?” Sebastian asked, his voice dead flat. “Is it the Syndicate? Did the Moretti family buy you out the night of the ambush, or was it someone closer to home? Was it my own cousin, Vincent?”
Vance’s eyes bulged. He looked at the blade, then at Sebastian’s cold, unblinking stare. The illusion of control completely shattered.
“It... it was Vincent!” Vance sobbed, the confession tumbling out in a panicked rush. “He financed the lab! He said you were too ruthless to rule forever, that you were going to drag the family into a war with the feds! He wanted you alive so he could control the empire while you rotted in that chair!”
Sebastian closed his eyes for a single second. When he opened them, all humanity had vanished from his gaze. It was the look of a god of death waking up from a twenty-year slumber.
“Vincent,” Sebastian murmured. “My own blood.”
He lowered the scalpel, turned to me, and nodded once.
May you like
“Do it, Clare.”
I picked up the local anesthetic syringe, stepped behind Vance, and began the delicate, terrifying process of disabling the neural block before Vincent Lombardi realized his golden goose was about to stand up.
