136.♿ The Toe That Moved and the Therapist Who Refused to Lie

Chapter 09 - The Brother in the Photograph

Sebastian had built a life around being the only surviving son.

The heir.

The crippled heir, as his enemies sometimes called him before discovering how dangerous a man could remain from a chair.

But the photograph in his hand had changed the architecture of everything.

A younger brother.

A baby his mother had held in a hospital corridor while Sebastian lay recovering from a bullet that had changed his life. A child hidden so thoroughly that even Gabriel, who knew where bodies were buried and which senators returned calls after midnight, had never heard a whisper.

Madsen watched them from the dialysis chair.

“His name?” Sebastian asked.

“Matteo.”

Clare saw the word strike.

Sebastian’s mouth tightened.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Gabriel said, “Wrong answer.”

Madsen looked at him with tired contempt. “Men like you always think truth hides because someone is brave enough to threaten it. Sometimes truth hides because everyone who knew it was frightened, dead, or ashamed.”

“Try less philosophy,” Clare said. “More address.”

The old doctor blinked at her.

Sebastian almost smiled.

Almost.

Madsen exhaled. “Lucia disappeared with the baby after signing the restriction. She believed Alessandro would use your possible recovery to pull you back into war. She also believed if he knew about Matteo, he would raise one son against the other.”

Sebastian’s fingers whitened around the photograph.

“So she left me in that chair.”

“No,” Madsen said. “She left you alive.”

Clare knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say.

Sebastian’s eyes went cold enough to empty the room.

“Do not ask me to be grateful for a cage because someone painted it with survival.”

Madsen looked away first.

On the ride back, Sebastian said nothing.

Clare sat beside him because the vehicle had been arranged that way. Gabriel drove. Chicago passed outside in gray strips of lake, stone, and old winter.

The photograph rested on Sebastian’s lap.

Clare finally said, “You can be angry at her and still want to find her.”

He did not look at her.

“You always make room for two things.”

“Usually more. Life is inconsiderate.”

“My mother let me believe she was dead.”

“Yes.”

“She signed away a surgery that might have changed everything.”

“Yes.”

“She had another child.”

“Yes.”

“And you think there is room for forgiveness?”

“I think forgiveness is not a room you enter all at once. It’s a hallway. Sometimes you stand at one end for years and call that enough.”

He turned then.

“You speak like someone who has practiced.”

“My father left when Oliver was two. He came back once, asked whether I could lend him money, and told me he had never been good with sickrooms.”

Sebastian’s expression shifted.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I stopped waiting for him to become different. It saved time.”

He studied her.

“And Oliver?”

“He asks less than he deserves.”

The admission cost her more than she expected.

Sebastian looked toward the front seat.

“Gabriel.”

“Yes?”

“Find Lucia Lombardi.”

“I started ten minutes ago.”

“Find Matteo.”

“I started eleven.”

Sebastian leaned back.

For all his menace, his wealth, his trained men, and guarded doors, he looked suddenly like a boy abandoned in a hospital bed with adults deciding which truth would hurt him least.

At the mansion, Oliver was awake and eating toast in Sebastian’s kitchen while Mrs. Alvarez lectured the chef about under-seasoning eggs.

Oliver saw Sebastian and raised one hand.

“Your castle makes tiny toast.”

“Those are crostini,” Sebastian said.

“They’re baby toast.”

The chef looked wounded.

Clare hid a smile.

Then Oliver noticed the photograph on Sebastian’s lap.

“Is that a baby?”

Sebastian hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Do you know him?”