Chapter 11
Gabriel slowly rolled onto his back.
His face twisted with pain.
“Now you answer for what you did.”
Vincent laughed faintly.
“To who? You?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at Luca.
“Call Rebecca.”
Luca understood.
“The attorney?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Gabriel inhaled.
“Call the authorities.”
Everyone stared at him.
Even Nora.
Vincent went pale.
“You’ll bury yourself.”
“I know.”
“You’ll lose everything.”
“I know.”
“You could go to prison.”
Gabriel looked toward the city beyond the windows.
For years it had been his kingdom.
Tonight it looked very far away.
“Maybe accountability shouldn’t only be something we demand from our enemies.”
Luca lowered his eyes.
Gabriel looked at Vincent.
“You wanted the empire.”
He nodded toward the shattered doorway.
“This is what it costs.”
Vincent said nothing.
For the first time, he looked afraid of getting exactly what he had wanted.
Four hours later, Gabriel moved his right big toe.
Nora saw it first.
She had been sitting beside his recovery bed with a cup of coffee that had gone cold two hours earlier.
“Again.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
“Your toe.”
He stared down.
“Move it.”
Nothing happened.
Then—
A tiny movement.
Barely visible.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Nora smiled.
“There.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“Did I—”
“Yes.”
He tried again.
The toe moved farther.
Gabriel Moretti, a man who had supposedly watched million-dollar negotiations without blinking, covered his eyes with one hand.
Nora pretended not to notice the tears.
A week later, he could bend his right knee.
Three weeks later, he stood between parallel bars for eleven seconds.
Seven weeks later, he walked twelve feet.
Not gracefully.
Not without pain.
But he walked.
By then the city had discovered who Gabriel Moretti really was.
Investigations opened.
Businesses froze.
Former associates gave statements.
His cousin accepted a plea agreement related to attempted murder and conspiracy after Dr. Vale cooperated.
Gabriel’s own attorneys told him repeatedly to deny everything unrelated to the attack.
He refused.
He provided records.
Names.
Accounts.
Properties.
Years of evidence.
Some people called him brave.
Others called him a criminal trying to purchase redemption.
Nora thought both descriptions were probably too simple.
Real people usually were.
Gabriel eventually pleaded guilty to several financial and racketeering charges connected to his earlier years.
He avoided charges tied to acts prosecutors could not prove.
That bothered him.
Nora knew because he told her.
“You sound disappointed,” she said.
They were sitting on the terrace of a rehabilitation center outside Milwaukee.
Winter had surrendered to early spring.
Gabriel used a cane now.
“I deserved worse.”
“Maybe.”
He looked at her.
She shrugged.
“You hired me for medical honesty. Emotional honesty costs extra.”
He smiled.
“What happened with your license?”
Nora stared across the gardens.
Three months earlier, Gabriel’s attorney had asked permission to review the Hawthorne case.
Nora had almost refused.
Then Rebecca Hale uncovered archived financial records connected to the same executives Nora had accused years before.
Dr. Vale, hoping to reduce his own sentence, confirmed that he had once been pressured by Hawthorne administrators to falsify surgical documents.
The old investigation reopened.
Nora’s disciplinary case was suspended pending review.
Then overturned.
Her license was reinstated.
She received the letter on a Tuesday morning.
May you like
She had read the sentence six times.
Then sat on her kitchen floor and cried until noon.
