Chapter 3 - The Secret Consultation
Late that evening, a nondescript black medical van entered through the service gate of the Duca estate, guided by Marco personally to avoid the primary surveillance logs. Out of the vehicle stepped Dr. Arthur Vance, a retired neurosurgeon whose research into experimental spinal cord decompression had been discontinued years earlier due to lack of institutional funding. Lorenzo sat in his private study, the room lit only by a single green banker's lamp. Marco stood by the locked heavy oak doors, arms crossed, monitoring the external perimeter through an encrypted tablet. The atmosphere was thick with tension; every person in the room understood that if Vincenzo caught wind of this examination, he would accelerate whatever timeline he had set for seizing complete control of the family assets.
Dr. Vance worked in total silence for over an hour, setting up a portable neuromuscular scanner and running sensory feedback probes along Lorenzo’s lower spine and legs. The doctor’s weathered hands moved with practiced precision, testing localized reflexes that had supposedly died three years prior during the Queens ambush. Throughout the painful procedure, Lorenzo did not utter a single sound, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth, his hands gripping the armrests of his wheelchair until the leather groaned under the pressure. When Dr. Vance finished, he unhooked the digital sensors, reviewed the undulating green waves on his monitor, and turned to look at the powerful man sitting before him with a mixture of wonder and profound gravity.
"The initial post-operative assessment you received three years ago was either grossly negligent or deliberately falsified," Dr. Vance whispered, stepping closer to Lorenzo so his voice would not carry past the soundproofed walls. The doctor pointed to the digital imaging on the screen, showing a dense cluster of scar tissue around the L2 vertebra. He explained that the nerve root was not severed, as Lorenzo’s previous personal physician—Dr. Robert Meyer—had repeatedly declared in his final medical reports. The spinal bundle was severely compressed by encapsulated fluid and localized calcification, essentially trapped in a biological cage, but the functional pathways were entirely viable. With targeted micro-decompression surgery, aggressive electrical stimulation, and intensive physical rehabilitation, motor function could theoretically be restored.
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Lorenzo closed his eyes, his breathing growing shallow and rapid as the doctor’s words sank into his mind. For three years, he had lived as a half-man, wrapped in a blanket of useless despair, because he had trusted the diagnosis handed to him by a doctor who had been on his father’s payroll for twenty-five years. Lorenzo asked where Dr. Meyer was now. Marco stepped forward, his expression grim as he answered the unspoken question: Dr. Meyer had retired abruptly six months after the ambush, moving his entire family to a private villa in Switzerland, his retirement account suddenly enriched by several anonymous transfers routed through a maritime shipping corporation owned by Vincenzo Rizzo. The betrayal was absolute, methodical, and total; Vincenzo had not only arranged the bullet that shattered Lorenzo’s spine, but he had also bought the doctor who ensured Lorenzo would never stand up to fight back.
Lorenzo looked down at his lap, looking at his numb fingers, then down at the small desk drawer where Mia’s drawing of the green sun was hidden. He remembered her tiny, innocent voice asking if he had tried telling his legs to move more loudly. The sheer absurdity of a three-year-old toddler seeing through a conspiracy of silence that an entire mafia syndicate had accepted shook Lorenzo to his core. He looked back up at Dr. Vance, his eyes burning with an icy, lethal resolve that had not been seen in the Duca estate since his father was in his prime. He told the doctor that the surgery would take place inside the estate’s private clinic, completely under the radar, with only Marco and a handpicked medical team present. He was going to stand again, not just for the sake of his empire, but to look down into the eyes of the man who had called him "son" while poisoning his life from the shadows.
