Chapter 10 - In the Darkened Rehab Room: A Sudden Spark of Sensation Nico Begged Me to Conceal
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The private rehabilitation suite on the ground floor had been abandoned for four months.
When Camille had taken over Nico’s daily schedule, she had dismissed the physical therapists from the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, claiming that the sessions were "too emotionally distressing" for Nico to endure. In reality, she simply couldn't afford to have licensed physical therapists noticing that Nico’s lack of progress was medically impossible given the nature of his original spinal MRI.
The room was vast, lined with parallel bars, high-density exercise mats, mirrors covering the north wall, and specialized electro-stimulation equipment sitting beneath plastic dust covers.
It was 8:00 PM. Outside, the autumn storm had finally broken, leaving behind a clear, star-studded October sky over the calm, dark waters of Lake Michigan.
I wheeled Nico into the center of the room, right between the two wooden parallel bars.
"We aren't going to try to walk," I said, setting my medical kit on an exercise mat. "We aren't going to perform miracles tonight. All I want to do is test sensory dermatomes and deep tendon reflex arc pathways without any synthetic depressants in your bloodstream for ninety-six consecutive hours."
Nico looked at himself in the full-length mirror opposite us. He stared at his reflection—the broad chest, the powerful arms, and the utterly motionless legs resting on the footplates of the wheelchair.
"I hate this room," he muttered under his breath. "This is where I learned that wishing for something doesn't make your nerves fire."
"Science isn't about wishing, Nico," I said, kneeling down in front of him. "It’s about cellular biology. Remove the inhibitor, supply the metabolic cofactor, and see what the axon can do."
I rolled his dark trouser legs up to his knees.
His calves were slightly atrophied from disuse, but the muscle tone was remarkably preserved—thanks to the rigorous passive range-of-motion exercises I had insisted on performing every single morning, despite his protests and Edna’s complaints.
I took the rubberized reflex hammer in my right hand.
"Close your eyes," I commanded gently.
"Adeline—"
"Close them, Nico. If you watch the hammer, your brain anticipates the stimulus and creates cognitive interference. Close your eyes and tell me what you feel."
Nico closed his eyes. His breathing grew rhythmic, deep, and focused. His hands gripped the armrests of his wheelchair, his knuckles slightly white.
I rested my left hand lightly on his quadriceps tendon, just above his kneecap.
With a swift, calibrated flick of my wrist, I struck the right patellar tendon with the pointed rubber tip of the hammer.
Nothing.
The leg remained completely limp.
Nico exhaled a sharp, bitter breath through his nose. "Nothing. Same as June. Same as August."
"Be quiet and keep your eyes closed," I ordered, refusing to let him sink into defeat.
I moved to the left leg.
I struck the left patellar tendon. Once.
Nothing.
I struck it a second time, slightly more medial, targeting the L3-L4 nerve root pathway.
*Twitch.*
It was so subtle that anyone without eight years of clinical trauma experience would have missed it completely.
A microscopic, involuntary contraction rippled through the vastus medialis muscle of his left thigh. The left footplate of the wheelchair shifted by perhaps two millimeters against the rubber mat.
My breath caught in my throat. My heart leaped into my chest so violently that I nearly dropped the hammer.
"Nico..." I breathed.
"What?" His eyes snapped open, wide and alert. "What did you see?"
"Close your eyes!" I demanded, my voice trembling with an excitement I couldn't conceal. "Do not open them! Close them right now!"
Nico shut his eyes again, his jaw trembling slightly. "Adeline, don't play with me. If you’re giving me false hope—"
I didn't answer with words.
Instead, I set the hammer aside, reached into my kit, and pulled out a sterile, disposable safety pin. I uncapped the point.
Starting at his mid-shin—the L5 dermatome—I gently pressed the sharp point against his skin.
"Feel that?" I asked.
"No," Nico whispered, his chest heaving. "Just dull pressure. Like someone touching leather."
I moved the pin three inches higher, right below the tibial tuberosity. I pressed again, applying slightly more pressure.
"Now?"
Nico gasped.
His entire upper body jolted backward against the wheelchair’s leather backrest. His left hand flew to his knee, his eyes flying open in absolute, unadulterated shock.
"It... it burned," he stammered, staring down at his leg like he had just seen a ghost walk out of the mirror. "It wasn't dull. It was... sharp. Like a spark of static electricity."
"That's pain reception, Nico," I said, tears flooding my eyes, spilling over my cheeks without shame. I was laughing and crying at the same time, kneeling in the dust of the rehab floor. "That’s sharp sensory discrimination along the L4 nerve pathway! The spinal cord isn't severed! It was never severed!"
Nico stared at his leg. He reached down with his own trembling, calloused hand and touched the spot where the pin had pressed into his skin.
A faint, pink indentation remained.
"Vance told me the cord was anatomically divided," Nico choked out, his voice cracking with an emotion so immense, so overwhelming, that the ruthless Chicago Don broke into silent, ragged weeping. "He showed me the MRI report. He said the fibers were macerated. He said I would never feel my feet touch the floor again."
"Vance was paid seven hundred thousand dollars to forge that MRI report, Nico," I said, placing both of my hands over his trembling knee. "The real MRI from the trauma center in Milwaukee showed a severe bone bruise, localized edema, and a compression fracture at T-11. The swelling pressed on the cord, causing temporary spinal shock. And before your body could naturally heal the inflammation, Vance and Camille started pumping you full of neuromuscular suppressants to freeze the paralysis in place permanently."
Nico stared at me.
His eyes were red-rimmed, brimming with tears he hadn't allowed himself to shed in eight months of living in hell. In that quiet, darkened room, stripped of his weapons, his money, and his titles, he wasn't a mafia boss or a dangerous heir.
He was a man who had just been handed his life back.
Slowly, deliberately, Nico reached down with both arms, grabbed me by the shoulders, and hauled me upward against his chest.
He pulled me into an embrace so fierce, so powerful, that all the air left my lungs. His face buried into the curve of my neck, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, cathartic sobs as he held me against him like I was the only solid thing in a collapsing universe.
"You did this," Nico whispered against my skin, his voice thick with raw devotion. "You saved my soul, Adeline. You brought me back from the dead."
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding him tight, letting my own tears soak into the dark fabric of his shirt. For a long, breathless moment, the world outside—the syndicates, the trials, the money, the danger—completely vanished.
There was only the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart against my ribs, and the miracle of a single spark of life returning to cold limbs.
Finally, Nico pulled back slightly, his hands lingering on my waist, his dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that made my pulse race in my throat.
"Nobody can know about this, Adeline," Nico said, his voice dropping into a fierce, protective whisper. "Not yet."
I blinked, confused. "Why? Nico, if the federal prosecutors know your recovery is progressing, it adds aggravated battery and intentional bodily harm to the indictments against Camille and Vance!"
"And it puts a target on your back that not even Rocco can protect you from," Nico answered, his thumb gently brushing a stray tear from my cheekbone.
His touch was surprisingly tender, sending a warm, intoxicating shiver straight to my core.
"The Ashcroft syndicate is wounded, but they aren't dead," Nico explained, his eyes darkening with strategic brilliance. "Camille’s father still has soldiers in New York and Detroit. If they think I’m recovering, they will send hitmen to finish the job before I can walk into a grand jury room under my own power. And they will come through you to do it."
He took my face in both of his hands, tilting my chin up until our eyes were locked.
"For the next two weeks, Adeline... I am still the paralyzed invalid. I am still the broken Don who needs his nurse to push his chair."
A slow, knowing smile curved his lips—a smile full of lethal promise and unspoken desire.
May you like
"We play the game until Wes’s surgery is finished on Monday," Nico whispered, his thumb resting lightly against my lower lip. "We protect your brother. And when he is safe and out of the intensive care unit... you and I are going to burn whatever is left of the Ashcroft empire to the ground."
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