Chapter 2 - The Man Beneath the Armor
At 7:12 the next morning, Sadi discovered that Desmond Gallagher could survive a car bomb but apparently could not survive oatmeal.
He stared at the bowl on his breakfast tray as though it contained poison.
“What is that?”
“Breakfast.”
“It looks like wall paste.”
“Then pretend you’re renovating.”
Desmond slowly lifted his eyes.
Sadi smiled.
Frankie, standing beside the doorway, abruptly became fascinated by the ceiling.
During her first two weeks at the estate, Sadi had learned that nobody joked with Desmond. His employees spoke carefully. His guards waited for instructions. Even his longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Bellini, approached him with the respectful distance normally reserved for sleeping lions.
Sadi had somehow become the exception.
“Coffee,” Desmond ordered.
“After you eat.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“And this isn’t a democracy.”
His stare could have frozen boiling water.
Sadi pushed the bowl closer.
Desmond took one spoonful.
“There. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
He reached for his coffee.
Sadi smiled in triumph.
Neither noticed Frankie smiling as he left.
Their routine changed after that night.
Sadi stopped treating physical therapy like a suggestion.
Every morning she stretched Desmond’s legs, inspected his skin, checked circulation and forced him through upper-body exercises recommended by his rehabilitation team.
Desmond complained through all of it.
But he stopped refusing.
One afternoon, she found him alone in the mansion’s enormous indoor rehabilitation room.
Parallel bars ran across one side. Machines filled another.
Dust covered most of them.
Desmond sat staring at a standing frame.
“You planning on intimidating it until it moves itself?” Sadi asked.
“Leave.”
She almost did.
Then she noticed the photograph lying in his lap.
Desmond was standing in it.
He wore a black tuxedo beside an older silver-haired man. Behind them stretched the Boston harbor.
His father.
Sadi understood without asking.
“You miss him?”
Desmond’s expression hardened.
“He died eight years ago.”
“I meant standing.”
His fingers tightened around the photograph.
For once, he did not punish her for the question.
“Yes.”
One word.
It carried more pain than anything she had heard him say.
Sadi walked toward the standing frame.
“Then get in.”
His head snapped toward her.
“My spinal cord was severed.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to walk because you watched an inspirational movie.”
“I didn’t say walk.”
She tapped the frame.
“I said stand.”
“It’s pointless.”
“Maybe.”
She crouched until they were eye level.
“But you’re still allowed to do pointless things because they make you feel human.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Twenty minutes later, two rehabilitation specialists arrived.
Desmond threatened to fire all three of them.
Sadi told him to save his breath.
With straps supporting his knees, hips and chest, the mechanical frame slowly lifted him.
For the first time in six months, Desmond Gallagher was upright.
His face changed.
Sadi had expected anger.
Instead, she saw fear.
His hands locked around the support bars.
“Easy,” she whispered.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
She stepped closer anyway.
His eyes were suddenly level with hers.
At six-foot-three, Desmond towered over her when standing.
Sadi smiled.
“Well, this is inconvenient.”
“What?”
“You’re much taller than I expected.”
A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth.
It disappeared almost immediately.
But she had seen it.
Then his left hand slipped.
His body tilted.
Sadi caught him around the torso despite the frame supporting most of his weight.
Desmond’s arm automatically wrapped around her shoulders.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Her cheek rested near his chest.
His heart hammered.
“So,” she murmured, “you do have one.”
“One what?”
“A heart.”
Desmond laughed.
An actual laugh.
Frankie, standing outside the rehabilitation room, stopped walking.
He had worked for Desmond for eleven years.
He had not heard that sound since the bombing.
That evening, Desmond ordered a new transmission installed in Sadi’s Honda.
She discovered it when the mechanic delivered the car.
She stormed into his study.
“You fixed my car?”
“You were blocking my gate.”
“For three weeks?”
“It was irritating me.”
“You could’ve told me.”
“You would have argued.”
“I’m arguing now.”
“Yes, but the transmission is already installed.”
Sadi opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then pointed at him.
“That was manipulative.”
“I’m in organized crime, Sadi. Manipulation is practically continuing education.”
She laughed despite herself.
Then she saw something on his desk.
A photograph.
Not the one from rehabilitation.
This photograph showed the wreckage of a black SUV.
Desmond immediately flipped it facedown.
Sadi’s smile vanished.
“The bombing?”
His silence answered.
“Did they catch whoever did it?”
“No.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know who built the bomb.”
Desmond rolled toward the window.
“But not who paid for it.”
Sadi looked at him differently.
Six months.
Someone had tried to murder him.
Someone had failed.
And that person might still be close.
That night, at 2:14 a.m., Sadi woke to a noise outside her room.
Not footsteps.
A door clicking shut.
She stepped into the hallway.
At the far end, a shadow disappeared around the corner leading toward the three locked rooms.
Sadi followed.
The hallway was empty.
Then she noticed something on the floor.
A syringe.
She picked it up using the hem of her shirt.
The barrel contained a trace of clear liquid.
Sadi’s stomach tightened.
The label had been removed.
Behind her, a voice said quietly,
“You shouldn’t have found that.”
Sadi froze.
She turned.
May you like
A man stood at the end of the hallway.
And he was wearing a Gallagher security badge.
