Chapter 5 - “HE WANTED YOU ALIVE”
Dominic disappeared before police could reach him.
That told us enough.
His passports were flagged.
Accounts monitored.
Properties watched.
The men around me expected me to issue orders.
Vincent Corvino's cousin had arranged for him to be shot.
There were old ways to answer that.
Everyone knew them.
I called my senior crew together.
Eight men.
Most had known me twenty years.
I entered the study in my wheelchair.
Nobody stood.
Not because they didn't respect me.
Because I had told them months ago to stop.
Still, I saw it.
The uncertainty.
Did Vincent want blood?
I placed both hands on the wheels.
“If anyone finds Dominic, you call Detective Ortiz.”
Nobody spoke.
Finally, Salvatore Greco frowned.
“And then?”
“Then nothing.”
“He put you in that chair.”
“Yes.”
“You’re letting cops handle family?”
“Yes.”
Sal looked disgusted.
“Your father would—”
“Is dead.”
Silence.
I rolled closer.
“So is my uncle.”
I looked around.
“How many funerals do you need before you stop taking advice from graves?”
Nobody answered.
Sal walked out.
Three others eventually followed.
The world did not end.
That surprised me.
For years, I believed power required everybody staying.
Sometimes losing people simply revealed who had been waiting for an excuse.
The legitimate parts of the business continued.
Banks liked fewer unexplained transfers.
Lawyers liked documentation.
Employees liked knowing disputes would not become parking-lot emergencies.
Apparently normal business was profitable.
Who knew?
Tessa found me on the terrace that evening.
“You fired people?”
“They fired themselves.”
“That's mature.”
“I hate when you sound surprised.”
She sat beside me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You're allowed to not be okay.”
I stared at the harbor.
“He wanted me alive.”
She knew.
Ortiz had taken her statement too.
“He knew exactly where to tell the shooter to aim.”
Tessa said nothing.
“That means every bath.”
My voice cracked.
“Every transfer.”
Every time I fell.
Every humiliating bowel program.
Every night I woke because I dreamed I was running.
All planned.
“I want to kill him.”
Tessa remained still.
“I know.”
“You aren't going to tell me that's wrong?”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Wanting isn't doing.”
She turned toward me.
“What you do next decides who you are.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You should charge more.”
“I've been saying that.”
We sat quietly.
Then I asked:
“If I never walk again, would you still think therapy matters?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because therapy isn't just walking.”
I hated that answer because I knew it was true now.
Transfers were easier.
My shoulder pain had decreased.
I could dress myself from the waist up.
I could get from bed to chair with minimal assistance on good days.
The man I had been six months earlier would call those pathetic victories.
The man sitting on the terrace understood differently.
Independence came in inches.
Sometimes half an inch at the ankle.
Dominic was arrested eleven days later at a private airfield.
He had cash.
Two passports under false names.
And a letter.
Addressed to me.
Ortiz refused to give me the original but allowed a copy.
Vin,
You were destroying everything our fathers built.
You kept moving legitimate.
Audits. Compliance. Outside investors. Police cooperation.
You called it survival.
I called it surrender.
When you were shot, everyone finally remembered how much they needed us.
I never wanted you dead.
I wanted you still.
I stopped reading.
Tessa found the page later.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
I looked at her.
“He thinks this chair proved him right.”
“Does it?”
“No.”
“Then don't give him that.”
Dominic eventually agreed to speak.
Not because he was sorry.
Because prosecutors had him.
The meeting occurred behind glass.
He looked at my wheelchair.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don't.”
“I never thought the injury would be this severe.”
“You told a man to shoot me near the spine.”
“He was supposed to hit muscle.”
I laughed.
“Listen to yourself.”
Dominic pressed his hands together.
“I thought you'd recover.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You thought you could control the damage.”
He looked down.
“Same disease as Arya.”
“What?”
“Thinking intention matters more than consent.”
He didn't understand.
That was fine.
I no longer needed him to.
“Why Blackwater?”
“Harbor redevelopment.”
“You could have proposed it.”
“You'd say no.”
“So you stole.”
“I was trying to preserve what we built.”
“What our fathers built.”
“Yes.”
“They built it with fear.”
Dominic looked at me.
“And you benefited.”
That landed.
Because it was true.
I had spent years pretending I was different because I used fewer threats.
Because my contracts were cleaner.
Because the violence mostly belonged to history.
But I inherited power created by the same rules Dominic still worshiped.
“You're right.”
He blinked.
I continued.
“I benefited.”
His face changed.
“But that doesn't mean I have to keep paying the same price.”
I rolled away.
Dominic called:
“Vincent.”
I stopped.
“You really going to let them bury me?”
I looked back.
“No.”
Hope appeared.
Then I finished:
May you like
“You buried yourself.”
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