Chapter 3 - The Doctor's Visit
The morning sun broke through the heavy grey clouds over Long Island, casting long, sharp shadows across the master bedroom of the Marino estate.
It was 7:45 AM.
I sat in my wheelchair beside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, a thick cashmere blanket draped over my lap. To anyone looking from the outside, nothing had changed. I was still the broken, brooding Harbor King, gazing out over the cold Atlantic ocean, waiting for a life that had ended eight years ago.
Underneath the blanket, however, my world was shattering and rebuilding itself piece by piece. The agonizing nerve pain from the neutralizing agent had settled into a deep, throbbing hum. Every muscle in my thighs and calves was twitching, screaming, hungering for movement.
Beside my chair stood Anton, his dark suit perfectly tailored, his hand resting casually inside his jacket where his custom sig firearm rested.
"Dr. Thorne's car just passed through the main gate, Boss," Anton reported quietly, looking at his tactical wristwatch. "He's alone. As usual."
"Good," I said, my voice low and smooth as steel. "Have the staff clear the ground floor. Tell Maria to keep the kids in the West Wing quarters until I give the word."
"Are we taking him down here, Mr. Marino?"
"No," I replied, a cold, dark smile touching my lips. "We let him perform his routine. I want to see the eyes of the man who sold my life for a silver watch."
A soft knock echoed against the heavy mahogany bedroom door at precisely 8:00 AM.
"Caleb?" Dr. Julian Thorne's gentle, cultured voice called out as he pushed the door open. He was a handsome man in his early fifties, with silvering hair, wearing a impeccably tailored gray suit and carrying a leather doctor’s bag. On his left wrist, the silver Patek Philippe caught the morning light. "Good morning, my friend. How did we sleep last night?"
He walked into the room with the practiced ease of a man who owned the space, setting his bag onto the marble table near the bed. He pulled out a sterile syringe and a small glass vial filled with a clear blue liquid—the very poison that had kept me bound to this chair for nearly three thousand days.
"The winter garden was cold last night, Julian," I said, keeping my face completely expressionless, staring out the window. "I sat there for hours."
Julian sighed sympathetically, tapping the syringe to clear the air bubbles. "Caleb, we've talked about this. Spending too much time in isolation isn't good for your mental state. The paralysis is permanent, yes, but you still have an empire to manage. Your board of directors—specifically Marcus Vance—is getting anxious about your lack of visibility."
Marcus Vance.
The name hit my ears like thunder. Marcus Vance was Arthur Vance’s older brother—and the chief executive chairman of Marino Enterprises, the man who had taken over daily operations of my shipping docks and real estate holdings after my accident. The loop was finally closing.
"Marcus has been very supportive," I remarked casually, turning my head slowly to look at Julian. "He comes by once a month to sign the executive paperwork."
"He cares about you, Caleb," Julian said smoothly, stepping up behind my wheelchair, pulling back the cashmere blanket to expose my left thigh. He swabbed the skin with alcohol. "Now, hold still. Just the daily nutrient and nerve-calming injection."
He brought the needle toward my leg.
Before the cold steel tip could touch my skin, my hand shot out like a strike from a viper.
I grabbed Julian by the throat, my fingers digging deep into his windpipe. The strength in my upper body, built over eight years of pushing my own wheelchair, was immense. Julian gasped, dropping the syringe to the carpet, his hands clawing wildly at my arm, his silver watch gleaming in the sunlight.
"C-Caleb?!" he choked out, his eyes bulging in sudden, hysterical terror. "What... what are you—"
"Eight years, Julian," I growled, my voice dropping into a register that made the windowpanes vibrate. "Eight years of injecting me with neurotoxins. Eight years of telling me I was broken."
"I... I don't... know what you're..."
I didn't answer. Slowly, deliberately, I threw the cashmere blanket off my lap.
Julian’s eyes tracked down to my legs. His breath hitched in his throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated horror escaping his lips as I placed both of my feet flat on the floor, shifted my weight forward, and stood up.
My knees shook violently. My leg muscles screamed in agony under the sudden pressure of my two-hundred-pound frame. But I stood. Full height. Towering over the doctor, my hand still choked around his throat, holding him suspended against the mahogany wall.
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"You..." Julian whimpered, tears of sheer panic bursting from his eyes. "You're... standing..."
"The Harbor King is back, Julian," I whispered into his ear, my grip tightening until his face turned purple. "And you are going to tell me every single name involved in my wife's murder, or I will drop you out of that window."
