Chapter 12 - THE THINGS WE CANNOT COMMAND
Clara woke to rain striking a hospital window.
For several seconds, she did not know where she was.
Then pain spread across her side.
A nurse noticed her movement.
“Easy.”
“My mother.”
“Safe.”
“My father?”
“Downstairs.”
“Elias?”
The nurse smiled.
“In the hallway intimidating administrators.”
Clara closed her eyes with relief.
The bullet had passed through her side without striking a major organ. She had lost blood but did not require extensive surgery.
When Elias entered, he wore a clean shirt and fresh bandages.
His wheelchair had been damaged, so he used a temporary hospital model he clearly despised.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“So are you.”
“I’ve been informed that is customary.”
She smiled weakly.
He stopped beside the bed.
For a moment, neither knew what to say.
Then Clara noticed blood beneath the gauze on his palms.
“You tore the wounds open.”
“You were on a collapsing tower.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“You should have let Gabriel come back for me.”
“No.”
The word carried her own stubbornness back to her.
“You couldn’t walk,” she whispered.
“I remain aware.”
“You crossed that platform anyway.”
“I crawled.”
“You hate crawling in front of people.”
“I hated leaving you more.”
Clara looked toward the window.
Her eyes burned.
Elias touched the bedrail.
“I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Many things. We may need categories.”
She laughed, then winced.
He waited until the pain passed.
“I believed needing someone meant surrendering control to them,” he said. “I believed if no one saw me fall, I could remain the man I was.”
“Do you want to be that man?”
His eyes shifted.
“I don’t know who he was.”
“Everyone else seems to.”
“That is the problem.”
Clara held out her hand.
He looked at it.
“Do I have permission?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He took it carefully.
“I was afraid you would die.”
“So was I.”
“I did not find fear useful.”
“It rarely asks permission.”
He looked down at their joined hands.
“Stay.”
The word was so quiet she almost missed it.
“At the estate?”
“With me.”
Clara’s heartbeat changed.
“Those are not the same request.”
“No.”
“Which one are you making?”
Elias looked at her.
“Both.”
Before she could answer, the door opened.
Thomas entered with Anne in a wheelchair beside him.
Clara’s mother looked exhausted but brightened when she saw her daughter.
Elias released Clara’s hand.
Anne noticed.
So did Thomas.
Clara’s mother struggled to speak.
“Boss?”
Clara smiled.
“Yes. That’s Elias.”
Anne looked him over.
“Handsome.”
Elias, who could face armed men without blinking, seemed briefly uncertain.
“Thank you, Mrs. Doyle.”
“Dangerous?”
Clara considered.
“Sometimes.”
Anne shook her head.
“You.”
Clara laughed.
Her mother was calling her dangerous.
Thomas stood near the foot of the bed.
“I need to tell you something.”
Clara’s smile faded.
Her father removed a small digital recorder.
“The clock was set to 9:40 because that was the time Adrian Moretti died. But your mother remembered the time was wrong because I once showed her the photograph.”
Anne nodded.
Thomas continued.
“Adrian actually died at 9:47. The clock had been moved back seven minutes.”
“Why?” Elias asked.
“To create an alibi.”
The room became still.
“For whom?” Clara asked.
“Isabella.”
Elias stared.
Thomas turned on the recorder.
A man’s voice filled the room.
Adrian Moretti.
“If anything happens to me, Isabella has discovered the ledger. She believes I ordered the attack on Elias. I did not. Gabriel warned me someone changed the route. Isabella refuses to believe him.”
The recording crackled.
“She plans to confront me tonight. If the clock stops before ten, Margaret will assume the heart attack came naturally. But my medication has been replaced.”
Elias’s face emptied.
“My mother killed him.”
Thomas nodded.
“She believed Adrian arranged the ambush.”
“But the ambush happened years after his death,” Clara said.
“The earlier attack,” Isabella said from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
She entered slowly.
“When Elias was twenty, a car bomb exploded outside his apartment.”
Elias looked at her.
“You told me it was a gas leak.”
“I lied.”
“Of course.”
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
“I discovered payments from one of Adrian’s accounts to the bomber. I confronted him. He denied it. I had already changed his heart medication.”
“You murdered my father.”
“Yes.”
Anne reached for Clara’s hand.
Isabella continued.
“After Adrian died, I learned Sloane controlled the account. Your father had not ordered the attack. I killed an innocent man.”
“Innocent is generous,” Elias said.
“But innocent of that.”
She placed an envelope on the bed.
“This is my confession. The federal authorities are waiting.”
Margaret entered behind her.
Her face was wet with tears.
“You’re surrendering?”
“I should have done it twelve years ago.”
Elias’s voice was cold.
“You should have stayed.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
She approached him.
“May I touch you?”
Everyone became quiet.
Elias looked at his mother’s hands.
The woman he had mourned.
The woman who had abandoned him.
The woman who had killed his father and aimed a gun at his head to save his life.
Finally, he nodded.
Isabella placed her palm against his cheek.
He did not forgive her.
Not then.
But he allowed the touch.
Sometimes that was where forgiveness began.
Federal agents escorted Isabella away.
Gabriel entered after them.
He had resigned as head of security.
Elias had not accepted.
“I found Rusk’s records,” Gabriel said. “The man who changed your route fourteen months ago was Dr. Marino.”
Elias’s eyes hardened.
“The doctor?”
“He altered your therapy appointment, ensuring you arrived at the shipyard early. He also replaced ammunition in one guard’s weapon with blanks.”
“Why?”
“Debt. Rusk owned him.”
“Where is Marino?”
“In custody.”
“And the guards who attacked the estate?”
“Six arrested. Two dead. One missing.”
“Who?”
“Martin Shaw.”
Elias knew the name.
Clara did not.
“My night nurse,” he said.
Gabriel nodded.
Shaw had access to Elias’s medication, bedroom, and therapy equipment.
The hidden microphone had not been the only sabotage.
“He disabled the brakes on your chair the night Clara found you,” Gabriel said.
Clara felt cold.
Elias had not fallen because of broken glass.
Someone had designed the fall.
“Where would Shaw go?” Elias asked.
Gabriel looked at Anne.
“To finish the last order Rusk gave him.”
The hospital alarm began ringing.
A nurse’s voice sounded over the intercom.
“Security breach, third floor.”
The lights went out.
Emergency red filled the room.
Thomas moved Anne behind the bed.
Gabriel drew his weapon.
A shape appeared beyond the glass panel in the door.
Martin Shaw.
He wore hospital scrubs.
In one hand, he held a syringe.
In the other, a pistol.
He fired through the glass.
Gabriel returned fire.
Shaw vanished.
Elias looked toward Clara.
“Stay here.”
She almost laughed.
“You know me better than that.”
This time, he did not argue.
He handed her the call button.
“Lock the door after us.”
“You’re going after him?”
“He knows the hospital. He will reach the electrical controls.”
Gabriel checked the corridor.
Clear.
Elias rolled through first.
At the far end, an elevator opened.
Shaw stood inside.
He raised the pistol.
Elias’s temporary chair suddenly stopped.
The electronic controls had died.
Shaw smiled.
Then Clara appeared behind Elias.
She had ignored the order.
Again.
She gripped the chair handles.
Elias looked up.
“I told you to lock the door.”
“I did.”
“You were supposed to remain behind it.”
“You should be more specific.”
Shaw fired.
Clara pushed Elias into a side corridor.
The bullet struck the wall.
May you like
Together they disappeared into darkness, pursued by the last man who still wanted Elias Moretti dead.
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