Chapter 2 - The Thunder in the Dark
My living quarters were located in the west wing of the estate, separated from Desmond’s master bedroom by a single heavy door.
For the first ten days, our interaction was a silent, calculated battle of endurance.
I forced him through passive range-of-motion drills twice a day despite the obscenities he directed at my head.
I altered his diet, replaced his heavy liquor intake with electrolyte infusions, and monitored his skin hourly.
He treated me like an occupying army, speaking only in short, biting commands.
Yet beneath the criminal boss who commanded Chicago’s underground with a whisper, I saw the terror of a man trapped in a failing shell.
The car bomb that shattered his L1 vertebra six months ago had taken more than his motor control; it had stripped away his control over his world.
On the twelfth night, a fierce midwestern thunderstorm slammed against the shores of Lake Michigan.
Lightning lit up the high arched windows, casting stark white light across the bedroom ceiling.
Around three o’clock in the morning, the harsh sound of leather striking wood tore through the intercom monitor on my nightstand.
I threw off my sheets, shoved my feet into my slippers, and hurried into Desmond’s suite without knocking.
The scene inside was chaotic.
Desmond was writhing on the king-sized mattress, his sheets tangled in violent knots around his hips.
A severe clonus spasm had seized his lower extremities, his right quadriceps firing uncontrollably in rhythmic, violent jerks.
The involuntary kinetic force was rattling the massive headboard against the reinforced drywall.
Desmond was sweating through his cotton sleep shirt, his teeth grinding together so hard I could hear the enamel crack.
He tried to grab his thrashing knee with his hands, but his upper body lacked the leverage to pin down his own convulsing weight.
“Desmond!” I shouted, rushing to the side of the bed.
“Get... out!” he choked out between panting breaths.
“Don’t... look at this!”
I did not waste time with apologies.
I climbed directly onto the mattress, dropped my knees onto either side of his left hip, and used my full body weight to stabilize his trembling pelvis.
Then I placed both hands firmly on his spasming right thigh, driving down through my forearms.
“Stop fighting the contractions,” I ordered in a low, authoritative voice.
“You are making the reflex arc worse by tensing your abdominal core.”
“It feels like... hot needles through the marrow,” he gasped, his head rolling back into the pillow.
His calf bucked violently upward, catching my forearm and driving my elbow directly into his lower ribs.
Pain flared through my arm, but I did not lift my hands an inch.
“I am sorry about the elbow,” I breathed, leaning deeper into the press.
“Breathe through the nose, Desmond.”
“Slow breaths.”
“Follow my count.”
“Inhale for four.”
He sucked in a ragged breath, the veins on his temples bulging against his pale skin.
“I told you... I fired nurses for less than this,” he rasped, his voice raw with humiliation.
“You can fire me at sunrise, but right now, your nervous system is firing rogue electrical signals and I am the only one stopping you from tearing a hamstring,” I retorted.
I kept the steady pressure on his muscle belly for five agonizing minutes, whispering the rhythmic count over the rumble of thunder.
Gradually, the violent clonus began to subside.
The tremors softened from violent jolts to faint twitches, and finally, the heavy muscle went slack beneath my palms.
Desmond lay completely depleted, his chest heaving under his damp shirt, staring at the ceiling with unvarnished agony.
I remained sitting on the edge of the mattress, my hand resting gently on his shin to prevent a secondary wave of tremors.
For the first time since I arrived, there was no defensive sneer on his lips.
“Why didn’t you walk out on the first day?” he asked, his voice barely louder than the falling rain.
“Because I know what it looks like when a fighter is dying inside,” I replied honestly, easing my weight off the bed.
“My brother had an addiction to street racing and took a bad turn on Interstate 90 three years ago.”
“I watched him let himself rot because he thought his worth was tied to a steering wheel.”
Desmond turned his head slightly toward me, his blue eyes searching mine in the dim glow of the bedside lamp.
“A crime syndicate is not an engine, Nora.”
“If the pack smells weakness at the top, they tear the throat out.”
“Then you had better take your muscle relaxers so your pack does not see you shaking,” I said, walking toward the bathroom cabinet.
“I refused the baclofen because it clouds my mind,” he muttered, trying to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“Your mind is already clouded from seventy-two hours of acute sleep deprivation,” I countered, setting a glass of water and two tablets on his nightstand.
He looked at the small white pills, then up at my face.
For several seconds, an unspoken truce hung between us.
He reached out, his hand steadier than before, and swallowed the medication without another complaint.
Before I could turn to leave the room, the heavy bedroom door swung open with a muffled thud.
Frankie stepped into the room, wearing a rain-soaked trench coat with his hand resting openly on his firearm.
His face was pale, his eyes darting from me to Desmond with suppressed panic.
“Boss,” Frankie said in a strained whisper.
Desmond’s posture shifted instantly from vulnerable patient back to the ruthless head of the Gallagher family.
“What is it, Frankie?” Desmond demanded.
May you like
“We intercepted the courier at O’Hare twenty minutes ago,” Frankie replied, stepping closer to the bed.
“The man who wired the detonator to your car in May... he is downstairs in the cellar right now.”
