Chapter 14 - The Corrupted Healer
I didn't take the highway back to the estate.
I directed Marcus to drive the suburban directly to Dr. Vance’s private clinic on East 68th Street.
The waiting room was quiet, adorned with soothing classical music and soft velvet armchairs.
The receptionist looked up with a polished smile, but the expression melted when she saw the look on my face.
"Sir, you can't just walk back there—"
I didn't even break stride as I pushed through the swinging wooden doors that led to the examination suites.
Marcus stood in the doorway behind me, blocking the hallway with his heavy frame.
Dr. Vance was seated at a cherrywood desk, reviewing a patient's chart through gold-rimmed reading glasses.
He had silver hair, a gentle grandfatherly face, and hands that had supposedly saved dozens of lives.
When he saw me standing in the doorway, the blood drained instantly from his cheeks.
He set his pen down, his fingers trembling violently against the blotter.
"Salvatore," he whispered, his voice cracking like dry leaves.
"I... I wasn't expecting you."
I walked forward slowly, pulling the heavy brass chair opposite him and sitting down with deliberate calm.
I tossed Clara’s notarized affidavit onto his desk, right on top of the open chart.
"Did she tell you what they did to her, Robert?" I asked, my voice dangerously low.
Vance swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes off the paper.
"Salvatore... you don't understand the pressure I was under—"
"Did she tell you about the dog chain?" I interrupted, cutting through his excuses like a straight razor.
"Did she tell you that Hattie made my seventy-five-year-old mother kneel on the patio stones for dinner scraps?"
"Did she tell you that Nolan threatened to lock her in the pantry overnight if she complained to the neighbors?"
Vance buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
"They were going to kill Julian," the old doctor sobbed, his voice muffled by his trembling fingers.
"The men from Jersey... they took him to a warehouse in Newark."
"They sent me a finger, Salvatore!"
"They gave me twelve hours to certify the cognitive report or they were going to bury my boy in the Meadowlands!"
I stared at the broken old man sitting across from me.
The anger inside me was a raging furnace, but the revelation altered the trajectory of the strike.
Clara didn't just buy Vance; she orchestrated the extortion with cartel enforcers to ensure his total obedience.
"Who contacted you first?" I asked coldly.
"Clara?"
Vance shook his head frantically, looking up with tears streaming down his weathered cheeks.
"No! Not Clara."
"A man named Cassian."
"He called from a private exchange."
"He said he was representing the family council."
"He said Adelaide was being shielded by you, but the real power was shifting back to the old guard."
Cassian.
The name hit me like a physical blow.
Cassian wasn't Arthur’s man.
Cassian had been my father’s personal consigliere for twenty-five years before retiring to Long Island after my father's death.
If Cassian was in this, the betrayal wasn't coming from an estranged branch in Europe.
It was rotting out from the very core of the foundation my father had built.
"Listen to me very carefully, Robert," I said, leaning across the desk until my face was inches from his.
"You are going to draft a full, legally binding recantation of this affidavit right now."
"You are going to state under oath that your medical opinion was coerced under extreme duress and criminal extortion."
"And then you are going to give Marcus the phone number and address where Cassian’s men are holding your son."
Vance stared at me with wide, terrified eyes.
"If I do that... they will kill Julian before you can reach him."
I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed a direct line to our extraction team in New Jersey.
"They won't," I said coldly.
"Because my men have been watching that warehouse since six this morning."
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"You have five minutes to write that statement, Doctor."
"Every second you waste is another breath your son might not get to take."
