Chapter 14 - THE DOCTOR’S CONFESSION
Dr. Hale was still alive.
Barely.
They found him slumped against a sedan, blood spreading across his shirt, one hand clutching a leather folder to his chest.
Hale saw him and started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Massimo looked at the wound. “Who shot you?”
“Dean.”
“Why?”
“I told him I was done.”
“You were done six months late.”
Hale coughed. “I know.”
Massimo wanted to hate him cleanly. It was harder when the man was bleeding out on concrete.
“What’s in the folder?”
Hale handed it to him.
Medical records. Real ones.
Scans showing nerve conduction improving as early as eight weeks after the ambush.
Rehabilitation notes that had never reached Massimo.
Bloodwork documenting increasing levels of the suppressant.
A signed payment agreement between Hale and a shell company tied to Dean.
“You knew I could recover,” Massimo said.
Hale nodded weakly. “Not fully. Not at first. But enough to walk with therapy. Dean said if you recovered, the trust plan failed.”
“And Camille?”
“She knew about the medication by month three.”
Massimo looked away.
Hale gripped his sleeve. “There’s more.”
“What?”
“The ambush.”
Massimo leaned closer.
“The bullet in your spine wasn’t supposed to do permanent damage. Dean paid one of Bellandi’s shooters to aim below the vital line. But the shot landed higher than planned.”
Massimo’s face went cold.
“He gambled with my spine.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Dean now?”
“I don’t know. But he said if the plan failed, he’d burn the whole Rinaldi organization down and disappear with the accounts.”
Massimo stared at the folder.
“How much money?”
“Hundreds of millions.”
Hale’s grip loosened.
“Massimo… the second doctor…”
“Who?”
Hale whispered a name.
Massimo stopped breathing.
It was Dr. Anthony Rinaldi.
Massimo’s uncle.
May you like
His father’s younger brother.
The man who had helped raise him.
