Chapter 5 - The War Within the Walls
The next four days were a blur of intense preparation, secret deliveries, and soaring emotions.
Under absolute secrecy, a team of specialized biomedical engineers from Switzerland arrived at the estate, bringing with them a state-of-the-art motorized exoskeleton—a cutting-edge medical device designed to allow individuals with spinal cord injuries to stand and walk using trunk movement sensors and computerized leg braces.
The training was excruciating.
I stood in the private gymnasium every night, holding my breath as Sebastian strapped himself into the carbon-fiber frame. His brow dripped with heavy sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he forced his upper body to calibrate the machine’s sensors.
"Again," Sebastian grunted, his knuckles white as he held onto the parallel bars.
"Sebastian, you've been at this for six hours," I pleaded, stepping closer with a towel and a bottle of water. "Your shoulders are bruised. You need to rest."
"I have twenty years of sitting down to make up for, Mary," he gritted out.
He activated the hand controls. The machine hummed softly, servos whirring as it lifted his six-foot-two frame out of his wheelchair. He stood upright.
For a moment, he swayed, his face pale with exertion. But he stabilized himself, taking a slow, mechanical step forward. Then another.
He stopped directly in front of me.
For the first time since I had met him, I didn't have to look down into his wheelchair. He was tall—imposingly tall—broad-shouldered and commanding.
He looked down into my eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily. "How do I look?"
"Like a king," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "You look completely invincible."
Sebastian lifted a gloved hand, gently tracing his fingers along my cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear. The physical proximity between us was electric, sending a shiver straight down my spine.
"I'm not invincible, Mary," he said softly, his voice dropping into an intimate register that made my heart hammer against my ribs. "I was a dead man until you locked that door and fought for me. Everything I am doing now... I'm doing it because you made me believe I deserved to live."
I leaned my face into his warm palm. "You always deserved to live, Sebastian."
He stepped closer—one small, mechanical click of the exoskeleton—and leaned down, pressing his forehead gently against mine. We stood there in the quiet gym, wrapped in the soft hum of the machine, sharing the same breath as the world outside prepared to tear us apart.
Late Sunday night, twelve hours before the summit, disaster struck.
I was in the kitchen preparing a late-night tea for Sebastian when the mansion’s security alarms suddenly blared. Red lights flashed across the hallways, and the deafening screech of sirens echoed through the estate.
"Mary!" Theresa screamed, running down the corridor. "The front gates were breached!"
Panic seized my chest. "Ethan!"
I threw my tea cup aside and sprinted up the grand staircase toward the nursery. Before I could reach the second-floor landing, three men in dark tactical gear slammed through the glass patio doors of the upper balcony.
Leading them was Arthur Vance himself, wearing a dark trench coat, his eyes wild and desperate.
"Where is he?!" Vance shouted, holding a thick stack of legal documents. "Where is the incompetent bastard?!"
"Get out of this house!" I screamed, grabbing a heavy bronze statuette from a hallway table and holding it like a weapon. "Security is already on the way!"
"Security works for me, girl!" Vance sneered, stepping toward me. "Evelyn signed over full emergency authorization twenty minutes ago! I have a court order declaring this property a medical containment zone! You’re trespassing on Reed corporate assets!"
One of Vance’s hired guards reached out to grab my arm.
Before his fingers could touch me, a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall swung open with violent force.
"TOUCH HER AND YOU DIE!"
The voice boomed through the corridor like thunder.
Arthur Vance and his guards froze.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the bright light of his office, was Sebastian Reed. He wasn't in his wheelchair. He was standing tall in his charcoal suit, supported by the hum of his exoskeleton, holding his father’s old double-barreled hunting shotgun straight at Arthur Vance’s chest.
Vance’s jaw dropped. His face turned as white as a sheet. "S-Sebastian...? You're... you're standing...?"
"You broke into my home, Arthur," Sebastian said, taking a deliberate, heavy step forward, the mechanical suit whirring with lethal precision. "You threatened the woman I love. You threatened her child."
My heart stopped at his words—the woman I love.
Sebastian cocked the shotgun with a sharp, terrifying clack.
"You have five seconds to turn around and leave this property," Sebastian ordered, his eyes cold enough to freeze blood. "Or I will execute my legal right to defend my family against armed intruders."
Vance stumbled backward, terror completely replacing his arrogance. "You're crazy! You're completely insane!"
"One," Sebastian counted down.
"Retreat! Get back to the cars!" Vance shrieked, turning on his heel and sprinting down the balcony stairs with his guards right behind him.
As the heavy front doors slammed shut and the sound of screeching tires echoed outside, the mansion fell into a stunned silence.
Sebastian lowered the shotgun. The intense adrenaline drained from his face, leaving him breathing heavily, swaying slightly as the weight of the suit pressed down on him.
I dropped the bronze statuette and ran to him, wrapping my arms around his waist to support his weight. "Sebastian! Are you okay?!"
He dropped the gun onto the carpet and wrapped his arms tightly around me, pulling me against his broad chest. His body was shaking, but his grip was fiercely protective.
"I'm fine," he whispered into my hair, his chest heaving. "Are you hurt? Is Ethan okay?"
"We're fine," I sobbed, pressing my face into his neck. "We're safe because of you."
May you like
Sebastian pulled back slightly, cupping my face in both of his hands. He looked into my eyes with a burning, desperate passion that took my breath away.
"I won't let them hurt you, Mary," he swore softly. "Tomorrow, we finish this."
