Six months after a bullet paralyzed me, my fiancée canceled my therapy, sneering, “Helping him is pointless now.” She spent our money on wedding dresses while demanding my signature on our harbor properties. But my $25-an-hour nurse refused to let me rot. She rebooked my session and secretly placed a folded document on my hospital bed: “Mr. Corvino… your fiancée doesn’t want you to walk again.” Reading Arya’s signature at the bottom, I realized the bullet wasn’t an accident—it was an inside job Kertati

*And Arya.*

For three years, she had slept with her head rested over my heartbeat. Now she was measuring my cognitive decline in legal filings while picking out bridal linen she never intended to use.

At three-twenty, Dr. Sameer Patel slipped through the French doors of the east suite, smelling of cold rain and wet wool. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. He dropped his heavy leather medical bag onto the rug and locked the deadbolt behind him.

“They served my office with a formal notice of dismissal this morning,” Patel said, pulling a set of heavy resistance bands and two articulated knee-ankle braces from his case. “Signed by your cousin, under power of attorney.”

“He doesn’t have power of attorney yet,” I said, grasping the trapeze bar bolted above the mattress. “He has a forged petition and a bought judge. How much time do we have?”

“The probate magistrate usually grants preliminary administrative orders within twenty-four hours in corporate conservatorship disputes,” Patel said grimly, strapping the reinforced leather braces around my lower limbs. “If you appear before that bench in a standard transport wheelchair, looking sedated and defeated, the magistrate will sign the proxy before Dominic’s lawyer finishes his opening remarks.”