Home Entertainment Game Technology Six months after a bullet left me paralyzed, my fiancée secretly ordered the staff to stop my afternoon therapy because she believed helping me was pointless, but the exhausted aide earning twenty-five dollars an hour refused to treat me like a lost cause. I had spent my life surrounded by men terrified of my name, yet it took one brutally honest woman washing my back to make me realize the person wearing my engagement ring had already abandoned me.352

“Does she know you're here?”

“She knew why I took the job.”

“To get evidence.”

“Yes.”

“So the first morning you walked in…”

“I hated you.”

I closed my eyes.

All those baths.

Transfers.

The swollen foot.

Three o'clock therapy.

Her hands holding me upright.

“You hated me.”

“Yes.”

“Then why help me?”

Her voice broke.

“Because you were helpless.”

I looked at her.

“So was my sister.”

Tears ran down Tessa's cheeks.

“When Mara was trapped, people from your company stood behind barricades arguing about liability while firefighters tried to keep her conscious. Afterward, Corvino attorneys fought every treatment request. Every nerve procedure. Every additional month of rehab.”

“I didn't know.”

“I know that now.”

The words hurt more than accusation.

“You didn't know,” she repeated, “because men like Dominic made sure you didn't have to know. And because you built a life where everyone was afraid to bring you bad news.”