Chapter 9 - Midnight Bargain
Martha knew she should pack her bags, leave the estate, and never look back. A twenty-eight-year-old former nurse had no business standing between a ruthless Mafia syndicate and a deadly medical conspiracy.
But as she thought about Maxwell—a powerful man trapped in his own body, forced to rely on the very people who were slowly draining his life away—she couldn't walk away.
Waiting until 2:00 AM, when the mansion fell into complete darkness and the night guards shifted their perimeter patrols to the exterior gates, Martha slipped out of her staff room.
She crept up the back servant stairs, avoiding the creaky wooden steps she had memorized over the past three weeks, and slipped into Maxwell’s master bedroom.
The vast room was lit only by the pale, silver glow of the moonlight filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean.
Maxwell was sitting upright in his massive bed, his dark silhouette stark against the white sheets. He wasn't sleeping. He was sitting perfectly still, staring at the door, as if he had been waiting for her.
"You're taking a massive risk coming in here, maid," Maxwell said softly, his deep voice carrying a lethal edge in the quiet room.
Martha stepped closer, stopping at the foot of his bed. She didn't flinch.
"You think you're paralyzed because of the ambush fourteen months ago," Martha said, keeping her voice low and steady.
Maxwell’s eyes burned through the dark. "My spine was crushed. Two top neurosurgeons in Boston confirmed it."
"They were wrong. Or they were paid," Martha replied. She pulled the small glass vial from her apron pocket and held it up in the moonlight. "I found this hidden behind your daily antiseptic bottles. It's a synthetic neurotoxin called Centraline-B. In small daily micro-doses, it deadens your lower spinal motor signals. It mimics complete paraplegia."
Maxwell went dead silent. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly, turning heavy and dangerous.
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"Where did you get that?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"In your bathroom cabinet," Martha said. "Dr. Cole has been injecting you with it during your 'nerve therapy' sessions every single night. Evelyn is directing it. They are transferring your shipping permits while you're trapped in that chair."
