The bathwater was hot enough to scald human flesh, and Maxwell Rourke did not react.

By the fourth day of their secret alliance, Martha had managed to replace half of Dr. Bradley’s daily injections with sterile saline.

The change was astonishing. With the neuromuscular blocker diluted, Maxwell’s recovery accelerated with terrifying speed. His nervous system, starved of its natural signals for over a year, rebounded like a coiled spring released from a cage.

Every night between midnight and four, Martha worked his limbs. She massaged the lactic acid from his calves, stretched the shortened tendons in his hamstrings, and coached him through bodyweight squats using the heavy four-poster bedposts for support.

“Tomorrow night is the monthly syndicate assembly,” Maxwell said, bracing himself as he performed a slow, controlled dip on the bed frame. His muscles rippled under a gray athletic shirt, soaked in sweat.

“What assembly?” Martha asked, keeping her fingers pressed against his lower lumbar spine to track his muscle engagement.

“The five port captains. Julian called them to the manor. He intends to invoke the incapacitation clause in our family charter.” Maxwell straightened up, his breathing deep and steady. “Under the old waterfront rules, if a head of the family remains medically unfit to command for fifteen consecutive months, the second-in-line can claim full ownership of the shipping concessions and the private security contracts.”

Martha’s eyes widened. “That’s why Bradley was keeping you under. The fifteen-month deadline is this week.”

“Friday night,” Maxwell said coldly. “Julian doesn't just want my business, Martha. He’s already brokered a deal to sell Pier 9 to a Russian syndicate out of Brighton Beach. They want our deep-water docks to move untraceable container freight into the Northeast corridor. My father spent forty years keeping those bastards off our coastline. Julian is selling the front door for thirty million dollars.”

“If you stand up at that meeting,” Martha warned, “they won't just accept it. Julian will be cornered. A cornered predator doesn't negotiate; he attacks.”

“I’m counting on it,” Maxwell said.

He turned, stepping away from the bedpost. For the first time, he did not use his hands for support. He stood unsupported in the center of the Persian rug, towering over her, broad-shouldered and imposing, the physical manifestation of raw authority.

He took one step toward her. Then another.

He didn't stumble.

Martha took a step back, her heart leaping into her throat, but Maxwell’s hand shot out, catching her around the waist and pulling her flush against his chest.

The air vanished from her lungs. She looked up into his face, feeling the steady, powerful thump of his heart against her ribs.

“You did this,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her lips before returning to her eyes. “In four days, you pulled me out of a grave.”

“You did the work,” Martha whispered, unable to pull away from the magnetic pull of his presence. “I just cleared the poison.”

“No,” Maxwell said, his voice dropping to a gravelly intimacy that made her knees weak. “You stayed when any sane person would have run. You risked your freedom to save a man the whole world considers a monster.”

“You’re not a monster, Maxwell. You’re just a man who refused to let them break him.”

His hand slid up her back, resting warm and possessive against the nape of her neck. For a single, suspended heartbeat, Martha thought he was going to kiss her. The tension between them was electric, thick with unspoken desires and shared danger.

Then, from the ground floor, a loud crash shattered the quiet.

Glass breaking. A woman’s sharp scream.

Martha flinched, pulling back. “Miss Delaney?”

Maxwell’s expression shifted instantly from smoldering intimacy to lethal calculation. He moved silently to the wardrobe, pulled out a heavy black leather holster containing a customized .45 caliber pistol, and checked the slide with a clean, metallic snap.