"The bathwater was hot enough to burn Maxwell Rourke's skin, yet the paralyzed crime boss didn't flinch—until I turned on the cold tap and his foot jerked away, exposing a terrifying secret."

For four days, I played the part of the obedient, desperate housekeeper. Every morning at eight, I took the silver tray from Miss Delaney, carried the poison syringe up the grand staircase, and entered Maxwell’s private suite under the watchful eyes of Julien’s corridor guards.

Once the deadbolt was locked, the theater ended.

I squirted the clear neurotoxin into a hollowed-out cavity behind the bathroom vanity, replacing it with sterile saline so the empty vials could be inspected in the basement trash.

While Julien believed his brother was deteriorating into a comatose state, Maxwell was training.

In the dead of night, while the mansion slept, Maxwell walked the floorboards of his private study. I sat near the door, my ears pressed against the wood, listening for the faintest creak of a guard's boot in the hallway while Maxwell lifted heavy iron weights concealed beneath his leather sofa.

His strength was terrifying. His discipline was absolute. But what frightened me most was the calculating genius operating behind his slate-gray eyes.

On the fifth night, at 2:00 AM, the soft chime of a hidden floorboard echoed through the study.

I turned around from my watch post at the door.

Maxwell was kneeling near the mahogany bookshelf, pulling a heavy, iron-bound ledger from a secret compartment built into the floorboards beneath the rug.

"What is that?" I whispered, walking over to him on quiet, bare feet.

"This is Julien's death warrant," Maxwell replied smoothly, opening the thick leather book under the dim light of a single desk lamp. "Every illegal shipment, every bribed port authority official, every offshore account in Grand Cayman that my family has used for twenty years is cataloged in these pages."

I looked down at the dense rows of numbers, shipping manifests, and names of prominent Rhode Island politicians written in neat, fountain-pen ink.

"If this gets out..." I breathed out, my eyes widening. "The federal prosecutors could dismantle the entire syndicate."

"Federal prosecutors are slow, Martha," Maxwell corrected, his baritone dropping into a cold register. "Julien doesn't fear the law. He fears the Commission—the six families that control the Eastern Seaboard. They tolerate ambition, but they execute traitors. Three days ago, Julien used my proxy signature to sell thirty percent of the Providence shipping terminals to a rogue cartel in Montreal."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because he owes forty million dollars to bookmakers in Manhattan," Maxwell said, his eyes darkening into flint. "He’s liquidating my empire to pay off his personal debts before my 'heart attack' is announced."

He closed the ledger with a soft thud.

"Tomorrow night is the annual Providence Harbor Gala," Maxwell revealed, looking up into my face. "Every family boss, every senator, and every captain in the state will be in the grand ballroom downstairs. Julien plans to announce his permanent appointment as Chairman of Rourke Global."

"And what are you going to do?" I asked, my heart taking a sharp, panicked jump in my chest.