Chapter 6 - The Trap Shuts
The storm broke on Thursday night.
The withdrawal had begun twenty-four hours after Albright’s visit, exactly as Martha had predicted, and it was a living nightmare.
In the locked bedroom on the third floor, Maxwell was strapped to the heavy oak bedposts with strips of linen to keep the violent, uncoordinated clonic spasms from throwing him onto the floor. His nervous system, freed from the chemical blanket that had suppressed it for over a year, was firing like a downed power line whipping against wet asphalt.
Sweat poured off him in rivers, soaking the mattress. His teeth were chattering so violently Martha had wedged a folded leather belt between his molars to keep him from biting his tongue in half.
"Maxwell," she whispered, her hands pressing down on his wildly trembling knees. "Look at me. Look at my face."
His gray eyes were bloodshot, dilated until the irises were thin rings of slate. He glared at her through the haze of agony, his chest heaving, his ribs expanding against the white surgical scar.
"The... fire," he hissed through the leather.
"It’s not fire. It’s sensation. Your brain doesn't know how to interpret the signals yet. It thinks everything is pain. You have to tell it the difference. Feel my hands. That isn't fire. That's pressure. That's cold skin."
She took his right foot in her hands, her thumbs pressing deep into the plantar arch, forcing the ankle through a range of motion.
"Push," she commanded.
"I... can't."
"Push, Maxwell! Vance is meeting Frank Moretti at Terminal 4 at midnight tomorrow. If you aren't down there, you won't have an empire to reclaim. You’ll be dead in an institutional hospice by Monday. Push against my hands!"
A roar tore from his throat—a sound that was half-animal, half-human rage.
The muscles of his right quad seized into iron knots. His calf bulged.
Under Martha’s palms, the sole of his right foot pressed forward.
It wasn't a reflex.
It was sustained, voluntary, furious motor control. He pushed her back three inches, his heel driving into the mattress with enough force to rattle the headboard.
"Again," she cried, tears of sheer adrenaline stinging her eyes. "Left foot, Maxwell! Give me the left!"
Before he could answer, the sharp, rhythmic crack of gunfire shattered the wet silence of the street below.
Martha froze.
Two floors down, glass imploded. Then the heavy, unmistakable thump of a submachine gun firing in short, disciplined bursts through the front parlor windows.
Miss Delaney screamed—a high, thin sound that was cut off by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floorboards.
"They aren't waiting for tomorrow," Maxwell said. His voice was suddenly, miraculously clear. The agony in his face vanished, burned away by the cold, tactical ice that had kept him alive for twenty years on the docks.
"Vance?" Martha whispered, her blood running cold.
"Vance didn't want to risk me refusing to sign," Maxwell said, his hands reaching up to unbuckle the linen restraints around his wrists. "He brought Moretti’s hitters to clean the house. They’ll shoot me in my bed, set the fire, and tell the police the paralyzed cripple tipped over a space heater."
The sound of heavy boots came pounding up the broad mahogany staircase.
Two men. Fast. Professional.
"The closet," Maxwell whispered, swinging his legs off the bed.
His feet hit the Persian rug.
He didn't stand—his balance was non-existent, his core stabilizers still sluggish from fourteen months of atrophy—but his knees locked under him for two full seconds before he caught the heavy cedar post of the bed.
"Martha. Into the wardrobe behind the chimney. There’s a panel in the back that drops into the service chase."
"I'm not leaving you," she said, her voice shaking as she pulled a heavy iron fireplace poker from the hearth.
"You idiot girl," Maxwell snarled, his fingers digging into the cedar post until the wood groaned. "You think you can hit a man with an Uzi with a brass rod? Get in the wall!"
May you like
The bedroom door was kicked off its brass hinges.
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