"Figured you would want to see her," Steve replied before looking over his cubicle. "Hey, Ty, take Mr Rohan here to see our newest guest."
"Yes, Mr Stanislovoski," the young man said as he dropped his coffee and put his system on "sleep" before gesturing to Maxwell "Come with me, sir."
"Thanks, man," Maxwell said to Steve.
"Nope, you don't get to wiggle with a thank-you. You just used up the favour I owe you."
Maxwell snorted a laugh as he followed the young Ty to the visitation room adjacent to the holding cells. It did not take long before she came in.
"She sure looked different" was the first thing that came to Maxwell's mind as Ty led her in. She looked more mature and beautiful than he had seen her in the last eight years, if a little dishevelled at the moment.
After Ty left to give them privacy, she leaned forward with excitement. "Oh, brother, I am so happy to see you here. I have no idea if you would come, but I had to try. I had to make that call. Even while making it, I thought you would ignore me like you have done for years now after mum and dad died," she said, bright-eyed
"Why not lay it on? Somethings never really change." Maxwell thought "Talk of double standards."
Maxwell couldn't help but see the traits of her dubious mother in her, not just in the looks but in using guilt trips to get their way. Oh, yes, Fiona had been very good at that. Playing the angelic doting mother while his father had been alive. Andre had bought it all, as had Maxwell, who thought he had gotten a loving mother and an automatic little sister when his father told him about his remarriage and brought them home. He had not thought much of girls then, especially one younger than him by two whole years. Fiona had pretended to be everything he thought he missed in having a mother; after all, his mother died at childbirth. Life seemed to be rosy at Rohan's household until his father slept and didn't wake up. Just like that. No warning. No sickness. Andre left his grieving family behind.
It didn't take long for the grieving teenager to realise that he had been left with someone who had pretended for more than nine years that he had known her. Fiona put him through a lot. Lying on him. Trying to get him in jail. Pulling him out of school. Throwing things at him. The woman was one of the reasons why Maxwell had one of the meanest reflexes anyone could boast of.
Thankfully, he had been big for his age, and at seventeen, he towered over her. That had ruled out the beating. She tried it one day, and Maxwell dragged the belt so hard that she toppled over the couch. That had earned him no dinner for a week. The obscene words were the worst. Words about Maxwell's mother, from whom she removed all the pictures of her that Andre hung in his lifetime.
"I met him first when we were in college, but your whore of a mother took him from me. I got him back, after all, didn't I?" she would say with a self-satisfied smirk before thumping her hand on whatever was close by, "That is Karma for you."
Maxwell had always wondered when her karma would come. Her karma seemed to be in the shape of a hit-and-run vehicle. Maxwell was long gone from home then. He packed his backpack the moment he clocked eighteen, and not even once did Fiona try to get him back.
As Maxwell sat in the visiting room, looking at the oh-so-precious daughter of the woman who had made life hell for him and used the same trick that had worked with his father and a lot of people for years, he wished he hadn't come. He wished he could just stand up and leave the room, never looking back again. As her mother had requested before. As she had requested, he helped her with her mother's funeral, but he knew that he couldn't do it. Andre adopted her after all. And as his father would say, he had a responsibility to his family. Like it or not. She was his family.
When Susan saw that he was just giving her a direct look without responding to her earlier statement, the fear of him getting up and leaving her in this mess that Thomas seemed not to have a way out of made her readjust in her seat. The bastard could not even get her a decent lawyer. Telling her that his money was intercepted. She loved Thomas, but the fear had always been there: what if he finally left her for his rich wife?
Worse, what if he collected her children, deemed her an unfit mother in court, and kept them for himself and his wife? Her poor babies. No, she wouldn't give them away. She was not unfit; she only dabbled in the white subs**nce once in a while. She had managed to keep it from Thomas and had only zoned out once in a while when she was supposed to take the kids from school. But they had been fine. Her babies were capable of taking care of themselves now, especially her dear Allysyn.
No, she was not about to let them go. She trusted Thomas. Yes, but if he ended up going to jail, she had no idea what he would do. What if he disassociates himself from her and takes her children? What if she never gets to see them again? What if he relocated with his wife? No, Maxwell was her best hope at the moment. Thomas had proven useless so far. So she cannot afford to anger him; if he left, she would be truly alone.
The cold bastard could help; he had money after all. Her runaway brother now had enough dough to get her out of here. She was not above asking. Even if she had to beg. All for her babies, of course; it had nothing to do with the fact that her skin crawled just at the thought of the navy blue jumpsuit touching her precious skin.
No, it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that she was as horny as a dog in heat and had been helping herself out with her hands. Nor did it have anything to do with the fact that she could feel tiny ants crawling beneath her skin from the lack of touching any sub**ances for days. Days.
No, she had to get out of here. And her surest ticket out of here was currently looking at her like she had grown horns on her head.
She had to up her game, she thought as she pasted a pitiful look on her face with her hands outstretched towards her brother. "Please help me out, Max. I know you don't like me much; I understand that I never gave you much reason to, and I am so sorry about what my mom did, but I have nobody else to turn to now. My husband couldn't..."
"You are married?" he asked in a controlled tone, even though she was sure that he was surprised.