"You know what happens to people who lie to me. Right, Maxie?"
"Uhn?" Maxwell murmured incomprehensibly as he rubbed his hands on his face and sat up in bed.
The voice registered as silence greeted his incoherent mumble.
The phone ring had woken him from a troubled sleep he had only fallen into a few minutes ago.
Maxwell removed the phone from his ear to look at the unrecognised number again.
In his subconsciousness, he had automatically picked the call thinking it was Reyona.
It would teach him to look closely at caller ID before picking up calls, drowsy state or not.
Why was he calling him so early in the morning?
Maxwell looked at the time on the phone and saw that it was 4: 37am.
"Don," he stated more than asked.
The silence on the other end made him realise that Donald-turned-Serena, Aka Don, was waiting for a response to his first question. "Yeah, I know that," Maxwell answered, as he instantly became fully awake.
"Where is your step-sister, Maxie?"
Maxwell got even more confused by that question.
"Susan? The last I knew, she was with you. What is…"
"Are you being a businessman with me right now, Maxie?" the unchanging tone said from the other end.
Being dubious?
"No, of course not. I don't understand what you are talking about."
"Tell her to keep running. She should never stop because her fate would be worse than how it started the moment I got hold of her."
"She ran away?" Maxwell asked in shock.
"Stole from me and went with my man too. Nobody steals from me. My trust in you had better not be misplaced, Maxie."
The call was disconnected before Maxwell could say anything else.
What the fuck is wrong with that piece of shit?
Maxwell called the number back automatically, only to get the notification of "The number you dialled is not in existence"
Fuck!
Maxwell was fully alert as he got off the bed, flung open the double door that led to the balcony and stepped out, mindless of his naked state.
He swore beneath his breath as he rested his elbows on the railings, and raked his hands through his tousled hair.
He let out a caustic laughter as he sat heavily on the wicket chair behind him.
That fucking bitch!
All those efforts for nothing.
He had strung himself tight, did things against his instinct and tried his very best to save her skin.
Only for her to toss it all in his face by signing her death warrant.
She stole from Don?
What could she have possibly stolen?
It didn't matter anyway.
Nobody stole from Don and lived to tell the story.
He knew what was stolen was not the main crime.
It was the principle behind what she did.
She had made a fool of Don.
Maxwell couldn't remember one person who had done that and it ended well.
Who the fuck was the foolish man who had left with her?
Maxwell was sure he mustn't be one of the men who had stayed with Don for long.
It must be a novice who had no idea of the one thousand ways to die.
Well, he would surely realise it soon enough.
Don won't stop now.
Not when his reputation was on the line.
He had a statement to make to his men now.
Thomas?
Maxwell was already shaking his head even as the thought formed.
Don wouldn't have called Thomas his man.
Susan had just done what even her mother in heaven couldn't help her from now!
Fuck! Maxwell swore once again as the unconcerned dawn approached and the sky brightened.
He wished he had not done all he had done after all.
He wished he had left them in that alley.
He wished he had called Steve immediately.
He wished he had not kept it a secret from the woman he loved.
He had had trouble going to sleep the night before because of how much he missed having her in the house.
Apart from that one time, they had never slept together, yet the knowledge that she was somewhere in the house had come to fill a place in him that he had never thought of as empty.
The house had seemed colder and more empty the night before, not just because she was not there.
But also because of her questions and statements the night before.
There had been something in her tone and demeanour.
Something he had not been able to put his fingers on, but it had been there anyway.
He had convinced himself not to read anything into the fact that she had decided to stay back at the company when she could have used the home office just as she had done at times when she needed to bring work home.
He told himself to accept the explanation she had given as to the reason why she had asked about Susan.
Yet as he drove back, something kept niggling at the edge of his mind.
He just knew that something was wrong.
Yet he had no idea what that thing could be.
Trying to check the data his men sent to him about the dwindling advertising agency he wanted to acquire did nothing to take his mind off her.
Neither did the generous hands of brandy he had downed again and again as he tried not to picture her emerald eyes as they had looked at him that night.
Seemingly clear, yet he felt they were hiding myriads of emotions.
He couldn't help but think of what he had kept from her again.
It wasn't as bad when he had simply committed the error of omission, but he had looked at her yesterday and lied.
As difficult as it had been, he had done it.
He had panicked when she asked that question; all he could do was tell her what wouldn't make her mad at him at that moment.
It wasn't until he was coming home that he realised the enormity of what he had done.
She was a woman who had been deceived and betrayed before.
If she had learned that he had been keeping such vital information from her, it wouldn't end well.
He doubted that she would see it from the angle that he was seeing it from.
He didn't tell her because he was afraid of losing her, but then his greatest fear might come to pass if she found out.
As he abandoned what he was checking in his home office and headed to his room, he knew he had to tell her.
He had to come clean.
He would do it the next day.
Yes, Allysyn's birthday would put her in a celebratory mood and might make her more receptive to his confession.
He was going to tell her after the girl's birthday.
It would be the first thing he did once they got some time to themselves after the festivities.
That thought had been what finally made him calm enough to sleep off at 4:26 am after tossing and turning all night.
And now this?
Would his confession even have any impact again at…
Maxwell's ears pricked as he heard the sound of a vehicle coming up to the house.
That must be her!
He quickly jumped off the chair and rushed in to toss his clothes.
He had to do this right.
He had to do it now!