The Only Way is Up

Part Forty Six

Chapter Forty Six

Six months later

Max looked at the memo in his hand, direct from Agent Franklin who was now back in Washington. It was blunt, to the point, but contained the words he'd longed to hear.

"Aleksi Guryanov was killed in the restraining cell that he was placed in four days ago. I've seen the body. It really is him. Your brother was killed at the same time."

Max knew that the agent would be gutted; he'd not get his arrest, his conviction. And with that see the fruits of his three year long labour. But that didn't take the shine off the relief that Max felt, the freedom, the thought that he could return to his life.

It had been entirely the information that Max had released to the agent over the last six months that had capitulated in his father being arrested. Since he'd returned to Russia, and time passed the levels of his father's corruption and criminality seemed to have no boundaries, and frankly it was no surprise that he'd been killed in custody. He found out that there were members of the police in Moscow on his father's payroll, as well as lawyers, judges...no one was safe if he decided to squeal. The man was safe from no one once he was in custody.

Max looked out at the gloomy Moscow sky, he would be glad to see the back of the place, that was for sure. He never thought he'd return. Not since he had departed as a teenager. But he had. To save her.

His chest ached when he thought about Nicole. There didn't seem to be an hour that passed when he didn't think of her. She was never more than what seemed like a millimetre from his subconscious, popping up at every opportunity. Not that he hated thinking about her, but it made him miss her, rue the decisions he'd been forced to make. Because he had been forced, for all his plans, it seemed that Aleksi Guryanov was a wily old man and no one's fool. He'd set a trap and Max had fallen into it feet first.

And he hadn't seen her since that day in the hotel.

When he closed his eyes, he was back there, watching the lift door close, watching her move to an unknown destiny. Panic like nothing he'd ever known washing over him. He'd hoped to control his family, to fight against his father. But once they had Nicole, he had no way of doing that. As he sat in the bar, his visual field free of Nicole, he felt the real threat that his family posed.

Valentin had taken long to bundle him upstairs, telling him in a low monotonous voice exactly what their father would do to Nicole if he didn't play along with things. He was then forced at a push into the room that housed Nicole...and his father. He'd never forget the look on her face as she looked up at him, confusion, surprise and maybe sadness. She wasn't pleased to see him, not in that context, and that only made him realise how much pressure she already was under. She didn't contemplate that he was there to help her. She was already defeated, already expecting things to go wrong.

"Maxim?" Her voice was hoarse, and her eyes wide.

Before he could reply his father was in full schmoozing mode, "ah, so you know my son?"

Max watched as her face dropped even further and he had never wanted to kill someone as much as he did his father at that moment. With five words he'd blown the situation open wide and he could only watch as her eyes failed to hide her dismay, the realisation. Pain struck him in the chest but he couldn't take his eyes off her.

"Your son?" Her shock had turned to full blown distress, she was on the verge of tears, and he hated that more than anything. This was what he'd dreaded, her finding out things that he hadn't told her from someone else, and even more disastrous that it was from her father.