Max Lee woke up with a startle when he heard the phone beside him vibrating. He quickly stretched his hands to silence it and turned to look at his wife Victoria who was deep asleep. Slowly and with a lot of caution, he got up from bed, the ringing phone on his hands and walked out of the room after giving Victoria a forehead kiss.
He opened the water tap in the washroom and received the call, his voice trembling and his entire body shaking as if he was a cat who had just had cold water poured on its body.
"Maxwell Lee!" The hoarse male voice on the other end said in a mocking tone and Max continued to listen on with disgust. He had thought of disconnecting or ignoring the call but he knew it would keep ringing and that posed a great danger to them especially if Victoria heard the phone ring.
"Thank heavens you finally received my call. I was just about to give out the first strike against your family," the man, identified as Adam Patten, said in a condescending voice.
"You can't keep calling me without stop like this. It will be a matter of time before my wife starts asking questions and more than anything, I don't want her to be suspicious," Max said in anger.
"If you don't want me to call then do the necessary! I must admit that I also don't enjoy calling you this much," Adam responded in an angrier voice and Max shut his eyes tightly, breathed in and out severally then said, "Things… things are still not well. I need more time please,"
Adam broke into a loud fit of laughter, not caring an ounce that it was way past midnight.
"That's what you said the last time I called and the one before that. That's what you have been saying all the time and am so dead tired of your excuses. You're joking with the wrong person and trust me when I say that I will strike you where it hurts the most: your daughter Steph," Adam said and Max struggled to swallow a ball of saliva.
"You…" Max started but Adam's voice overpowered him as he said, "Two days at most, or I will forget the relationship that ever existed between us,"
The call was disconnected and for a while, Max couldn't move. He looked at himself on the mirror on the wall and all he felt was loathe for himself. He should have been his family's custodian yet he was now the one putting them in danger. Would they ever forgive him if anything happened to any of them?
He lost track of how long he stayed in the washroom and when he walked back to his bedroom, he breathed out a sigh of relief, seeing that Victoria was still sleeping.
He almost lost his mind when he heard her speak moments later, at fast in a low voice and then louder in a broken voice that showed that she had been sobbing.
"When were you ever going to tell me?" Victoria asked as she sat on the bed.
There was silence for a while before either of them spoke.
"Uh…mm…What are you talking about dear?" Max asked in a calm voice. His heart was beating so fast and his thoughts were so jumbled up that he couldn't tell exactly what Victoria was talking about.
"Today's phone call is the fourth one this week. Goodness knows how many more will be coming in," Victoria said in a harsh challenging voice and in shame, Max looked down as he ran his hands over his head.
"It's not what you think," he defended himself lamely and Victoria chuckled nervously and asked what he thought she thought.
"That…I'm cheating on you," Max said uncomfortably and Victoria slowly shook her head to deny those allegations. Max felt his heartbeat skip a beat.
'Does she know the truth? How can she?' He wondered.
"We're losing this place, right?" Victoria cut to the chase before breaking down into a loud cry that could wake the dead. She looked around the room with a lot of mixed feelings.
The house had been her home for as long as she could remember. The place she had all the happy and sad memories. It was where her children had their firsts yet if a miracle didn't happen. It would all go away like the wind.
"What did you do? After how hard we have worked to get all these, you didn't even think for a second before trying to destroy our lives? What kind of a father are you?" Victoria asked in anger before realizing that she had touched on a sore topic.
It had been a slip of a tongue and a very grave mistake for her given Max could be awarded a trophy for being the best father in the whole damn world.
Max felt his head throb in pain. He felt the whole room zoning in on him and the air in his lungs being squeezed out. He wanted to grasp for air and that meant moving out of the bedroom but he couldn't even lift a finger let alone his feet.
He tried opening his mouth to speak but no words came out. He hoarsely cleared his throat and tried talking again but his brain had gone blank and his throat was dry so not a single word came out.
"Did you even think about the kids? Travis, especially?" Victoria asked between hiccups as she forced herself to get out of bed and rushed to the guest room, leaving Max with his thoughts.
It didn't make sense for Victoria to have known what he did. No one knew about it except him and Adam so could there be a possibility that Adam had told Victoria about Max's acts? How was that even possible when Adam and Victoria didn't know each other, or did they? Max wondered.
Angry and very confused, he decided to call Adam but the call got disconnected with every ring. He was typing an angry message when Adam called back.
"What the hell did you do? My wife knows what I did," Max screamed at the top of his voice.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Adam defended himself in a loud and clear voice.
"What do you mean by that? You're the only one I did this business with and somehow, my wife knows about it when I haven't mentioned anything and here you are, claiming you didn't say anything," Max said in exasperation.
"Your entire property is listed for auctioneering," Adam said in the most casual voice and the phone fell with a loud thud out of Max's hands. He could swear that the whole wide world had stopped moving.