Well Roman wasn't wrong about the shack.

It looked like one of those modular temporary buildings, the white ones which are usually seen on construction sites. Nestled between the cargo containers, it was almost invisible at first glance, namely during the day, when it wasn't in use. At night however, the entrance was guarded by two burly men; they wore black adherent t-shirts that outlined every muscle on their broad chests, cargo pants and matching combat boots. Their toned arms were congested with tattoos, and their bear-like hands could lift you up and snap you in half like a twig. It was no surprise that they weren't cold: they probably had enough testosterone and steroids running through their veins to kill a man.

The yellow lightbulbs lining the makeshift veranda casted ominous shadows over their harsh lineaments, making their deep-set eyes look even more ingrained into their skull. If they looked intimidating before, the lighting made them look almost animalistic now.

Max was rarely thrown off by another person's appearance, especially when he knew that the lunkheads standing before him were all muscle and no brain. He rolled his shoulders back and lifted his head, a grim expression on his face as he walked towards the front door.

"I am here to see Roman," Max stated, a challenge in his eyes. He could take both of them down in a couple of minutes, never mind that he was unarmed. Without giving them a second glance, he moved to open the door but was blocked by a meaty hand. Max's eyes slowly travelled up the man's arm and up to his face, his mouth set in a thin line.

You really don't want to be doing this, buster.

"Who are you," the one on the right asked in a gruff voice, ignoring Max's request.

He was also the one that dared to cross Max's path.

"I am here to see Roman," Max repeated more loudly, a harsh edge to his tone. His eyes were still on the guys face, unmoving like his stance.

The two men looked at each other then at Max, their arms falling to their sides. They slowly began to lumber towards Max, either with the intent to intimidate him or beat him into a pulp.

"Max! Is that you?" Was Roman's muffled voice from the inside.

"Yeah man. Your idiotic manservants are blocking my way. Tell them to fuck off before I kill them both."

One of them reached out and one-handedly grabbed Max's jacket by the neck, his nostrils flaring in anger and a growl resonating in the back of his throat.

Max didn't even flinch. He instead kept his green eyes on the man who looked like he was about to explode from rage.

"Let him in goddamnit!" Roman's exasperated voice again.

The gorilla let Max go, but not before he tightened his grip around Max's collar and snorted with disgust.

Max simpered and adjusted his coat, brushing off the man's inferiority.

"Don't touch me again," Max warned, and he spat on the ground.

Dirty looks. Teeth grinding. Swearing.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swung open the door, revealing a smug-looking Roman perched on the edge of a velvet armchair. An expensive looking fur-coat enveloped him, hiding an equally expensive blue suit, and his hair was combed back in its usual style. He lifted the hand holding a cigar and the rings adorning his fingers caught the light and glittered entrancingly.

Two more men flanked him on either side, with appearances as daunting as the ones standing outside.

If Max had been drinking water, then he would've spat it out.

It wasn't even winter yet and this guy was already wearing a fur coat.

Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

What's his deal?

"What's your deal?" Max's eyes were widened in bewilderment, but the rest of his face told another story. He couldn't tear his gaze from his presumptuous cousin, and he struggled to stifle an oncoming guffaw.

Roman's mouth opened and closed, and his eyes darted down to his coat. "What?" He demanded, twisting his torso from one side to the other, "What are you smiling about?" He looked like an overinflated were-chicken.

"What the hell are you wearing?" He couldn't hold it in anymore. He broke out into a laughing fit, clutching his stomach. Every time he would sober up, his eyes would land on his cousin and then he would start all over again, "I can't—I can't even look at you man. You look like a pimp!"

Roman's face turned beet-red and the sides of his mouth curled downwards into a pout. He looked like a toddler wearing his parent's clothes in the attempt to feel all grown-up. "I—I do not!" Roman countered, standing up in defiance. The two men beside him, who up until that moment had looked like petrified gargoyles, took a menacing step forwards. "I'm not a pig like you!"

"Yeah, whatever man," Max straightened and wiped his face, "I'd be a more credible pimp than you though, since you know, I attract all the hoes." He shot a withering glare at both of Roman's minions and they stopped their advances towards him.

"At least I don't look like a barbarian," Roman snapped, sitting back down with an up-turned nose.

God, he was so conceited.

"I could understand your jealousy," he continued, taking a drag from his cigar, "a refined sense of style is something you are born with, it runs in your blood. Too bad that it flows through uncle and has skipped—"

"Okay, okay, I get it already," Max huffed, rolling his eyes. Why did Roman have to be such a girl all the time? Wait he worse worse than a girl—he was his cousin.

Roman settled into the chair, a satisfied grin on his face. He had won this round, Max had to give it to him.

"So what do I owe your presence to?" He asked, and Max was grateful that he had changed the topic on his own accord.

"First of all, those two need to leave," Max's denunciatory finger flew in the air and pointed to the two bodyguards. Roman's eyebrows inched up and he turned his head to look at who he was pointing to.

Come on man, there are only four people in the room.

"Why?"

Max gave him the look.

Roman bit his lower lip and signalled the men to leave. They obliged, but not before they gave Max the evil eye.

The door was shut so aggressively that it caused the furniture in the tiny room to rattle.

"Well, that was completely unnecessary," Max said belligerently, pulling his coat off and draping it over a chair with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"It's because you're an ass," Roman sighed in defeat, rubbing an eyebrow with his thumb, "So how's it going?"

"Not too bad. I had another one of those business meetings today. Almost got into a bitch fight with Gabriel."

At this, Roman perked up. He was always a slut for gossip.

"Tell me more—the cigars are in that drawer over there."

Max walked up to a mahogany desk and began to open and close all the drawers, "Which one? There's nothing in here,"

"Top left, it's under a pile of junk."

Max followed his cousin's directions and reached into the messy drawer to pull out a wooden case. He lifted it in the air with an eyebrow raised and Roman nodded.

"He behaved more suspiciously than usual," Max said absentmindedly, his attention focused on lighting the cigar. In all honesty, he didn't even like them—he was more of a cigarette kind of guy. But he was out of smokes, and he needed serenity in order to speak to Roman about what he had come for in the first place.

He pulled out a chair and dragged it towards where his cousin was seated and spun it so he could sit on it back-to-front. "Something about his face, his words, his actions. I don't know. I hate the guy, he's a back-stabbing prick."

Roman nodded pensively, probably attempting to attach the name to a face. "Oh, isn't he that guy who gave that speech at the ball last year? Big beard, curly hair, looks like a hobo in a suit."

"Yeah, that's the one." Max closed his eyes, his mind going back to that night. His father had organised a ball for New York's elites, which included an auction program where he sold paintings and other paraphernalia to raise money for some charity which Max couldn't even remember. "I'm convinced that he's behind the robberies."

Roman rolled his eyes, "That again? Is that what you came here to talk to me about? I thought we were long past this!" He turned his body so that he could look out the window.

"Don't roll your eyes at me. What he does affects me just as much as if affects you, remember that."

"Dad is in charge of the shipping, while Uncle Fred is in charge of making drugs—" He paused for a moment, his mouth forming an 'O'. His two braincells must've made contact.

"I can see the connection now," he flushed, sinking deeper into his fur coat.

How wasn't he soaked? The portable heater was relatively powerful.

"Yeahhhhh," Max nodded, both of his eyebrows raised. "Remember a few days ago when I was meant to have that meeting with Zara?"

"That hoe you banged?"

Max exhaled. "Yes, the hoe I banged. Anyway, I remember you talking about how someone jacked your shipment. By the way, what happened to that?"

"Grounded for a month, and now someone else took over, forgot his name."

"Damn, that's harsh." Max said sympathetically, "What are you doing here then?"

Roman tapped the cigar against an ashtray stand, "I came here because you needed to talk to me. It sounded like it was serious so I just figured that we needed some privacy. This was the most private place I could think of."

Max grinned. For once Roman was thinking about someone other than himself. "I won't lie. I'm impressed. You aren't that big of a selfish asshole as I thought you were. Kudos to you."

"Yeah okay," His cousin gave Max his famous eye-roll, "So what do your problems have to do with my problems? I still don't know what the hell is going on."

"Right. I have a feeling that the two events are connected. The fact that they happened not too long from one another is no coincidence. There's something there, I just can't put my finger on it."

"Are you saying that she's the reason that I got into shit?" Roman's brows furrowed in annoyance, "If so, I think we should round the whole lot up and teach them a lesson. Actually, I'm still surprised nothing has been done about them yet!"

Wow. Max didn't think that Roman was capable of teaching anyone a lesson. If anything, he was the one that got taught.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. They aren't the ones behind either of the robberies."

"What makes you say that?" Roman shook his head incredulously, looking at the person sitting across from him as if he was unrecognisable. "I knew that school was going to mess you up, that's what happens when you spend too much time with poor people. You start to feel sorry for them—I honestly cannot believe you're defending a bunch of lowlives! Don't you understand that it's their game? Making us rich people feel bad about them so they can leech off of us without any work—"

His words were eerily similar to the ones of his father. It was almost like Roman had taken more after his father than Max had, and it was seriously beginning to disturb him. He couldn't spend another minute in Roman's presence, or he was going to pummel him.

"I think I said too much," Max muttered indignantly, dragging a hand through his hair, "I thought that you would understand and try to help me solve this problem. You, out of all people. You're not just a cousin to me, you're like my brother. I thought I could trust you with this, but I guess I was wrong. I'm out."

He wasn't going to just sit there and try to talk sense into someone who didn't want to listen. His cousin, he was a lost cause. It had been a waste of time even attempting to talk to him.

Max jumped up to his feet and dumped his unfinished cigar into the ash tray.

"You know I'm right Max! You're just too caught up in yourself to see it!" Roman was also on his feet now, his eyes boring into his cousin's. Max maintained eye-contact for a moment, but then he looked away and stomped towards his coat, scooping it up with a swift sweep of his arm.

He was about to swing the door open, but the next thing his cousin said stopped him in his tracks.

"You know why Jasmine picked me over you?" Roman asked, venom in his voice. Max gripped the door knob, acknowledging his question but not bothering to respond.

Don't turn around.

He hear Roman's breathing.

"You hate the direction your life is going in, you're bored. You have everything a man could ever want and yet, you still feel empty inside, like you're not entirely satisfied with yourself—"

A step was made towards him.

The muscles in Max's shoulders bunched up together, and the vein in his neck began to pulsate with rage.

"—and how do you make up for it? By sleeping around and picking fights with everyone! Jas told me that she would pick me over you any day, you know why? Because I'm a man—you're just a spineless fuck."

Explosions went off in Max's head. He wanted to turn around and beat Roman up until there was nothing left of him except for his stupid coat. He wanted to pick him up and fling him against the wall. He wanted to—

He started to laugh. It wasn't just a small chuckle, but a long sustained hearty guffaw, one that bubbled up from the bottom of his stomach and up to his mouth. He turned around to face Roman, who stared at him.

"I can't—I can't," Max laughed at what his cousin had said, at Jasmine, at his crappy situation. He laughed at everyone and everything, he was so goddamn unhappy that laughing was the only thing he could do instead of crying. "I can't—you're pathetic," He managed to sputter as he reached out behind him and pulled open the door. "Jasmine is a whore," His breath caught in his throat and he let out a cough. Meanwhile, Roman was still too in shock to understand what Max had just said, "She's done herself the entire personnel of father's mansion, even before I got to her, and she's probably doing them as we speak. A real man doesn't base his judgement of others on what some lying tramp tells him after an orgasm. We're done here."

As his legs brought him further and further away from the ensuing storm, he realised something:

Roman was right. 

-:-