"Ah, mi hijo, glad you could make it. You have brought what I have asked for, I suppose." Rubair folded the newspaper in his hands and placed it on his desk, eyeing him from behind his reading glasses. Rumour had it that—when he was alone in his office—he would pull out a protractor from a drawer and align all the paraphernalia on his desk so they sat in a grid formation on his desk. It was just gossip of course, but its foundation was based on reality. It was a little off-putting, walking into a room where everything was perfectly, obsessively, in order, but that was the kind of man Fernando Rubair was.

He certainly didn't get to where he was by being a disorganised slob.

"Yes, father," Max said, striding into the room with a beige folder tucked under his arm. His father had summoned him that morning through a phone call, and Max had obliged without any hesitation. There was no point in just sitting around, waiting for Zara, who wouldn't wake up until late afternoon.

Hopefully, Hawk-eye didn't notice the exhaustion darkening his son's appearance. Max hadn't slept a wink the night before. Bunking on the couch in the living room, and positioning his body so the entrance to his bedroom was in his light of sight, it had been impossible to fall asleep. Every time he glanced over to the door, in pitch-black darkness, he would imagine Zara swinging it open and run at him like a zombie from World War Z.

She was intoxicated, she wasn't herself, he would tell himself every time that irrational thought crossed his mind. But counting sheep, reciting the nine times table, clearing his thoughts, all failed to quell the uneasiness he felt inside.

But Max knew that the incident couldn't have been attributed solely to her state—sober thoughts are drunken words.

For the sake of his own sanity, he had to consider the incident as a one-off.

She had behaved normally up to that point, so the belief was plausible.

"Excellent," Rubair laced his fingers together, a slight wrinkle in his nose when he looked at his son, "You are recovering well. Although I never was told what the cause of your...injuries were."

He didn't excuse himself for not visiting his son, as was his nature. Max placed the folder on the desk's remaining empty spot, and slid it over to his father, whose scrutinising gaze was still upon him, awaiting an answer.

"I...don't remember. Amnesia," Max said, lowering himself on a lounge chair without making eye-contact. Whereas the atmosphere of Rubair's home office was stifling, the one at the company was chilling. The cool colour scheme, comprised of light blues and blue-greens, reflected the man's callous personality.

Rubair raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, but didn't press any further for answers. Instead, tapped the folder, twice with his index finger, thrice with his middle finger. "You have given me much to ponder about over the past week," He started, opening the folder.

Max's arm grew stiffer in his sling. He kept his mouth shut. The ambiguity of his father's statement left a lot of room for misinterpretation.

"A little bird told me that you have been investigating the robbery. Walk me through what you have found as of now." Rubair pushed the opened folder back towards his son, who remained motionless in his seat.

It was a trap, it had to be. "Why?" Max's eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed. He had already attempted to share his findings with his cousin, and he had been treated as a court jester. At the meeting with the inner circle, things had gone better, but only because Max had flung accusations without presenting his evidence.

Now his father, who had made it his life mission to oppose anything his son ever did or said, was willing to listen. Still skeptical, Max's hopes hadn't lifted. His father would hear the explanation, and then mock him, and Max's wasted breath would be like salt to his wounds.

"It is clear that someone has purposefully sabotaged my plans for the new drug, in which I had invested a lot of my money and resources in producing. I had high hopes for it, Maximilian, and so this disrespect cannot, will not go unpunished. Now I have two culprits in mind—"

"Gabriel?" Max blurted out, his hatred for the man evident in the interruption.

Rubair shot him a withering look, but then nodded, "Yes, Gabriel. Him, along with all the other members of my circle, are my first choice. The second, I will not disclose, as it is unnecessary at this point in time."

There was an alternative option? Max strained himself to think of it, but nothing came to mind. Then again, his connections weren't as extensive as his father's.

"I would much rather not involve any outsiders, you understand."

Max nodded, and scratched the back of his head. The illegality of the drug was implicit. To the media, and the general population, the Butterfly was a new and groundbreaking discovery that would aid the thousands

of people afflicted with anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. But to Rubair, it was only another recreational drug, one that would rake in millions of dollars in additional revenue.

"Roman told you, didn't he?" Max stood up and brought the chair closer to the desk.

"Naturally. He is a narc, a disgrace to the family name. I blame his father for his cowardly behaviour—Javier was the exact same as a child. Now that is why I have successfully founded a world-renowned enterprise, while he is just another one of my many underlings." Rubair's eyes glinted with pride, and he leaned back against his seat. "If it weren't for my strong sense of familia, and generosity, he would be on the streets right now, I'm telling you. But enough about that, we have more important issues at hand."

Max spread the pictures out onto the table, allowing them to refresh his memory. Although his father hadn't yet suggested a motive for the crime, it didn't take a genius to figure out why anyone would want to see him suffer. His pride would be his greatest downfall, as Abuelo Alfonso always used to say. 

Rubair listened attentively as Max began going through the pictures, explaining his theory and recapitulating on what he had said the last week at the meeting. He had gone over it so many times that explaining it was like second nature, and he answered all his father's questions without faltering.

Like his father, he too believed in family honour, and despite the fact that this issue hadn't made a sizeable dent in the company's budget, it couldn't just be overlooked. Those responsible would be hunted down till the end of time, until they were found and received the appropriate punishment.

"...I'm just speculating, but I truly believe that it is Gabriel who is responsible for this. He must've coerced the lab technicians into doing his bidding, and then somehow blamed it on the daughter of an employee. It's all internalised. He's trying to destroy the company, because he knows that he will never be able to lead it."

Max finished and sat back down, awaiting for a reaction from his father, who till then had been sitting at his desk, his jaw clenched and his hands shaking.

"I knew that he was behind this all along, only he is intelligent enough to do such a thing. He is a wolf, a predator. All the others will have followed him like sheep. I should've seen this coming." Rubair banged a fist on the table, and dug his fingers into his gelled-back hair. His eyes darted back and forth, revisiting all the evidence presented before him. "He has made a fool of me!"

He jumped to his feet, the chair rolling away from him, and with a sweep of his hand knocked everything off the table. Documents, writing utensils, even the coffee went flying. It splattered against the floor, a brown puddle against white.

In the attempt to calm himself, Rubair walked away and briefly looked out the window, but the noxious thought must've crossed his mind again, because he stormed back to his desk and shoved what remained onto the floor.

One of his secretaries burst in, having heard the ruckus, and she almost shrieked when she saw the aftermath of the explosion. Max, who had been sitting with one leg crossed over the other in silence, turned to look at her.

Blonde hair, small waist, long legs, blue eyes. Probably got employed in the first place because of her virtues. He turned back around, unimpressed.

"Get out!" Rubair roared, his face red. The secretary, who was too much in shock to follow the order just stood there on pin-heels, her knees knocking together. "Out!" He yelled again, looking for something to throw at her, but she nodded in earnest and scurried away, closing the door behind her. She would go around and reassure the rest of the staff that their boss was alright, just in a bad mood.

His outburst wouldn't have been as dramatic, had he listened to his son in the first place.

Rubair paced the room for a bit, but then wheeled the chair back behind his desk. He slowly sat back down, repossessing some sense of normality.

"He's going to pay for this," He murmured, drumming his fingers against each other, "They all are."

Max barely refrained himself from smirking. The look on Gabriel's face when Max personally would tell him that he was fired...would be priceless. Of course he wouldn't believe it at first, thinking that it was a senseless joke, and would demand an explanation. Max would repeat himself, assuring him that it was all real, and suggest that he packed his stuff before security got called.

It was picture-worthy, the whole scenario.

"I'll get Lacy to start preparing the pink slips." Lacy was another one of his father's secretaries. She was the oldest one, and directed the others like a mother hen. Max began to mentally prepare himself for one of the best moments of his life, and kept replaying the dialogue in his head.

"No. Firing them would be too easy. I'd be doing them a favour."
Max raised an eyebrow. If he didn't fire them, what else could he do? Unless...

"What they have done is unforgivable. They will have to pay..." Rubair's eyes stopped shifting and he looked up at his son, the next word freezing the blood in his veins, "...with blood."

He stared at Max with a glare as unwavering as his intent, his previously wild eyes now clouded with a hatred so intense, it made your skin crawl.

"You can't really mean—" Max couldn't fathom what he had just heard. There were ten members on the board, twelve including himself and his father. "Killing that many people is insane! You haven't even gotten a confession out of them, what if they weren't all involved?"

"You may be right, but I cannot risk it. I cannot afford to have even one of them slip away, the repercussions would be too great to handle. It will be quick and clean, they won't even know what hit them. Yes, this is what I must do. For honour."

Max watched his father, an unreadable expression on his face. The man had gone completely mad, there was no doubt about it.

Rubair nodded to himself, a full-blown monologue rambling on in his head, piecing a plan together. "It will happen tomorrow, before they start getting suspicious. It is Thanksgiving tomorrow, is it not?"

Max blinked in response.
"I will organise a dinner...a celebratory dinner...and invite them all. Yes, it would be perfect...

"But father, we aren't American. We do not celebrate Thanksgiving, and if I'm not mistaken not all of them are here at the—"

"I do not care! Those who are here will pay, and those who come after will get what's coming to them. They do not deserve to live!" Rubair looked like an enraged bull, with the way he turned his head from side to side and his nose flared. "I need time to think, time to plan. You are dismissed."

Max couldn't bring himself to just walk away from a genocide. He hated these people, but there were other ways to go about it, more sensible ways that didn't involve destroying lives. Max was willing to bet that his father hadn't even considered how their deaths would impact the family, and the media coverage would be outrageous...

"Are you deaf? I said you are dismissed!"

Max stood up in an angry silence, not bothering to search through the scattered pages to retrieve the images. Getting on his knees would be just another way to show his impotence in that situation, and that wasn't something Max wanted or needed.

He left the office, ignoring the curious looks from the other workers.
Max would have to tell Zara everything, in case his father's twisted mind decided to tie her into the whole

fiasco, despite having been reminded repeatedly that there was no way that she could be involved. Because once his father got rid of his men, nothing could stop him from going after her.

Not even Max. 

-:-