MAXIM
"In the case of Maxim Holloway vs. the State, the court finds Maxim Holloway NOT guilty on the charges of money laundering."
Two seconds after the jury foreperson said those words, silence fell over the courtroom.
Then everyone erupted so loudly that the whole place seemed to shake.
"How can you do that? He's clearly guilty!"
"This jury is clearly paid off!" another outraged voice shouted.
The judge struck his gavel sharply, barely cutting through the angry recriminations.
"Order! Order in the court!" he yelled.
It didn't seem to have any effect as the media people started getting up from their seats, shouting questions at him.
As the judge continued attempting to restore some semblance of the earlier peace, the cause of the current pandemonium, Maxim Holloway, paid the scene no mind.
He was focused on something else.
Or, more accurately...
Someone else.
There was a woman sitting in the corner of the courtroom who had caught Maxim's attention. With his hands cuffed, he craned his neck, trying to get a better look at her.
Maxim had noticed the woman as soon as the court bailiff had escorted him inside.
She had stuck out to him like a sore thumb, covered from head to toe in black: a hoodie, jeans, and boots. A pair of dark sunglasses hid her eyes beneath the hood, concealing almost every feature of her face.
It's almost as if she's trying not to be seen, Maxim thought. Very strange.
He pursed his lips, wondering what the woman was trying to accomplish by doing this and, more importantly, who the hell she was.
On closer inspection, Maxim frowned, now thinking that she seemed kind of...
Familiar.
Before he could figure out why, the media people moved around in front of her, blocking his view.
Maxim gritted his teeth. He tried glaring at them, warning them to move again, but they were too busy heckling the judge to notice his displeasure.
Thoroughly irritated, Maxim gave up trying to identify the woman and turned back toward the front, having nothing else to do but listen to his own trial.
Not that he didn't already know how it would end.
"If everyone in here does not quiet down, I will clear this courtroom except for the defendant and the lawyers," Judge Williams warned, immediately bringing the chatter down.
He couldn't have made a more effective threat.
The media people were scared to death of being kicked out of court and missing a moment of the day's proceedings—the trial of Maxim Holloway, CEO of Holloway Enterprises.
The man was also heir to the powerful Holloway family, millionaires who practically ruled the city of Havari.
Maxim was glad when the noise from the media finally subsided.
Especially since he felt a headache coming.
A really bad one at that.
Maxim sighed, thinking that he had no one other than himself to blame for his current condition.
He hadn't taken the medication prescribed to him for his migraines during the three days he'd spent locked up.
But it wasn't as though anyone had denied it to him—no one would dare. Everyone in the city feared him, even the legal authorities.
Maxim simply hadn't asked for his medicine, refusing to broadcast his weakness to the world.
A weakness he'd been dealing with for five years now, ever since the car accident that had wiped away most of his memories.
One that currently made him think his head was about to explode.
Maxim's cuffed hands formed fists as he tried to power through the pain while also actively listening for the moment the judge finally ended this bitch of a trial.
"The verdict of the jury is accepted and entered into the record. Due to insufficient evidence, the defendant is acquitted of all charges and is hereby released," Judge Williams declared, his voice rising above the remaining murmurs. "Court adjourned."
The gavel struck again.
The noise in the courtroom surged as soon as it did.
Maxim tried to tune it out while he patiently waited for someone to free him from the cuffs around his wrists.
He felt himself getting rewarded for his patience when his headache slowly began to recede.
Maxim let out a slow sigh of relief when this happened.
Afterward, he didn't waste any time. He put on his sunglasses and rose from his seat, buttoning up his black suit. He felt immensely grateful to finally have the chance to get away from the noise and chaos.
And to do one other thing.
Instinctively, he glanced toward where the mysterious woman had been sitting, finally wanting to identify her.
Maxim froze in surprise.
She wasn't there anymore.
His lips parted slightly as he stared at the seat she'd been sitting in with accusation, almost as if it had swallowed her.
Where the fuck did she go? he asked himself.
The woman had been sitting in the corner a moment ago, hadn't she?
Damn it.
Now he would never figure out who she was or whether he really knew her.
Shit.
Maxim couldn't say why it felt so important to identify the woman, only that it did. It was instinct, and Maxim was a person who relied on instinct.
If his mood had been tenuous before, it was now thoroughly ruined by missing his chance to find out who the mysterious woman was.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Maxim started storming his way out of the courtroom.
The woman's identity probably wasn't of any consequence to him, he tried to assure himself, even as everything in him screamed otherwise.
He couldn't get her out of his mind for some annoying reason.
As Maxim walked out, every eye followed his movements, careful to give him his space. Even the media, normally ruthless in their demands for comments, didn't dare question him or push cameras in his face.
The man in front of them exuded wealth, power, and, above all else...
A very deep annoyance.
He gave off the sense that if they simply brushed against him, it would be enough to tip him over the edge and make him unleash his infamous wrath on them.
At that moment, some people immediately understood that this trial had never been destined to end any other way.
And they were right.
Maxim had gotten to most of the jury, incentivizing them one way or another. He had personally explained to Judge Williams, on the first day of the trial, that if he didn't give the other side a hard time, Maxim would make his extramarital affair known to the whole world, including his wife, kids, and colleagues...
And then he'd take his mistress's life.
He hadn't needed to say more after that.
As Maxim made his way out, the silent crowd parted before him like the Red Sea, avoiding even the slightest eye contact.
So boring, Maxim couldn't help thinking with a sigh.
He didn't realize it yet, but in the coming days, Maxim would soon come to miss these days when no one in the world dared to try to defy him.
As he finally stepped out into the hallway, a familiar voice called after him.
"Max!"
His stepsister stood in front of him, a huge smile lighting up Clara Holloway's face despite the chaos around them.
Standing next to each other, it couldn't be more obvious that the two weren't biologically related. Clara was short, with raven hair, pale skin, and large brown eyes that shone with innocence.
Max was tall, blond, blue-eyed, and olive-skinned. He was also much more terrifying-looking than Clara.
The one thing the two siblings had in common, aside from their surname, was that they were both considered stunningly gorgeous.
"Congratulations!" Clara said to Maxim, wrapping her arms around him. "I knew all along that you would be—"
"I would be what, Cee?" he asked with a raised brow. "Innocent?"
She smiled.
"Definitely not. Released is what I was going to say."
Looking at her smiling face, Maxim put on a serious expression.
"You know you shouldn't be here, Clara," he told her, no longer using her nickname. "You ought to be in one of your college classes."
Clara finally let go of him, her smile fading into a small frown, clearly upset by his words.
Maxim cursed himself internally.
He normally didn't care how people were affected by his actions, but not his only sibling, whom he genuinely liked.
Clara was really sweet—so sweet that people often had a hard time believing they were related.
If Clara was the light, then Maxim was definitely the darkness.
But as pleasant as she was, Max felt he needed to scold her for coming to his trial. He didn't want her involved in any of their family's criminal matters because, unlike the rest of them, she wasn't made for that, nor did she try to participate in it.
She was a good person.
And very innocent.
Only occasionally rebellious.
"I wanted to be here," she said softly. "I thought you should have someone supporting you, seeing as Dad and Tiffany didn't feel the need to come."
Max resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
How very like Clara to care whether or not their parents attended his trial and to think that he cared too.
She insisted on maintaining the illusion that his relationship with his mother and stepfather was anything other than transactional.
"Did you skip class just to do this, Clara?" Max said through gritted teeth. "What about security? You must've evaded them too, right?"
Clara looked down guiltily.
"Yeah, but only so that I could be there for you, Max. I thought you'd be glad to see me," she said in a small voice.
The sight instantly softened Maxim's anger, a flash of emotion passing through him.
He tried not to, but Clara looked so very hurt.
It was difficult not to sympathize, even for a hardened criminal like Maxim.
"I am happy to see you," he admitted quietly. "It's just that you're being so irresponsible. You know how many people want to harm our family."
Clara rolled her eyes.
"Yes, but I also know that as much as everyone hates the Holloways, they're scared of us," Clara stated simply, even though it was something she despised.
After this, she shook her head and looked back at him.
"Anyway... In case you didn't already know, Dad is really mad at you. You should probably go see him straight after this. He'll want to have a word with you."
Max sighed.
Clara was right. Of course his father wanted to see him. To yell at him, probably.
Not because he was involved in organized crime.
Not because he had broken the law.
No.
Because he'd gotten caught.
But Max had absolutely no interest in hearing that lecture.
"If Jonathan wants to talk to me, he can come to my place. I have some sleeping to catch up on."
As he spoke, he noticed one of his father's men approaching.
Clara's bodyguard.
Max guessed that Clara had managed to give him the slip.
He beckoned the idiot over before addressing his sister again.
"Go back to school, Clara. And don't evade your bodyguards again. You know how dangerous it is."
Clara frowned at him, but by then Maxim had turned his attention to her assigned bodyguard, who had almost reached them.
The man was large and muscular, as suited the job.
Well, mostly suited to the job, since he clearly wasn't particularly bright.
Max fixed him with a glare that made the bodyguard stop in his tracks.
"Take my sister where she needs to be, and do not let her out of your sight this time."
He knew he didn't need to make a threat. Even the bodyguard couldn't be so dense as not to understand the implication.
"N-No, sir. It won't happen again," the guy said promptly.
Max gave him one last icy look before walking past him and Clara, who had now folded her arms across her chest moodily.
Maxim walked toward the exit, eager to get out of the courthouse.
As a naturally introverted person, the crowd of people, the chatter, and the cameras were all deeply uncomfortable for him.
As soon as he got into the corridor, he stopped in his tracks.
His heart skipped a beat.
At the end of that hallway was the mysterious woman again.
She had a phone in her ear, seemingly on a call.
Well, well, well, he thought.