Deceit. [COMPLETED.]

Chapter 86

"Epilogue."

It has been three months since the death of Max.

I move around constantly; both in my mind and with my body as I wander from place to place tormented by her passing and I am so tired.

I feel abused.

I feel ashamed.

What I had held dear to me with absolute certainty has been blown away in a blink of an eye like the leaves on a tree and I am now lost.

Her face haunts me with every turn I make and I am unable to sleep without waking up in beads of sweat, my heart beating a solid rhythm against my chest. My eyes are bloodshot and my cheeks drawn.

I miss her so much.

I miss her smile. I miss her laugh. I miss her teasing. I know I shouldn't but I can't help it.

Everything about her still echoes in my mind as I relive every moment I had with her; the way she threw her head to one side. The gleam in her eyes. The way the sunlight caught her face and the way she walked moving her body elegantly from side to side.

The way she kissed.  The way her soft lips surrounded mine and the intimacy of her touch.

It had been like a dream. It had been like an endless movie, playing constantly, overwhelming me; consuming me like a raging fire with only emptiness as my companion.

I know there was hurt; she stole my daughter but what choice did she have?

There is now a bounty on my head. I am a wanted man. I stroll endlessly under the glare of street lamps wondering if I will ever be seen, ever be caught.  I test fate. I challenge fate to see if it will take me in the way as it did my Max with a well aimed bullet in my head.

But I am still here.

My mind is forever trapped inside that one burning question of why we ever met?

To what purpose did it serve?

And then I only have to think of my Danny; my daughter; her daughter and everything starts to make sense.

Someone has to tell my daughter the truth. Someone has to help her trudge through the lies and treachery. Someone has to help her understand what it all meant so that one day she will be able to see her mother as I did, as everyone should have; as a loving caring person desperate to live and right a terrible wrong.

But my wife sees it differently.

She can only ever see Max in shades of black, in colours so dark no one could ever survive inside them and now I have lost everything.

They are safe. Of that I have to be thankful for. I owe that to Geoff. Cheryl, our daughters Elizabeth, Danny and Holly, are all far away in America somewhere and I will never see any of them again. I know that. I accept that.

Not until this ends.

Not until I finish it with Uri and Mr Peng. Not until the bounty on my head has gone.

Until then I simply roam the streets and lie awake, waiting and listening, praying for a way out.

It took barely six weeks; forty two days for my life to be turned upside down. During that time, my heart was melted and given to another person. I know she hurt people. I know she played a part in the death of her brother but I could never fully condemn her, never square my shoulders in contempt as others have, as my own wife does because there is not a human on this earth who would not have fought for what they hold dear and there are very few people alive today who would not in some small way find a kinship with what she has done.