Prologue

Maxwell awoke to the repetitive sound of his cell-phone's default ring tone. A glance at the clock told him it wasn't a normal phone call and as he sat up in bed, careful not to disturb his wife, he answered it with a certain reluctance.


As the gavel slammed down to mark the judges' decision to release Allso Zayas, several people in the seats behind cheered. One in particular had tears dripping down her pale cheeks, she stood and smiled,

'Welcome home Daddy' were the words that fell off her lips as soon as her father's eyes caught hers. It was inaudible, but he understood.


Sitting up a little straighter, skin turning a little paler, Maxwell hung up the phone. His life had just gotten very complicated.

Maxwell was an English lad at heart, always missed home, but because of his outstanding promise shown in the training stages of entering the British Army he had been recruited for the Government at the tender age of sixteen. Excelling there, but too young and green to be accepted into the SAS like his father, he was shipped overseas to the American Government to get some field-experience.

When he arrived he hardly expected to be debriefed in what to him felt like a Godfather movie gone wrong – but experience and research told him that American drug-families were still more common than people liked to think. The American government felt they could get a handle on this by making sure they had a 'worker' as they called it appointed in each family. Max thought it felt a lot like spying.

He trained for a year and then, on his seventeenth birthday was assigned in Florida to a new and up-coming Cuban family that didn't seem to much of a threat. They already had a 'worker' in the family to keep an eye on Max's progress so it all seemed pretty easy.

Max was assigned to be the bodyguard of the Family's only daughter, a year younger than himself. After two weeks she affectionately started calling him Maxxie and that was that.

It was nearly two years before they gave into their feelings, but of course as young, impressionable teenagers do, they fell in love. Despite Maxxie's reservations he found he couldn't help himself.

He was settling into the family and on the day she graduated High School, she also announced to her family that she was pregnant. Her father took it well, as well as a strict-catholic could take it and eventually stood by her. She never told him the father was Max, but he had his suspicions.

She got her own apartment in Miami all expenses paid by her Daddy, not too far from the family estate . Of course Maxwell moved in with her, wouldn't be a very effective bodyguard if he didn't.

So seven months later Maxxie became a father to a beautiful, dark-haired little girl named Angelica.

On the day of her birth Maxxie's backup 'worker' was killed brutally after he was found out by the family. Maxxie escaped detection but became much more careful.

Things went well for another couple of years.

That's when things went wrong, Allso Zayas had been arrested for tax-fraud, drug-trafficking and a number of other crimes which were all very deserved. Looking at a very long stint in jail Max's bosses naturally labelled the case closed and Maxxie was ripped away from his family. He confessed everything to Lucia and she understood, but she wouldn't meet his eyes as he boarded the plain.

A few years later he found himself standing at the alter as an act of loyalty to his new 'family' who were much older and much more dangerous than his last case. Based in New York the rumours were they had been going since the fifties.

Maxxie really did feel the crossover, less like Scarface, now he really was looking The Godfather in the eyes.

"I do" he didn't mean the words, and he didn't really want to marry the plain-Jane who stood in front of him in a flowing white dress. But he didn't really want to get killed either so it was the lesser of two evils. Besides the family now considered him one of theirs, so he was in another safe position.

Not a day over the next four years passed when he didn't think of Lucia Zayas and his little girl, but for the sake of his job and his life Lucia and he had stayed separate. He longed for her with every fibre of his being, and saw her every time he closed his eyes. What was once love was lately bordering on obsession.

A family trip to Miami, Florida had him painfully worried as he set back on his old territory. A week went without incident, but on the last night as he was heading home after taking care of some business at bar led him straight into the arms of Lucia. Unable to resist they gave in and a night of passion ensued; as often happens when lovers are forced apart.

The next morning he barely made the flight and headed back to New York.

That was two months ago and things just got a whole lot worse.

His real boss has called to tell him that Zayas was to be set free at Two'O'Clock that afternoon. Of course he had to be there, he still had official capacity, not to mention Allso Zayas would be none to happy to hear that his daughter's bodyguard had run off and married into another drug-family.

Maxxie was in trouble. And if he wasn't careful, it would cost him his life.


by Kaydez & Angel