“And you said no,” Ed interjected.
“Hell yeah, I said no!” Max exploded. “I chased that shit stain off my site with a goddamn shovel! There’s no way I’d let someone steal this discovery from me. This is the discovery of a lifetime. It’s going to be huge! If the contents of the tomb go missing, it’s not only my reputation that takes a hit, but that lost Egyptian culture remains lost to the world as well. They’re going to sell the goods on the black market where they’ll sit in some rich asshole’s vault, collecting dust.”
“Hey, Izzie,” West called out with a grin. “You got any old artifacts collecting dust in a vault?”
Half the room groaned. Kairo looked as though he was going to kill West.
Izzie smiled sweetly at West, completely unperturbed by the question. “Actually, my family has a considerable collection of ancient Greek artifacts, but they’re not kept in a vault. All of the family collection is on loan to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Delphi Archaeological Museum, and the Louvre, to name a few. My parents believed that all pieces of our people’s history needed to be available to the world.”
Alexei cackled, rocking back into Soren’s arms. “Nobody can burn Izzie! Good job, son!”
Izzie beamed at Alexei. “Thank you, Papa.”
There were more groans and some chatter as the room exploded into a typhoon of teasing and jokes. Ed leaned close to Max when the man waved him over.
“I’m fucking lost. What happened?” Max demanded.
“I’ll explain later, but the short of it is that Izzie and his sister are incredibly rich.”
“Shit!” Max whispered, his face twisting up. “Did I totally insult him and his boyfriend?”
“Not at all,” Ed chuckled.
“And the ‘papa’ thing? Do they have a daddy thing going on the side?”
“What?” Kairo shrieked.
Ed’s head snapped up to see Izzie’s face turning a dazzling shade of red while Alexei laughed so hard that he fell out of Soren’s lap. Didn’t matter. The lunatic was now curled in a ball on the floor, cackling until tears rolled from the corners of his eyes.
Charlie lifted his head from his hand and sighed at the lot of them. It was a few minutes before they all settled enough to continue the conversation, both Alexei and West promising to behave themselves.
“As we were discussing,” Charlie began in a hard voice that made it clear he was tired of their nonsense, “Mironov approached Max for advanced access to the tomb and he said no.”
Max nodded. “Yes, that’s when they shifted from offering me money to threats. I still said no. They backed off, but it wasn’t hard to figure out they were watching me. I’d found the scarab during the end-of-season dig, but I was alone down in a pit. Because I knew it was the key to finding the tomb, I was afraid to show it to anyone and have the news leak to those thieves. My plan was to sneak it and me out of the country. When I was safe, I’d finish my research and submit my proposal for a new dig. Only after I located the tomb would I turn the scarab over to the Egyptian government so that they could place it in a museum, along with the rest of my discovery.”
With a moan, Max dropped his head into his hands, threading his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in all directions. “Holy shit! Just saying that out loud sounds shady as fuck. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe me at all and wanted to call the cops this second.” The words tumbled out of him in a breathless rush, and it was all Ed could do to keep himself from pulling Max close.
“Except for the fact that Dr. Janet Jones can vouch for you,” Kairo interjected.
Max’s head jerked up, and he stared at the man across the room. Ed held his breath, watching as Max reached for this lifeline.
Kairo smirked at him. “Seriously, there is no one more straight and narrow than my mother. If she caught even a whiff of shadiness, she would have called the police on your ass a long time ago. We believe you.”
Max’s gaze jumped to Ed, who smiled and repeated, “We believe you.”
The professor exhaled and sat up. “Okay. Good.”
“So, you had a plan to get out of the country, but things went wrong,” Charlie prompted.
The young man dropped against the back of the sofa and groaned. “A plan. Yeah, that would have been nice. At least something more thought out. I guess I should have gone to the cops, but I’ve encountered so many cops and officials on the take. In every country I’ve worked in. Not just here. Made me fucking jaded.” He dropped his hands to his lap and sighed. “I was afraid of running straight to someone these fuckers had already bought off.”