“Okay, you got my good news,” Max murmured. He drew in a deep breath, held it for a second, and released it again with a nod. “Okay. Hit me with it. What’s the bad news that’s raining on my parade?”
Ed frowned, seeming like he wanted to be anywhere other than right where he was trapped. “How…how much do you know about Nail Mironov? Did you have any encounters with him or his gang while you were with your real parents?”
That…was not what he was expecting.
Max lifted his hand, rubbed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose as he sorted through his memories. “Not linked with my parents and their dealings, no. There’ve been whispers through the archeology grapevine for about three or four years now. Some people call the criminal ring the Ghost Hand because they’re good at sneaking in and making off with artifacts like the gang is made up entirely of ghosts. I’ve been careful to stay clear of Mironov. Until now, of course.” He snorted and dropped his hand to his lap. “Honestly, I expected to hear from him. No matter how I tried to keep my findings hidden, word leaks out. I had no doubt that he would learn that I was the closest to finding the tomb.”
“Mironov isn’t the head of the Ghost Hand,” Ed said carefully.
Max grunted. “I figured that much when he finally captured me. He would follow a line of inquiry and press, but there was always a limit. When he reached that limit, he’d break things off. I always figured that he was checking in with his boss about what to do next.”
“We met his boss today. She goes by the name of Katona Zsuska.” Ed seemed to pause and stare heavily at him like that name was supposed to mean something.
He shook his head. “Never heard of her. But my parents, when they were making their deals, they never told my sister and me much about who they were moving products through. Our jobs were getting the goods or providing a distraction where needed. Where the money came from wasn’t any of our business.”
Charlie walked over to the table and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “West and I arrived at the park a few minutes before Mironov and Zsuska. I was able to snap a few pics.” He tapped on the screen a few times and turned it to face Max.
He needed to only glance at the image for a second. There was no mistaking that bastard’s face. Being tortured for the better part of a week had a way of burning images into a person’s mind. “Yeah, that’s Nail Mironov.”
Pulling the phone back toward him, Charlie swiped his thumb across it to the next picture. When he showed it to Max, his brain just stopped. His heart stopped. The breath froze in his lungs.
It wasn’t possible.
It just…it just wasn’t possible.
He wasn’t even sure when he started moving. He blinked and he was standing across the room, out of Ed’s comforting embrace and alone.
A high-pitched, somewhat hysterical laugh broke from his lips. “That’s…fuck…” The words were caught behind a lump that had grown in his throat, but he forced himself to keep talking because if he didn’t let some of this out, he was going to explode. “That’s my mom. I mean, I haven’t seen her in, like, a couple of decades, but that’s her. She’s the head of the Ghost Hand. That means both my sister and my mother are hunting me—not because they want to see their last remaining blood relative, but because they want to use me for treasure.”
Ed was on his feet in an instant and trying to close the distance between them. Max held up both of his trembling hands, trying to ward him off while backpedaling in a room that suddenly felt too crowded. Where had all these people come from? And furniture? Every step he took, he was stumbling over a chair leg or bumping into the table. He couldn’t let Ed touch him, because he’d fall apart, and he wasn’t allowed to fall apart. Not when he’d told himself a hundred times that they didn’t matter. He couldn’t crumble over these fucking assholes. They weren’t worth a single second of pain or anguish. He was better off without them.
But his mind was a traitorous bastard, and he was slammed with another harsh realization.
“Each time Mironov called in while I was being beaten and tormented to check with his boss, he was calling my mom. She was on the line…approving…approving all the shit they did to me.”
A horrible sound like a fractured sob erupted from Max, and then he was smashed against Ed’s chest. He didn’t fight him, just wrapped his fingers in the man’s shirt and clung to him as though his sanity depended on it. At that moment, he didn’t want to think. Everything hurt. The betrayal ran so deep.