Wolf was utterly paralyzed with surprise. Out of all the tactical responses Max could have possibly formulated to survive this interrogation, Wolf had never anticipated that his Boss would simply throw his real, high-society lineage directly onto the table.
Yet, as the silence stretched across the cafeteria, Wolf could see the immediate atmospheric shift in Marvin Morgan’s posture. The detective’s eyes narrowed, a sharp spark of recognition flashing behind his gaze as if a critical locked door in his mind had suddenly been blown off its hinges. Then, slowly, a single, highly skeptical eyebrow arched upward.
"If what you have just laid out is structurally true, it would certainly explain a few anomalies," Marvin said, his tone dropping into a dangerous, calculating frequency. "For instance, it provides a very clear explanation as to how a teenager managed to bribe internal prison staff and breach a maximum-security checkpoint before the bureau’s forensic teams even arrived. But in my line of work, I’ve learned that when highly intelligent people tell a lie, they usually use a specific tactic: they throw out a massive, shocking truth to solve their immediate crisis, hoping I won’t notice all the other glaring problems it creates."
Marvin leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on the circular wooden table. "For instance, let’s look at the baseline math here. Why would a high-born scion of the monolithic Stern dynasty voluntarily strip himself of his resources to attend a completely unremarkable, underfunded public school under a pathetic alias?
"On top of that structural mismatch, the intelligence reports I dragged up from your former classmates paint a very specific picture. They claim that you weren’t some undercover prince; you were an absolute nobody at the very bottom of the food chain who was being systematically, brutally bullied on a daily basis. Especially by a low-level delinquent like Dipter.
"So, you see, Max, there are far too many details here that simply do not add up. I will put it to you completely straight. Based on the forensic profiles, I do not believe you are the physical architect behind the deaths that have occurred in your immediate orbit."
The detective paused, his eyes turning cold and sorrowful. "The sudden suicide... and the brutal street assassination of that girl, Abby. I don’t see your fingerprints on the triggers. But I am entirely certain that you are deeply, intimately linked to the catalyst of those events. You possess the missing pieces that will allow me to finally extract the answers I’ve been hunting for.
"My real concern, kid, is that you are letting your trauma drive you to extreme, illegal lengths to get what you want. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. Good kids who lose everything end up falling completely into the dark side of the underworld because they think it’s the only way to balance the scales."
Marvin stopped, his predatory gaze shifting away from Max for a brief second to lock squarely onto Wolf’s. "So, I want you to understand something very clearly right now. If you choose to tell me the absolute truth, I possess enough institutional leverage to guarantee that things are handled properly and that you survive the fallout."
Detective Marvin Morgan was exceptionally sharp, and within the logical boundaries of the normal world, his conclusion was remarkably sensible. Max couldn’t find it in himself to blame the veteran bloodhound for being so fundamentally off the mark.
After all, to actually hit the bullseye of the true target, Marvin would have to believe a sequence of events so thoroughly ridiculous, supernatural, and impossible that only Max himself could comprehend the reality of his soul migration.
’So, his working theory is that Wolf is a commander of a local Syndicate, and I’ve weaponized my grief to join their ranks to execute a bloody revenge campaign?’ Max calculated, a cold, detached amusement settling into his mind. ’And he assumes I’ve manifested at this prison because Dipter escaped and I either want to execute my former bully or interrogate him for information? Well, the ultimate benefit of his delusion is clear: he doesn’t view me as the primary enemy. He views me as a victim heading down a dark path.’
"Detective," Max said, his voice completely devoid of hesitation as he met Marvin’s gaze head-on. "I’ll be entirely honest with you. Your analysis is actually correct about a few fundamental things. I do want to systematically dismantle the entities that brought harm to the people in my orbit.
"But your list is incomplete; you missed another person who was incredibly dear to my infrastructure—a student named Jay who passed away under highly suspicious circumstances. More than anything, my primary objective is to guarantee that what happened to me, and what happened to them, never manifests in this city ever again.
"So, the absolute fact that a volatile variable like Dipter is back on the streets is a matter of immense, tactical concern to me. But let’s look at your theory logically. If I were standing here spinning a complex web of lies to throw a veteran investigator off my trail... why on earth would I choose to lie about being a member of that specific family?"
The question hung heavily in the quiet room, causing Marvin to pause for a micro-second. He ran the tactical parameters through his mind. Out of all the random aliases, fake identities, and criminal associations a young street punk could invent to scare off a cop, claiming direct blood relation to the most lethal, untouchable corporate dynasty in the country was a remarkably bizarre and dangerous lie to fabricate—especially for a kid trying to stay under the radar.
"Because you’re desperately trying to use the weight of their name to scare me off from digging any deeper into your infrastructure?" Marvin suggested, his voice tight.
"You’re partly right about that," Max chuckled softly, a confident, knowing smile playing on his lips. "A name like Stern usually acts as a natural deterrent for internal affairs and standard precincts. But think about the broader picture, Detective. The moment I uttered that name, it instantly provided the missing answers to every single irregularity on your desk, didn’t it?
"It explains exactly why it was so utterly impossible for your bureau to pull a clean paper trail or financial history on a supposedly ’ordinary’ public school student. It explains exactly how I extracted the classified coordinates of a prison break and materialized at the perimeter before your own field units.
"And more importantly, it answers your ultimate question: if a shadow entity is systematically murdering every single person in this kid’s orbit, and he isn’t the one pulling the trigger... then why the hell isn’t he dead yet?"
Max didn’t wait for Marvin to formulate a rebuttal. He calmly pulled his high-end smartphone out from his jacket pocket, his fingers scrolling and tapping away across the glass screen with practiced, effortless speed. He held the device slightly away from his face for a split second, allowing the biometric scanner to authorize his security clearance.
Once the encryption cleared, he tapped the screen one final time, placed the phone flat onto the center of the wooden table directly between them, and spun the device around so the display faced the detective.
"What you are looking at right now is a live link to one of my personal secondary bank accounts," Max claimed, his smile widening as Marvin’s eyes locked onto the glowing interface. "Feel free to study the routing codes as thoroughly as you wish, and feel free to count exactly how many digits are lined up in that balance.
"Unless you are prepared to argue that before I traveled to this facility today—before I could have possibly known that a legendary detective from the capital would be waiting in the shadows to ambush me—I somehow had the foresight to hire a software engineer to fabricate a flawless, real-time banking application that mirrors a multi-million-dollar Stern trust fund just to show you a parlor trick."