Thea blocked out her emotional pain so she could defuse the situation and get them all to safety. Only then could she sort through the implications of her father and Nikos’s machinations. The sky had darkened even more. Thunder rumbled, reverberating through the gorge. Despite the rain, her mouth was gritty, dry. The cold gusts of wind on the bridge were chilling her bones.
She stared at the bungee-jumping platform and the coiled cords with their harnesses. She couldn’t rush Max. It was crucial to listen, to ask open-ended questions, to let him vent.
“Why are you holding my father prisoner if he was paying you?”
“It’s not about money. Christos treats his employees like chattel. Disposable.” He rapped on the back of her father’s skull with his Glock. Papa winced.
Thea was growing angry, but she kept her tone earnest and open. “Did Christos mistreat you somehow?”
“This has never been about me. This is all because of my half sister, Laila, a talented engineer who made the mistake of working for Paris Industries. She had safety concerns about the oil rig she worked on, and she voiced those concerns to Christos himself. He told her that they could discuss the problems over dinner. Bastard hit on her, a girl half his age.”
Max was gesticulating, the gun waving. She wanted to lunge forward and disarm him but not before Rif gave her the go-ahead.
“Three weeks later, there was an explosion on the rig. My sister tried to save some of the workers and fell off the platform, breaking almost every bone in her body. Somehow she survived.” Max turned to Christos. “She fell three hundred and ninety-three feet. This bridge is three hundred and sixty-three feet. I’m giving you a fighting chance.”
Papa grimaced. “I never knew Laila was your half sister. And you’re wrong. I had the team address her safety concerns right away. Human error caused the explosion.”
“Shut up!” Max fired the gun, a bullet penetrating Christos’s thigh.
Her father screamed, crumpling to the ground. It took everything Thea had to keep her voice even. “Please, Max. Tell me what happened.” She needed him focused on her, not on her father.
The inspector’s voice was leaden with anguish. “Laila lived for a while but with intense pain and disfigurement. She begged me to kill her.” Tears ran down his face, intermingling with the rain. His voice faltered. “I smothered her with a pillow.”
Thea exhaled. “I’m so sorry, Max.” Papa pressed his right hand to his wound while his eyes searched the platform, probably looking for a weapon. She worried he’d do or say something to set Max off again.
“And now, before your father can seal the biggest deal of his career, he’ll fall to his death.” Grief had burrowed permanently into the lines around Max’s eyes, and his words were laced with pain. His despair didn’t bode well. He was hollow inside, with nothing left to lose.
“The plane crash, the limo explosion, Helena—that was all you?” Thea asked to keep him talking.
“I wanted Christos to lose you, Rif, Helena—everyone he cared about. I needed him to experience my pain.”
Thea reeled. “What about the supertanker?”
Max shook his head. “I suspect Nikos was buying time to find Christos before you did. He and his people were on the hunt right away.”
There was no easy way out of this. Max couldn’t just walk off the bridge. He had to know he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. That was clearly not in his plans.
“Tell me about Laila.”
Max glanced at Thea. “I know what you’re doing, trying to keep me talking. We’re done.” His tone changed; his voice shook. He seemed to be spooling toward the end, and she didn’t think he intended for any of them to survive this. She couldn’t wait for Rif to take the bomb out of the equation.
She had an idea.
“If you push my father off the bridge, his suffering ends quickly.”
Max’s eyes narrowed.
She went on. “But Christos does have his kryptonite.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Me.”
Rif had sliced through the left side of the girder supporting the bomb and was halfway through the right side when Thea’s voice stopped him.
What was she thinking? “I’m almost there.” His hands steadied the torch. Sparks filled the air, the molten metal melting. “Thea, don’t do this.”
Offering herself as bait wasn’t going to stop Max from killing Christos.
Heros would simply kill them in a different order.
Chapter Seventy-Eight