Max stared through the glass at Dipter.
His face, his knuckles, and his arms were marked with scratches and bruises, some old, some fresh. It was obvious he'd been fighting.
Made sense. Juvie wasn't full of scared kids. It was full of people like Dipter, territorial, violent, eager to prove something. Fights were inevitable.
Max knew that world. He'd been there once himself. But someone got him out.
Now, he was sitting on the other side of the glass, face to face with a ghost from that world.
And the first words out of Dipter's mouth confirmed what Max had come to suspect.
Dipter didn't just know him as Max Smith.
He knew him as Max Stern.
"I saw the look on your face," Max said, calm but direct. "You figured it out. And now I know I was right."
His eyes narrowed. "You knew all along. You knew I was a member of the Stern family. Just like the client you were working for."
Dipter let out a snorting laugh. It started small, then spiraled.
