Page 6 of Gamma

“Thus what I did. No more rent to pay. Income far above what you’d ever reach on your own, no matter what you did. Or maybe, if you make smart moves, you could get there in ten, twenty years. This jumps you ahead. But to really make a go of it, you will have to work, still.” Apollo checks his watch, an exquisite luxury timepiece meant more for fashion than function. “I have to go. I’m meant to go meet my enemies and I dare not be late.” He holds his cousin’s eyes. “I will return your daughter to you. Maybe after all this over…we could meet again, under better circumstances.”

Georgios rises and goes to Apollo. “You really did this thing? With the buildings? It wasn’t a joke?”

“Ask Corinna—I do not suffer from a particularly acute sense of humor.”

I snicker. “He doesn’t have one at all, is what he means.”

“I own a whole building?”

Apollo moves a shoulder. “Not yet, but soon. A man named Michael Naismith will knock on your door—he is my trusted assistant—and he’ll have you sign a lot of paperwork. He’ll explain it all to you. Another man named Dante Al-Rashid will be with him, and he will give you a crash course on how to not fuck up the whole thing. He knows money, he knows investments, he knows New York, and like you, he’s an immigrant who started here with nothing. Listen to him. Do what he says. Ask questions, no matter how trivial or stupid they may seem.”

Georgios nods, but his gaze is distant and thoughtful. “You are going to trade yourself to these people to get my daughter back?”

“Yes.”

“May God be with you, in that case.”

Apollo merely nods, turns for the door. Stops with his hand on the knob. “I’m sorry for this, Georgios. My problems shouldn’t be yours, and certainly not your innocent little girl’s. I’m doing everything I can to rectify it.”

Georgios is clearly struggling for a response. He rubs the back of his neck, huffs a rough sigh. “I won’t say it’s okay. It’s not. But…just get my daughter back. That’s all.”

“I will.”

“What if they call me?” he asks.

Apollo shakes his head as he opens the door and strides out. “They won’t. It’s not about you. You’re just an unfortunate pawn in a very shitty game.”

“Will they hurt her?” His voice is low, on the verge of shaking.

Apollo stands in the dim, dingy hallway outside the apartment. Shrugs, head hanging. “I hope not. I’m cooperating as fully as I can. They are not good people, though. So I…I can’t promise.”

Georgios growls. “If they do hurt her, I will not forgive you.”

“Me either.”

A gruff nod from Georgios. “As long as we are clear.”

I follow Apollo out, preceded and trailed by the guards. Back into the SUV, wreathed in a tense silence.

As we head out of Brooklyn, I take his hand and thread our fingers together. “That was an amazing thing you did for him.”

He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t. It was a bare minimum. His fucking daughter was kidnapped because of me. Giving him a building worth a few million dollars is…it doesn’t touch my debt to the man.”

I snort. “A few million? Apollo. That building has to be worth—”

He cuts in over me. “The amount is irrelevant. I can afford it. I’ll sell off a business to recoup the cash loss if I have to. I don’t care.” He puts his head in his hands, covering his face. “I cannot have that child’s blood on my hands, Rin.Cannot.”

I wrap my arm over his shoulders, draw him against me. “We’ll get her back, my love.”

He’s silent as we head for Queens.

“Ten minutes out, sir, ma’am,” the driver says. “We will halt out of view of the meeting site and Mr. Dimitriou will continue on alone on foot from there.”

Neither of us answer—no answer is required.

My heart is pounding, and aching.

We make a series of turns that take us farther and farther from the main roads and into a no-man’s-land of abandoned warehouses and the shells of old buildings, a maze of crumbling brick and shattered glass.