Page 103 of Sigma

I walk down the stairs, and I hear him behind me. Feel him.

And I have no idea what he’s going to choose.

21

The Trade, Part 2

The walk is long, and by the time we’re in sight of the castle, it’s hot already and the road is dusty.

Fear hammers at my heart. My mother’s intuition says there’s something happening that we’re not seeing.

It’s not what you think.

“What if killing him is the wrong thing?” I whisper.

Valentine looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

“On the phone, Rin told me it’s not what we think. ‘It’s not what you think.’ That’s what she said.” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling. What if killing Apollo is the wrong thing to do?”

“What else could it be?” He’s angry. “He kidnapped our fuckingdaughter. You killed four people to get away.”

I shake my head again. “I don’tknow, Valentine. I don’t know. I just…I’m…I don’t know.”

“The plan can’t be stopped at this point. I have no radio, no phone, nothing.”

The castle is huge. Not something out of a medieval fantasy, though, but an amalgam of a castle and a fortified country estate. It’s still a castle, though, and no mistake about it. Towering, built of giant blocks of stone, hundreds of years old, with gothic arches at every window and door…and it’s also clear Lear and Sasha were not exaggerating. It would require a veritable army to take this place.

There’s a massive, circular tower at one end of the castle, with a pointed roof and windows running the rim beneath the roof. The driveway we’re walking along arcs in front of the castle, past a fountain spewing water, and ends in a circular turn-around in front of the tower. Several big black SUVs line the drive, each with its doors open; armed guards stand in each door, wielding automatic rifles. At the end of the line of vehicles, in full view, is Apollo Karahalios. With him, our daughter.

She is not standing with the posture of a captive, of someone who’s endured the terror of captivity in Karahalios's hands. She’s calm, her back is straight, her head high. She’s dressed in an emerald green tunic dress belted beneath her breasts, her legs bare, white wedge sandals on her feet. Her hair is clean and braided. She’s unbruised, not so much as a scratch on her.

Apollo, meanwhile, looks…embattled. Not quite haggard, but it wouldn’t be a stretch.

Even so, he’s a shockingly handsome man. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his jaw is stubbled, his long black hair messy, as if he’s run his hands through it. But yet for all that he looks the worse for wear, he’s a simply stunning human being.

His eyes do not crackle with the evil I’d expected of him—of someone descended from Vitaly and Gina.

Beside him, Rin is calm and collected, hands folded in front of her.

In fact, she’s standing a little too close to Apollo for my liking.

I look at my husband, and I see that he hasn’t missed any of this.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he snarls under his breath.

I snicker. “You said it yourself—we’d be rescuinghimfromher.”

He just growls. “That was a joke.”

“Clearly not.”

“He’s a fuckingKarahalios.”

“Do you trust your daughter?”

He growls again. “It’s a moot point. He’s about to get a NATO round through his pretty fucking skull.”

“Valentine.”