Page 120 of Sigma

“Apollo?”

He grabs my hand in a fierce, crushing grip. Looks at me with shaken, tortured eyes. “I don’t want to show you.”

“Show me what?”

He swallows. Shakes his head. “No. Don’t look.” He closes his eyes. “They got…Tomás.”

“Who? Got him how? Killed him?”

I push him out of the way, and peer into his office.

It’s painted red.

A severed head sits on the desk—Tomás.

One wall has a message written on it in blood:

It’s not that easy,KARAHALIOS.

Apollo hassomething in his hand, I realize. I take it from him. It’s a photograph of a little girl, no more than four or five. A sweet, cute little thing.

“Who is this?”

“My…my cousin’s daughter.” He’s coming out of his shock, now. Anger is suffusing his features. “She doesn’t even know I exist. None of them do.”

This was a source of one of our arguments. I want him to contact them and he’s not ready, still.

“They took her?”

“Flip it over.”

There’s a set of coordinates and a short note:Be here in twenty-four hours, alone, or it’s her head next.

“What do we do?”

He looks over my shoulder. “We take care of it.”

Behind me is the full weight of Alpha One Security’s inner core.

“But I have to go,” he says.

“Not without me.” I shake my head.

He looks at me. “I can’t ask you to—”

“You don’t have to ask. She’s family.”

“Yelena,” he says. “Her name is Yelena.”

I turn and look at Uncle Harry. “How do we get Yelena back, Uncle Harry?”

His pale blue eyes are colder than ice. “We’ve got some ideas. We’ll go over them in the air.”

THE END