Page 46 of Sigma

Suddenly, I’m aware that I’ve been awake for I don’t even know how long. Those long hours in the hold of the ship, I don’t think I ever truly slept. Has it really only been one day since I’ve arrived?

I’m exhausted. My eyes burn, and my legs threaten to give out.

I’ve had enough—I’m going to bed. I’ll take his, risks be damned.

I pull aside the comforter and slide in on the right side of the mattress, on the very edge. The moment my head hits the pillow, I feel myself drifting, toppling into sleep.

8

The Grandson; An Escape

My blood turns to ice at his statement. “Vitaly’s son?”

“Grandson.” Kai shrugs. “So I’ve heard.”

“What else have you heard?”

“I know that he is wealthy. I know he was not raised by the family—your people killed them all. It is legend, in the right circles.” A sigh. “He has been increasing his presence in the underworld. Arms, drugs, these things. No one can connect him to anything—it’s all rumors and suspicion. I know—I was investigating him.”

“And then he bought you.”

“He gives me a choice—work for him and make ten times the money, or…” a lift of his hand, a long stare into nothing. “I have a family. All I needed was the pictures he had of my wife, my boys. The decision was easy.”

“Effective.”

“Very.” He looks at me, then. “I don’t kill people, or hurt them. I connect people. I know everyone in this city, good and bad. I wouldn’t hurt you. Or your daughter.”

“But you can facilitate her kidnapping.”

“What am I to do? Tell on him? Say no, he shouldn’t do this?” A raspberry. “I am dead, and my family with me.”

I can’t stay here much longer. “Where is he keeping her?”

“I really don’t know that.”

“Guess.”

“I have heard he has a castle or something like this. Spain, Portugal, France? I don’t know. I really don’t.”

“Buthehas her? Not held, like, off-site?”

“So much as I know,ja.”

“What’s his plan?”

A laugh. “He tells me this?”

“Guess.”

“Bait you all in. You, your husband, your friends. This Anselm comes for you, he is taken. Then we have you both. The others come, we take them. Then?” A shrug, a shake of his head. “I don’t know. He kills you all, maybe.”

“He really thought he could take us?” I shake my head. “How many are out there?”

“Men?” He gestures at the bodies. “Like them?”

“Right.”

A shrug, a thoughtful pause. “Ten, I think.”