Page 53 of Sigma

I put together pieces of what he’s told me. “And your mother was Gina Karahalios. The woman who kidnapped my mother, beat her senseless, forcibly and violently shaved her head with a knife, and would have had her minion rape her to death had my mother not liberated herself.”

His eyes flare. “That is not true.”

I stand up away from the lectern, keeping it between him and me. “It is, though. My mother, my aunt Layla, my father, my uncle Harris, Duke, Anselm, Lear, Puck, Thresh, and Sasha…they have all told the same story, or pieces of it, over the years.” I hold his eyes, and the anger I see in them worries me, frightens me. “What do you actuallyknowabout your mother, Apollo? She was absent most of your life. You said yourself she brought strange men around, showed up and vanished randomly, gave you pornography as a young boy…these are not the actions of a responsible mother.”

“She was the only mother I had, though.” He’s utterly still, even his eyes frozen on mine. Barely breathing, jaw clenched.

“I know. I get that. But what do youknowabout her? We always want to believe the best of our parents. But they aren’t perfect.”

“Easy for you to say,” he murmurs. “You have both of yours.”

I feel a tense thrill of sympathy push up through the thick layer of fear. “You’re right. I’m just saying—I know you may not want to admit it, but maybe…it is true, what your mother did to mine.” I step around the lectern, and now there’s nothing between us but a few feet of space; I approach closer to him like I would a half-tamed dog, cautiously, slowly, with no sudden movements. “My mother killed yours, Apollo. There’s no denying that. And I know I can’t possibly understand the effect that had on you. But…just…maybe it was justified. That doesn’t lessen its effect on you. But…maybe you could try to understand that?”

He stares at me, expressionless and statuesque. Abruptly, he pivots on a heel and walks away. “Enjoy the library. Please reshelve the books when you are finished with them. I have business to attend to and will be gone for a day or two.”

I get the sense that the things he shared with me he rarely, if ever, shares with anyone. He strikes me as an intensely solitary person—the isolation and solitude he says he was raised in never changed.

Mentally, I’ve compared him to wolves and tigers…but now, one comparison rises above them all.

Apollo Karahalios is a shark swimming in a sea of silence and solitude. He’s most comfortable in the dark cold depths, rarely surfacing, and when he does, all one sees of him is a fin, slicing through the water.

Beneath it all, though, I think there’s a hurting child. A psyche that was never shown love or affection. A man who grew to adulthood in near-total isolation with no reference point of humanity or emotional expression.

All a shark knows is hunger—the hunt. It holds no animosity toward its prey.

All Apollo has ever known is the silence and the isolation and the loneliness—himself, alone in the world, with no one to hug him or care about his feelings.

What if there was someone to do that for him?

What if I did?

Stockholm Syndrome indeed.

Or maybe I’m simply seeing the man beneath the mask—the hurting heart behind the island fortress that is Apollo Karahalios.

10

Berlin to Madrid; the Monster Unmasked

Night has fallen, long since. No Anselm.

I don’t dare leave this spot, nor do I dare call him. I don’t dare call anyone—I can’t be certain this phone isn’t bugged or tapped. All I want is to hear my husband’s voice, to feel the reassurance of his presence, even over the phone.

I almost feel bad for Kai, trussed up in the trunk. I can’t just kill him; I’m not that person. I don’t know that I need him anymore, but I don’t know what to do with him. I also can’t just leave him in there, though. At some point, it becomes torture, and I’m not okay with that either. I have some boundaries, after all.

With a sigh, I exit the car and go to the trunk. Pop it open. Kai blinks, bleary and sleepy. “Come on,” I say. “Out.”

He wiggles and inchworms awkwardly to the edge of the trunk, flops his feet out. I’m sure he’s stiff and sore, if his limbs haven’t long since fallen asleep. It takes a moment, but he finds his feet and stands facing me. I have his pistol in my hand, held down at my side. Now I point it at him.

He lifts his chin, eyes hardening. “Do it,” he says, through the gag of the necktie.

“What would you do if I let you go, Kai?” I ask. “Don’t lie. I’m a mother—I can smell a lie from a mile away.”

I pull the gag out of his mouth but leave his hands bound.

He shrugs, working his jaw. “I can’t go home. Apollo will…deal with me for failing him. But I worry too that he will punish my family instead of me. I can’t go to him.” A sigh. “I am not sure what I would do. I never anticipated you would turn out to be…” he gestures at me with a lift of his chin. “Who you are.”

I hesitate. Letting him go could be a very serious mistake. But I can’t just kill him. I don’t know what to do.