Page 56 of Sigma

“Yeah, honey, it’s me. I’m okay.” I clear my throat. It’s not time to let my emotions out of their box, yet. “I’m with Anselm, en route out of Berlin. I’ve got a lead on who has Rin.”

“So do I,” he says. “Lear worked his magic. He got satellite imagery from the night Rin was abducted, and managed to track the boat from our island all the way to Cádiz.”

“Spain.”

“Right.”

“That tracks with what I’ve learned.” I hesitate. “Did Lear find anything on who?”

“The boat was chartered by a company called A-K-T-I, but it’s just a shell. Whoever owns it does so through a massively complicated series of interwoven subsidiaries.” His turn to hesitate. “The evidence points to this being personal.” He swallows. “I spoke to him.”

“You…did?”

“Yeah. He didn’t identify himself, but…to keep Rin safe and to get her back, he wants me to sell RTI, and put the profits into some escrow account or something. He says he wants my ruin. Whatever that means.”

“Did you?”

“Sell off RTI?” he scoffs. “Yeah. Well, it’s in process.” To someone in the room with him. “Is this line secure? How much can I say?…okay, thanks. I’m selling it to someone who owes me a favor. I’m not going to say too much even on a secured line, but…the favor he’s going to do me is that once this is all over, I’ll get it back. The corporation, that is. The essential stuff, the designs, the patents, shares, all that. The money I couldn’t give less of a shit about.”

“I know who it is, Val,” I whisper.

He’s silent a moment. “This feels like Gina or Vitaly. But they’re dead. I saw their bodies myself. I had personal, visual confirmation of death.”

“His name is Apollo.” I swallow hard. “Apollo Karahalios.”

“Vitaly had another kid?”

“I was told it’s Vitaly’sgrandson. As in,Ginahad a son.”

“How thefuck?” he hisses. “All the time we were together, she never took any precautions against pregnancy—she almost seemed to relish in it. She never told me as much, but I always assumed she was infertile, because she never got pregnant. I remember her saying she had some illness when she was a kid. I don’t know.” Another pause. “Gina had a son.”

“And we killed her.” I swallow again, hard. Put it all down in the box. Keep it bottled up till it’s over. “Ikilled her.”

“And now he wants revenge.” He sounds shaken. “For a life ruined. That’s what he said to me.”

“Will he hurt her?” I ask. “To hurt us?”

“I mean, the grab was professional. There’s barely any evidence it even happened. It could have been bloody, but they took great pains to pull it off without firing a shot. He hasn’t hurt her so far. I mean, I don’t think we can bank on him not hurting her…but. I don’t know, babe. We just have to get to her first.”

“Anselm and I are on the way.”

“Kyrie, how did you get away?”

“Let’s just say all those sessions with Duke in Colorado paid off.”

“I was afraid of that.” A low growl. “He’s going to pay for this.”

“I’m fine, babe. Really.” A husky laugh. “I mean, I’ll probably be less okay once this is over, but for now, I’m holding out.”

“She’s going to be okay, Kyrie,” he says. “She’s tough and she’s smart.”

A pause, muffled background conversation.

“I’ll meet you in Spain. Me and everyone else.”

“What about Cal?”

A harsh sigh. “I don’t think I could keep him out of this. He’s…angry. They’ve got his sister, and you, and he and I have been holed up and hiding as he puts it, like scared little kids. He’d never forgive me if I made him stay here alone with a babysitter.”