Page 65 of Sigma
“So he’s a ghost.”
“Basically. But he’s a ghost who inspires loyalty. Because like I said, he shares. His people make a fucking fortune. If he owns a business, it’s never in a big city, always in a smaller area, and he invests in that town. This we do have first-hand confirmation of. He owns a quasi-commercial fishing operation in the Mediterranean which operates out of Marseilles and Barcelona—by which I mean he has offices that handle the technical business end of it, taxes and payroll and the like. But the real operations are out of little villages outside the city. And in those little villages, he has personally invested millions and millions of dollars to upgrade things. Infrastructure, fiber optic, underground electricity, new plumbing, new schools. And he protects them. His soldiers, for lack of a better term, act as de facto police. If the real police don’t handle a crime properly, his people will. The villages love him. None of them have met him, but not one person Raze’s guys talked to had a bad thing to say. Crime is down, income is up. Kids are getting educated in brand new buildings, and the school systems have been given huge grants so the teachers get paid way more than anywhere else.”
“Fuck.” I hiss, frustrated. “There’s got to be a catch.”
“Well, yeah. Word is, he discovered his family’s previous business, arms and drug shipments—after Vitaly died that vacuum was never totally filled. Not by any one person, at least, and none of the people who come in trying to take the space left by Vitaly are able to operate at the capacity he could.”
“But Apollo can. He’s got the money.”
“Right. And he’s slowly taken over.” A laugh. “But he did it like he would take over an already operational legitimate, legal business—he didn’t kill off his competitors, he hired them. Let them keep their own structures and people in place, but they received assistance from Apollo in the form of money and organizational people and such. He’s taken over at least ten different arms dealers and drug dealers and put them under his umbrella. I guess things have improved for everyone.”
“Except the general populace. More drugs and more guns out in the world.”
A sigh. “Well, actually…” he grunts. “I’ve got what you might call a begrudging admiration for the man. Part of his takeover was instituting his ethical code all the way down—no rape, no kids, no innocent civilians involved. And because his takeover was monetary rather than through the usual violent methods, there’s no grudges, no hostilities. Crime that could be directly related to his business practices has actually gonedown. Because he directly and personally enforces his ban on any behavior that would negatively impact what you might call innocent people. As in, no one connected to his organization is allowed to sell drugs or guns to kids. If you have beef with someone, you’d better make damn sure no innocents get hurt because Apollowillcome for you.”
“Goddammit,” I sigh.
“Yeah, makes it tricky, doesn’t it?”
I snarl. “No, it doesn’t. He has my fuckingdaughter, Harris.”
“So you’re still going in hot?”
“To get Rin back safely? Yes.”
“You have to wait, Key.”
“I can’t.”
“He has tons of muscle, Kyrie. I meantons. A real deal army. You think Vitaly had unlimited resources and personnel? Apollo has double. More money. More connections.” A hard pause. “You and Anselm go in cowboy, you’regoingto fucking die and you willnotget Rinna back. I promise you. We need a different approach.”
“You’re not just trying to keep from taking a risk because you think I can’t handle it?”
“Key, the fact that you’d even suggest such thing pisses me off,” he says, and I can hear the ire in his voice, the strain it takes to keep his voice steady and neutral. “I know what you’re capable of. If it was my wife and daughter out there, I’d say the same thing, and you know the respect I have for my wife in hairy situations. I’m telling you, my professional assessment of this situation is that a direct assault is suicide.”
“We’re not negotiating. He doesn’t want money anyway.”
“I know. I don’t know exactly what the approach is, but I know we’ll find one. So please, you and Anselm find somewhere in Madrid to lay low until we get there. So far, Apollo seems reticent to hurt her, so our timeline isn’t rushed. If he wanted to and was going to hurt or kill Rinna, he’d have done so already. When you went rogue and killed his guys, right?”
“But what if he changes his mind?”
There’s a clicking and a muted shuffling—the phone changing hands. “Babe.” This is Valentine, now. “There’s no other choice. The worst possible option is to attack without proper intel. Okay? We don’t know enough about his position, the exact number of people, their locations, their loadouts, where she’s being kept, or what he even wants. There’s so much we don’t know. What wedoknow is that he hasn’t killed her yet, or even hurt her. And we know he’s more into manipulation and power plays than he is outright murder. He actually seems to be against unnecessary bloodshed and violence. That works in our favor. There may be a way out of this without any more people being killed. I hate waiting. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, being so close, having gone through what you’ve been through and having to wait. But youhaveto. We go in hot right now, it may get her hurt or killed when a different approach could solve this peaceably. If he wants my financial ruin, I’ll do it without hesitation to keep my family safe. Okay, Key? I can start from scratch. I’m not worried. You and Rin being alive and safe is all that matters. So just…wait.Please.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay.” I sigh a shaky sigh, suppressing with brutal effort the tears pooling behind my eyes. “Okay.”
“It’s going to be okay, Kyrie.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No. But it will be.”
“She’d better.” My voice shakes. “If she’s not, and I could have stopped it…”
“You can’t think like that.”
“How am I supposed to fucking think, goddammit?”
“Key.” It’s a gentle scold. “It’s me.”