1
No Real Choice
“Idon’t like it,” I say. “It’s too risky. Too much could go wrong.”
Apollo squeezes my hand. “There’s not much of a choice, Rin. They have Yelena. She’s totally innocent in all this. She doesn’t even know I exist, nor her parents either. My actions put this innocent little girl in danger.”
Harris—my uncle Harry—sighs. “I don’t like it either, Rinny. I don’t. But this is the best plan we’ve got. Whoever is behind this is smart—the location of those coordinates is…it’s well chosen. We have to assume all approaches are being watched, which means I can’t even get scouts very close without being seen. Drone footage, satellite, it all tells me the same thing—if we want to get that little girl back, we have to play by their rules. To a degree.”
I feel my eyes burning, but refuse to let tears fall.
For six months, Apollo and I were deliriously happy. We lived together in Houston so I could oversee the build-up of Valkyrie’s operations—Valkyrie Extraglobal Solutions is dedicated to creating the first orbital spacecraft shipyard; Apollo is working on his various business interests. We’re not married, nor engaged. Our bank accounts are still separate. He hasn’t told me he loves me—those words are still very hard for him. I know he does, but verbalizing it is a different story. He shows me in a thousand other ways: he brings me breakfast in bed, or sometimes just coffee; he kisses me slowly, softly, passionately, aggressively; we make love and we fuck and everything in between; he takes care of me. He calls me beautiful. He anticipates what I might need and provides it. He makes me feel loved, cared for, seen. Heshowsme he loves me.
Do I need the words? Not yet.
Do I need the ring? Not yet.
Iwantthe words and the ring, obviously, but I’m not going to push it. We have time. We have a lifetime together.
Or so I thought.
Then, Apollo received the decapitated head of his assistant and second-in-command, Tomás…and a photograph of Apollo’s four-year-old cousin with a set of coordinates, a twenty-four-hour deadline to show up alone or the little girl’s head will be next, and a message in blood on the wall:it’s not that easy, KARAHALIOS.
It’s not that easy. Of course not.
The coordinates on the back of the photograph are for a warehouse in Queens, Uncle Harry says. Preliminary assessment indicates it will be impossible to get anyone in or out besides Apollo. Meaning, he has to go alone. If we try to send a team, they’ll be seen and we can’t risk Yelena’s life. We don’t know who’s behind this, and therefore we have to assume they mean business—that if we mess up, an innocent four-year-old girl will die…
The upshot of this is I have to allow Apollo to walk into that abandoned warehouse alone, unarmed, unprotected, into who knows what fate.
What choice is there? We have no intel—there is no real choice.
“To a degree,” Apollo asks, repeating Uncle Harry’s words, breaking my train of thought. “What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t risk this little cousin of yours. But it doesn’t mean we have to send you in totally blind.” He produces a syringe. “We actually put one of these in Kyrie, when you, um…collected her.” He holds up the syringe, and the naked eye can just barely make out a tiny silver something in the liquid. “It’s a nearly invisible tracker. It’ll allow us to, at the very least, monitor your location. It comes with certain risks, however: it is detectable by certain types of scanners, and if they were to scan you and find it, they might be pissed enough to do something punitive. Or, at least, disable it, if not dig it out of you. Which would be, needless to say, unpleasant.”
He glances at me. “Sorry for the graphic imagery, but it’s my job to be thorough.”
I swallow hard. “I understand. It’s up to Apollo, obviously.”
Apollo takes the syringe and examines it. “Tiny little thing. And this will give you my location, but nothing else?”
“Correct,” Uncle Harry says.
“And they can scan me for it. And if they do and find it, they could kill me, hurt or kill Yelena, or just do something violent and painful to me to remove it.”
“Correct.”
“But you will know where they are taking me, at the very least, is the thinking.” When Harris nods his assent, Apollo sighs, musing, then meets my uncle’s eyes. “Is it worth the risks, do think? In your professional capacity, I ask you, not as… as something like family.”
Harris’s smile is faint. “Not something like, Apollo. Youarefamily, now. Rin is family, and she loves you, therefore you’re part of the crew. And the way you’re responding to this affirms for me that she’s made the right choice with you.” He flicks the syringe. “I think it’s worth it, yes. It’s something, and in this case, something is better than nothing.”
“Very well. Rin trusts you, therefore I trust you.”
Harris takes the syringe. “I’ll place it somewhere that if they should find it and decide to cut it out of you, it won’t be likely to kill or maim you. That’s the best I can offer, unfortunately.” He moves behind Apollo, places a palm on the back of his head and tips Apollo’s head forward, baring the back of his neck. “I’m putting it under the skin at the base of your neck, under the hairline.
Apollo merely grunts his acknowledgment, and Harris slides the needle under his skin, depressing the plunger. The liquid and the nearly invisible speck vanishes, and Harris dabs at the spot with a Kleenex.
“There, all set.” Harris holds up a tablet, taps the screen a few times. “And…activated.”
