And it was only then, with the immediate crisis of my own survival suddenly solved, that the deeper terror I had been holding at bay finally broke through, and my voice cracked.

“Martin,” I said.

“What about my daughter?

Julian took Maya.

She’s two years old.

He thinks he can use her to force me into signing over my equity in the firm.

He took my child.”

“Julian,” Martin replied, with a calm that was somehow more frightening than any urgency could have been, “is currently sealed inside a twelve-hour long-haul flight across the Pacific Ocean.