When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,111

“So you plan to not hurt anyone for the duration of the trial and public spotlight to prove a point?”

“Exactly.” He stretched languidly. “And then, the moment it’s safe, I’m going to find someone, and I’m going to make them scream in ways they never even imagined.”

He closed his eyes briefly, as though savoring the image, and Nita shuddered softly at the expression on his face, dark and hungry and terrible.

She forced herself to crack a smile. “And here I thought you were on your way to a cheesy movie redemption arc.”

He laughed, light and free. “Redemption? Me? Not likely.”

She smiled a little at that.

He turned to her and sighed softly. “This break will also give me a chance to update my rules.”

Nita’s eyebrows rose. “I thought you never changed your rules?”

“I did too,” he admitted. “But my rules were made in captivity, with very strict goals. And they haven’t been working outside of captivity. Killing Henry nearly broke me. I can’t be that fragile. I need to be flexible, not rigid. I need to be able to bend when circumstances change.”

“Like with Fabricio?” Nita hedged.

“It was more than that. After the video of”—he took a deep breath, and then, to Nita’s shock, said the name he’d avoided for so long—“Mirella accusing me came out, I realized that my rules weren’t protecting me anymore. They were keeping me blind to threats. I couldn’t even remember this girl, and now she’s pressing charges against me.”

He looked up and met Nita’s eyes. “Something has to change. I have to change.”

Nita was quiet for a moment, before asking, “Is that why you apologized to Fabricio?”

“Yes. It was . . . an experiment. I knew why he did the things he did. I pitied him, even though what he did to you is unforgivable. But when I pitied him, I started to regret worsening his life even more. I felt bad. So I apologized.” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I made a mistake. I admitted it. And I didn’t break.”

Nita nodded slowly, understanding more than he was saying. He’d needed to apologize to Fabricio, to bend a rule, to see if he was truly as fragile as he thought, to take that first step into changing the way he worked. She only wished he’d decided to feel bad about Mirella, an innocent victim and Nita’s sometime friend, rather than Fabricio, the liar who betrayed her.

“No, you didn’t break.” She put her hands on his. “You’re stronger than you think, Kovit.”

He smiled slightly at that, and the two of them were quiet for a few moments, just watching the rain fall, glittering in the darkness.

“I imagine you’re happy about my new situation,” he said, looking at her from the corner of his eyes. “Less screaming.”

She winced. “Guilty.”

He was quiet a moment, and then asked, “Why do you stay when it bothers you so much?”

Nita was silent a long moment before she responded, words coming slowly. “I don’t like hearing what you do, but I don’t care if you do it. I’ve never cared that you were evil. I think a part of me even liked it, because I could pretend that you were more evil than I was, and it made me feel superior.” She sighed. “But the truth is, I’m just as evil as you, in different ways. It’s just taken me a long time to see it and admit it to myself.”

She raised her eyes and met his. “I don’t care about anyone in the world except those close to me. You could skin the fucking pope alive, and as long as I didn’t have to see it, I wouldn’t care. Because he means nothing to me, and you mean everything.”

His eyes flicked back and forth over her face, and then he reached out and linked his fingers with hers.

“Nita,” he breathed softly, “what could I ever have done to deserve someone like you in my life?”

“There’s no ‘deserving’ involved.” Nita smiled, sharp and sly. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people.” His expression of confusion was adorable. “And sometimes,” she continued, cupping his face in her hands, “good things happen to bad people.”

He stared at her a moment, then burst into laughter, breaking away from her, his sides shaking as he laughed and winced in pain. When he finally stilled, he lifted his eyes to hers, his gaze soft and dark.

He raised a finger and traced the outline of her cheekbone, and she caught his hand with hers