and hurt. He punished everyone in the Family. He did it because they asked him to and because he liked it. He just turned off the part of his brain that had a soul, the part that went online and chatted about movies and consoled friends. He flicked it off like a switch, and he made people scream.”
Gold swallowed. “You don’t really know him. You don’t know what he’s like.”
The words hit closer to home than Nita anticipated, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to drown out an INHUP agent’s screams. She replaced it with an image of Kovit holding her while she wept with grief over her murdered father.
Nita let out a long breath. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Gold just shook her head. “You’ll see eventually.” Gold tipped her head back, the fluorescents painting her face a chalky yellow. “Even if it’s not me who takes Kovit down. Even if you manage to get him off the list before INHUP hurts him. Someday, somewhere, one of his victims will survive. And they will make it their life’s mission to hunt down and stop the monster who hurt them.”
Nita’s voice was tight. “That’s ridiculous. Vengeance stories like that only happen in the movies.”
“Perhaps,” Gold said softly. “But Kovit goes around doing terrible things, and eventually, those things will come back for him. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but there will always be someone out there with more hate than logic who will try to kill him.”
“Like you?”
Gold’s smile was bitter. “Like me.”
Nita was quiet for a beat. “Was it someone you cared about? That he hurt, I mean.”
After a long moment, she said, “No.”
Nita thought she’d guessed wrong, but then Gold said softly, “My father used to make me watch the recordings, you know, as I was growing up. I’d look into those people’s eyes as Kovit made them scream. And my father told me, That’s how you run an empire. That’s how you make people fear you. That’s how you gain respect.”
Gold leaned heavily on her crutch. “The first time I saw someone try to kill my father, I was twelve. It was a woman in her early twenties. Her husband was a bruiser for my father, but he’d . . . made a mistake and been sent to Kovit. When he came home, he was missing some critical pieces.”
Gold closed her eyes, and the light danced on her cheeks. “I still remember the sounds of her bones crunching as Kovit twisted them round in the socket until they popped out. My father told Kovit that she didn’t need to survive, that she was going to send a message to anyone who dared go against him.”
She met Nita’s eyes. “People are afraid of my father. Most people, they don’t dare try anything. But there’s always a few who have more hate and anger than fear, who try to kill him. They’ve never succeeded, because my father has guards. He knows how to play the game.
“But Kovit? Kovit has you. And how long he has you, I don’t know. One day, someone will have more anger than fear, and they will come, and they will kill him.”
Gold’s gaze was steady. “And on that day, I will light a candle for the loss of the friend who could have been, and then I will celebrate the death of the monster that was.”
Seven
THE BLEE-BLEE-BLEE BLEE-BLEE-BLEE of the alarm jolted Nita awake the next morning. It hurt to open her eyes, like there were broken grains of glass behind her eyelids, so she didn’t. She pawed around for her cell phone and swiped at it blearily, hoping that she’d turned it off instead of just snoozed it.
Beside her Kovit moaned softly and pressed his face into her shoulder, as though hiding from the sound. “It’s too early to get up.”
“We have places to be.” Nita rubbed her eyes and sat up. Her hands were sticky with duct tape glue from tying Gold up last night. “We have to meet your sister.”
His eyes snapped open, and Nita regretted reminding him so quickly. His whole body was tight with nerves.
“It’ll be fine,” Nita whispered, gently putting a hand on his shoulder.
He gave her a shaky smile. “I don’t even know what I’m more afraid of. That she hates me, or that she doesn’t. That she’ll still love me, and I’ll only have a week to see her before . . .”
Before INHUP