When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,29
it this far. They would make it to the end.
“When are we leaving for Buenos Aires?” he asked.
“As soon as possible.” She checked her phone. “There’s a direct overnight flight leaving at midnight tonight.”
He nodded. “Can we be ready for that?”
“Yes. It’s just . . .” Nita took a deep breath. “We need to discuss what we’re going to do about Gold when we leave. We can’t take her with us.”
Kovit’s eyes narrowed. “You want to kill her.”
“No,” Nita lied. “But she is a complication. We need a solution.”
Kovit watched her carefully. “It would make things worse if she died.”
“How?”
“Her father is the head of the Family. He knows that Henry and Gold are hunting me. If Gold dies, he will move heaven and earth to find me and kill me.”
Nita snorted. “You’ve already got INHUP after you, how much worse can it get?”
He gave her a bitter smile. “Trust me, you don’t want to find out.”
“And if Gold lives and tells him Henry is dead?”
Kovit shrugged. “I suppose it depends on the way Gold tells the story. He might still move heaven and earth to kill me. Or he might not.”
Nita was silent for a long moment. “You want to let her go.”
He met her eyes. “I do.”
She hesitated. “She could ruin us.”
“She could.” He didn’t sound bothered by this. “But if we don’t tell her where we’re going, and we let her go right before we leave for the airport, by the time she calls people and gets assistance, we’ll be long gone.”
Nita didn’t like this plan. She didn’t like it one bit. It was broken and flawed and messy, and there were far too many points to possibly account for. It was unpredictable beyond belief.
It relied on assuming Gold would pay back Kovit’s kindness with kindness. And in Nita’s experience, the exact opposite was more likely to happen.
It was a monumentally stupid decision.
But it wasn’t her decision to make.
She let out a breath. “And this is what you want?”
“Yes.” Kovit’s gaze was steady. “This is what I want.”
“All right.” Nita sighed. “We’ll release her right before the flight, then.”
Nita didn’t like it, but it was Kovit’s life, and she’d already pressured him enough about killing people he cared about. Even if Nita was right and it was a mistake, it was Kovit’s mistake to make.
No matter how the outcome might hurt Nita in the long run.
“I’ll book three tickets for tonight, then.” Nita pulled out her phone and looked up. “Does Fabricio have his passport with him?”
“It was in his pocket when I searched him last night.”
“Good.” Nita looked down at the phone and let out a breath. “Then there’s only one thing I need to do before we leave.”
Kovit raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
Nita met his eyes. “I need to go see my mother.”
Thirteen
THE AFTERNOON SUN was high in the sky, and it was a cloudless day. Sweat trickled down Nita’s back, and not just from the heat.
She’d arranged to meet her mother at the park near the police station where they’d last met. The gravel pathway crunched beneath her feet, the shade from the trees providing a brief respite from the sun. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and some flower, little bits of pollen floating along on the breeze and catching in her curly hair.
A few people wandered about, families with small children, couples holding hands. Nita couldn’t imagine wandering a park with her mother as a child. She could barely believe she was meeting her of her own volition, without the threat of her mother’s punishment motivating her.
Her last meeting with her mother had gone well. Better than Nita had ever imagined. Nita wasn’t even that scared of seeing her again.
No. That was a lie. She was still scared. She would probably always be scared. One good meeting didn’t change years of ingrained terror.
Nita turned a corner, coming to a small clearing with a picnic table. Her mother sat on one side, legs crossed, red-and-black-striped hair falling in straight, sharp lines along her jaw. Her lips were too red, and her eyes were too dark, making her ghostly skin look even whiter.
She rose when she saw Nita and smiled. Her smiles always unnerved Nita, because there was something sharkish about them, sharp and hungry and predatory.
“Nita, I’m so glad to see you again.”
Nita stood awkwardly a few steps away. “Yeah.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just dove right into the main point. “Did you bring my passport?”
Her mother