When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,66
and she’d committed the ultimate act of control—taking Nadya’s life.
And now, decades later, her mother was doing it again. She was coming after Kovit. And when Kovit was dead, and Nita still refused to return to her mother, would her mother kill Nita too?
That, more than anything, made Nita believe Andrej’s side of the story. Because he couldn’t possibly know about what was happening with her mother and Kovit, and the parallels were too strong to be a coincidence.
Andrej continued, oblivious to Nita’s slowly mounting horror. “Afterward, your mother had her pet lawyer propose a bill.”
“Her pet lawyer?” Nita asked, clinging to the distraction, something else to focus her mind on while her subconscious worked through the truths she was faced with.
The “pet lawyer” had to be her father, a legal consultant and her mother’s partner in the black market industry. A person Andrej had only minutes before denied knowing the existence of, never mind the murder of.
Liar.
“Yes. He made the first proposal for the Dangerous Unnaturals List. It claimed if even I could kill Nadya after we were together for forty years, no vampire could live without murder. The council was full of old hunters already angry at Nadya for curtailing their murder sprees, and they passed the bill. The DUL was born with vampires at the very top.” His voice was bitter. “Followed closely by every other creature your mother used to enjoy killing and thought she could make money selling.”
Nita stared at him, mouth open. This couldn’t be true. Her mother couldn’t be responsible for the Dangerous Unnaturals List. It simply wasn’t possible.
Except it was definitely something her mother would do.
Nita kept her tone mild. “It sounds like you had quite a grudge against all the people involved.”
“Oh, I do. I’ve spent the last twenty years trying to kill them all. Those wretched INHUP hunters. Her wretched pet lawyer. And especially your mother.”
And there it was. Everything made clear and in the open.
In all probability, her father’s killer was in front of her. The signs pointed to it, even if he hadn’t confessed it outright. She should feel vicious, want to carve his heart out. She should press him on his slip-up, bully a confession out of him.
But all her mind could do was keep going back to her mother, and that terrible story about Nadya and how her mother had destroyed so many lives in order to keep control of her friend.
“Is my mother still part of INHUP?” Nita asked.
“Yes. She’s one of the few original board members still alive.” His lips curled. “But so many of the board members are younger now. They grew up with INHUP, they aren’t hunters by nature. They’re changing the organization, and she doesn’t like it. She’s losing control, and there’s nothing that enrages her more.”
Nita’s brain clunked sluggishly along. Here, here was the source of INHUP’s corruption, the broken wheel that had started everything. Here were her answers.
“There’s warrants out for my mother’s arrest,” she pointed out, trying desperately to poke holes in his words, to prove them lies.
“Indeed. Warrants for a thirty-year-old woman named Helen. Or a forty-five-year-old woman named Valerie.” His hair caught the light and gleamed like diamonds. “But the board doesn’t know what she is. No one knows that thirty-year-old Helen and eighty-seven-year-old Monica are the same woman.”
Nita wanted to protest, to ask how they couldn’t know, but she didn’t. Because it would be easy. If her mother really was that old, really could heal age . . . Well, Nita had seen her stack of fake passports. She knew how many identities her mother had. Why couldn’t one of them be INHUP’s board member?
She swallowed suddenly, a terrible thought occurring to her.
“How much would my mother have access to in INHUP?” Nita’s breathing became fast and hard. “Could she have expedited a name being put on the Dangerous Unnaturals List?”
“Of course.”
A sick feeling welled up in her chest, as more and more pieces clicked together.
“Could she have gotten someone to install bug software on a refugee’s phone?” Nita asked, the words heavy on her tongue.
“I don’t see why not.”
Nita’s hands were shaking, and she couldn’t seem to stop them. Had Nita’s mother been the one to sell her location on the black market when she was in Toronto?
Nita tried to think back to when her information had gone up. She’d rejected her mother. She’d left the restaurant. And then, right after, her phone’s GPS location had been posted online.