But the key difference was, Nita hadn’t chosen this life.
Mirella, on the other hand, was fighting for people she didn’t even know. For other people still trapped in markets, for girls she’d never met. Why did Mirella care what happened to other girls? Mirella had escaped—she should have lain low and survived. By sticking her neck out for all these other faceless, voiceless girls, she only put herself in danger. It boggled Nita’s mind.
Nita might need to fight the black market, might need to take on INHUP or the police or even the world, but the only person she fought for was herself. And occasionally Kovit.
Certainly not people she didn’t even know. What a waste of effort.
This was why she’d never liked Mirella. How was she supposed to understand someone like that?
“We should see if we can warn this girl,” Kovit said, skimming through more emails. “She could use a heads-up.”
Nita stared at Kovit as if he’d grown a second head. “You want to help her?”
“Yeah.” He seemed confused by her reaction. “Why not? It costs us nothing.”
“I . . .” Nita shook her head. “No, you’re absolutely right, we should try and send this to her. I just . . .”
“Nita, you’re acting weird, what is it?”
“Kovit, you tortured her.” Nita’s voice broke a little. “You made her scream until she could barely talk. She hates you, and with good reason.”
“I . . . What?” He leaned back. “I did?”
“How can you not remember? She had grayish skin? She and I were in the cages together.”
His eyes widened, and something dark and incomprehensible crossed his face. “Oh, her.”
For a moment, he looked haunted, as though he could actually see Mirella as a person and realize the atrocities he’d committed on someone he’d expressed admiration for not a minute earlier. And then it was gone, something hard coming into his eyes. Nita could almost see as he built a wall, forcing himself to dissociate from Mirella, forcing himself to forget she was a person.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” He shrugged. “Are you done yet? I’m hungry.”
Nita opened her mouth, part of her not wanting to let him change the subject like this, wanting to bring Mirella up again. But she didn’t. She’d known who he was when she teamed up with him, and she’d known what he’d done to Mirella. Nothing had changed.
So she went back to the computer, screen-shot all the evidence, and then went online to find out how she could get in touch with Mirella. Her activist cause had a website with a contact form, and Nita pasted all the information and sent it, hoping Mirella would look. There was an email required at the bottom, and Nita hesitated before creating a new account just for this. She picked a username that couldn’t be traced back to her and then sent the information off.
Nita checked back on Almeida’s email and found that there was a response from Alberto Tácunan.
Saturday, 4pm. Hotel restaurant.
Tomorrow. Nita could deal with that. She fired back a response.
Sensitive subject. Meet in my room. 403.
After a moment, there was another response.
Fine. See you then.
Nita grinned, wild and fierce. Victory.
Step one of this plan was a go. If all went well, she’d have a password tomorrow and have the data by the end of tomorrow night. She closed her eyes and imagined all that information, all that power at her fingertips, and she licked her lips. She liked the way that idea made her feel. Liked the idea of being right at the top, of pulling all the strings that made the black market move, of making all the people who’d tried to hunt her whimper and grovel at her feet in fear.
She shivered slightly and tried to push the feeling away. She wasn’t there yet. She needed to stay focused, not get caught up in fantasies.
She checked Almeida’s schedule and found nothing for this evening, so she closed his computer and looked up at Kovit. “We’re done here.”
He was staring out the window, lost in thought. He blinked and refocused on her. “Okay.”
She turned to Almeida, still bound and gagged in the chair. “We don’t need him anymore. You can do what you want to him.”
Kovit’s attention turned to Almeida, hunger in his eyes, fingers white-knuckled on his switchblade. He slid off the bed, movements lithe and precise and predatory.
Nita took the laptop and went to the door. “I’ll wait down in the lobby. Come down when you’re finished.” She looked around the room, the beige carpet and white bedspread. “Try not to make a mess. I didn’t think to bring plastic tarps. Bloodless is better.”
“No evidence left behind. Not a problem.” He smiled, wide and creepy and playful, his gaze never leaving the terrified man bound to the chair.
She quietly closed the door behind her, cutting off the man’s grunting, struggling attempts to scream through his duct tape and Kovit’s delighted laugh as he got to work.
Nineteen
NITA TOOK THE LAPTOP to the lobby and spent the next hour or so looking through Almeida’s emails and messages, trying to get a firmer grasp of the scope of the black market. She also went onto his banking account, easily accessing it using passwords from a conveniently labeled folder on the desktop, and sent herself as much of his money as she could without triggering the antifraud software.
Afterward, she closed the laptop and went into her phone’s contacts list and messaged Diana. She might be Adair’s right-hand woman, but she was a good hacker, and Nita was sure there’d be something at Tácunan Law that she could pay Diana with, if she didn’t want any of the money she’d just stolen from Almeida. To deal with security cameras at Tácunan Law, Nita would need a hacker. She’d also need to contact Diana on her own, without Adair knowing. Just in case.
A couple of minutes after she sent the text, her phone rang. She checked the caller ID, found it was from Toronto. She hesitated for a moment—she really hated phone calls, why couldn’t people just text?—before she finally picked up.
“Nita?” The voice on the other end was soft. “It’s Diana.”
“Oh. Hi.”
“You messaged me about the security camera system at Tácunan Law?” Diana sounded unsure, her voice a little high.
“Yeah.” Nita took a deep breath and leaned back. “I want to know if it’s hackable.”
Diana was quiet a moment before she asked, “Why should I help you?”
Nita sighed softly. “I’m trying to take down the DUL with the information I get there—why wouldn’t you want to help me? You’ve spent years haunted by the fear that ghouls will go up one day, that you’ll suddenly be on a kill list when you’ve never hurt anyone. It’s in your best interest to get rid of that list, the same way it is mine.”
“I know.” Diana’s voice was hard. “I know that very well.”
Nita’s voice was firm. “If it’s money you want, I just got a nice payment from a corrupt Brazilian diplomat. Easily enough to pay college tuition for you.”
With plenty left over to pay for my own tuition. Nita wouldn’t have made the offer if her own future wasn’t secure. She would go to college, but with Almeida’s funds. She could afford to be magnanimous and send Diana as well.
Diana hesitated, then whispered, “I don’t want money. I mean, I do. But more than anything, I want a promise that no matter what happens, you won’t ever try and hurt Adair again.”
Ah. So that’s what this was about.
“I’ve no interest in hurting him. Unless he does something that puts me in direct danger, you’ve no reason to worry for him.”
Diana let out a little sigh of relief. “Okay. All right. Good.”
“So, will you help?”
Diana hesitated, then asked softly, “You really think you can take down the Dangerous Unnaturals List?”
“I’m damn well going to try.”
Diana hesitated another moment, before whispering, “All right. What do you need me to do?”
; “CCTV. I don’t want the cameras picking me up. Can you hack them?”
“Well, every system is hackable. CCTV is especially vulnerable, actually—did you know most of them have software and security that’s over a decade outdated? And lots just feed directly into the internet. Sometimes Adair has me search for CCTV from gas stations that feeds into the internet and then I hack it and I can read credit cards, and he steals the numbers.”
“That explains a lot.” Nita had been wondering how he paid for things when he clearly took most of his payment in information. Toronto wasn’t cheap. “Does that mean Tácunan Law’s CCTV is feeding onto the internet?”
“In all likelihood. But if they’ve got half a brain, it’ll be locked up tight.” The click of computer keys echoed in the background. “I’ll poke around and see what I can do. Normally, for a company like Tácunan Law, I’d say hacking anything is impossible. But CCTV is a weird special case. It might be possible.”
“What do I need to do?” Nita asked.
Diana considered. “Nothing right now. I’ll contact you if I need anything from you.”
Nita agreed and hung up, uncomfortable at leaving something completely up to another person, passing off that little piece of control. But she needed to accept that she couldn’t do everything herself.
She adjusted her mental list of things to do. If she could get all this working, then she would just need to find a way to deal with the guards, if there were any. Or other potential witnesses in the building.
Kovit came down shortly after. He glowed with health, his hair as shiny as a shampoo commercial, and his skin looked so soft and smooth she wanted to reach out and touch it.
“All done?” she asked.
“Mmm.” He nodded, his eyes sleepy and contented. “All done.”
“Good.” Nita rose and tucked the laptop under her arm. “We’ve got a couple of errands to run on our way back.”
Nita used Google Maps to find Tácunan Law. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel, so they set off along Puerto Madero, the sun high and hot above them. The sunlight made the water glint too brightly to look at, and the boats bobbed up and down in the port, mostly sailboats and yacht-looking things in this part. People Rollerbladed by, and a pair of street performers did an impromptu tango show beside the water.
When they came to Tácunan Law, Nita found it was exactly like all the other buildings around it, tall and glass, a monstrosity of steel and chrome.
Kovit looked at it skeptically. “The whole thing is a law firm? Or just one floor?”
Nita frowned. “Good question. It does seem a little overkill to own an entire building.”
She stared up at it, pretending to be another awestruck tourist bumbling around. What she really wanted was a look at the area around it. Escape routes. Visibility. A sense of place.
Dozens of security cameras peppered the side of the building, and she really hoped Diana could hack them—otherwise, their break-in was going to be very short and very unsuccessful.
Kovit went inside and checked the public floor plan. He came back out and shrugged. “It looks like they’re only in three floors of the building. But it’s called the Tácunan Building, so I’m guessing Alberto Tácunan owns it and leases out the other floors.”
Nita nodded. That would make sense. It would both provide more money, as well as a good cover and front of respectability.
But it also meant that when she stole the information, the chance of other people being in the building was high. And she didn’t want witnesses.
“Any other companies in there we should be aware of?” she asked.
“I took a photo.”
He showed it to her, and she peered at the names with suspicion, but she didn’t recognize any of them. They could be anything from harmless accounting firms to fronts for more of Tácunan Law’s illegal operations. She made a frustrated sound at how useless all this was.
As they headed away, Nita was so lost in thought, she almost didn’t hear the beep of her phone. She pulled it out, thinking it was Diana with more information on the security cameras, but it wasn’t.
A small notification alert informed her that a new name and face had been uploaded by INHUP’s Dangerous Unnaturals List division.
It was Kovit.
Twenty
NITA STARED at the screen, unwilling to believe it.
Kovit’s face and name were up on INHUP.
She clicked on the link, just to confirm, because maybe it was a mistake, it was too soon, there was supposed to be a week waiting period, this wasn’t supposed to happen. But she knew even before the INHUP page loaded that it wasn’t a mistake.
The entire world was going to be hunting for him now. Millions of people subscribed to the same alerts she did. And those who didn’t would watch the news tonight and see Kovit’s face—it was rare for someone to be added to the list—so it always ended up being a big story. Most of the time, the police killed monsters before this kind of thing needed to go public.
She imagined all the people sitting in their homes as the news told them the atrocities Kovit had committed, their eyes glued to the screen as they watched the videos that Henry sent to INHUP. In her mind’s eye, the citizens swarmed over Kovit like a horde of zombies, hands grabbing, hungry for state-sanctioned blood. Kovit would flick out his switchblade, but it wouldn’t be enough to fight them all off. Eventually he’d be crushed by the press of bodies, and then he’d be the one screaming in videos posted online.
Nita forced her mind away from that image. She wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Nita? What is it? Is something wrong?” Kovit asked, leaning over and trying to see what she was staring at.
She winced. A part of her wanted to hide it, to shove her phone in her pocket, lie, and say it was nothing. Pretend that everything was all right. But she wouldn’t let herself be that person. She wouldn’t hide this from Kovit, she wouldn’t become the manipulating information hoarder her mother was.
So she raised her head, and tried to tell him. But the words wouldn’t come, they caught in her throat like she’d swallowed an egg whole.
She held out her phone, wordless, and he looked down at the notification. She’d only looked at the top, where the picture was, too scared to scroll down and see what details they’d put in about him. He looked a bit younger in the photo, maybe fifteen or sixteen, but it was very distinctly him. In the picture, his eyes were narrowed at something offscreen, his head tilted at a three-quarter angle, and the slightest hint of a sneer pulled at his features. It was not a flattering photo.
He stared at the picture a long moment, his face terrifyingly still. Then he leaned against the concrete barrier protecting people from falling into the water and slowly slid down so he was crouched against it, a small, soft keening sound emanating from his throat.
Nita knelt beside him, hovering, wishing she could do something but not knowing what to do.
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed, her voice cracked and broken. “I’m so, so sorry.”
His face broke, that perfect stillness shattering into a million glittering shards of grief. “Why is it out early?”
“I don’t know,” Nita whispered. “It was supposed to be a week. Your sister even said that was how long verification took.” Her mind scrambled. “New evidence? Confirming evidence somehow?”
Or maybe her mother had figured out who Kovit was and pulled strings with her contacts to make it go up early.
The idea made her nauseous. But if anyone could find a way around the rules and get Kovit onto the list early, it would be her mother. A sick feeling settled in her stomach.
She shoved this aside. If it was her mother, so be it. She would handle it later. Right now, it wasn’t important why or how Kovit had been added to the list. What was important was dealing with it.
Kovit trembled on the ground, his chest heaving as though he couldn’t quite get enough air. “I’m going to die.”
“No—”
“Yes, Nita. My face is up. No matter what you do, even if you destroy INHUP, it’s too late. My face is already up.”
He ran his hands through his hair, fingers curling into his scalp, and Nita knelt beside him and grabbed his hands before he could scratch his skin off with his finger-nails.
“It’s not over until it’s over.” Nita’s voice was hard and sharp and desperate.
He laughed brokenly, his voice high and a little hysterical. “Nita, no one has escaped the list once their name and face are on it. No one.”
“No one escaped Death Market either.”
“Nita, this is not something you can fix.” His voice broke, and he took a moment to collect himself, his chest heaving, his throat gulping for air. “My name is out there. It’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does. It always matters.” She pressed her hands to his cheeks. “Kovit, you can’t give up. You can’t.”
“Why?” His smile was bitter. “All my misdeeds are coming back to get me.”
Nita snorted. “You, of all people, should know there is no karmic justice in the world. There’s no meaning. You can spend your whole life being a saint and still get murdered in a random shootout,” Nita snapped, thinking of the real estate agent who’d taken a bullet meant for Nita in Toronto, her eyes widening as she cried out and fell. An innocent casualty in a war she didn’t even realize was happening. “And you can be the most terrible person in the world, and as long as you have money and power, no one will touch you.
“The world isn’t fair, Kovit.” Nita pressed her forehead to his. “Maybe you do deserve to die. Maybe you’re irredeemably evil. But I don’t care, and neither does the world. And God damn it, I’m not going to let INHUP take you from me.”
His breathing was shaky. “How? How can you stop this?”
Nita pulled away and tugged her cell phone out, giving him a gentle, careful smile. “You think I didn’t plan for this eventuality?”
When Villains Rise Page 13