He stared at her. “Of course.”
“Do you think you’ll survive if he leaks that video?”
“No.”
“Do you want to work for him again?”
He shivered softly, and Nita couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or fear. He took a long time to respond, but when he spoke, his voice was firm. “No.”
“All right. Then tell me—how are we going to deal with his blackmail?”
“I’ll talk to him.” Kovit tilted his chin up. His dark eyes were tight, and his face could have been a statue.
“All right,” Nita said amicably. “Do you think that will work?”
He hesitated, then looked away. “Probably not.” He let out a breath and met her eyes. “But I’m still going to try.”
Nita bit down choice words of frustration. It would be so much easier to just kill Henry and get on with things. She didn’t need this extra complication.
“Fine.” Nita sighed. “If you can’t talk him out of it, we kill him, though.”
“Nita—”
“Is there another way to stop him aside from killing him?” she snapped.
“No.” The words sounded like she’d scraped them from his throat with a butter knife.
“Then it’s settled.” She pursed her lips. “Now, we’re going to need to deal with Fabricio first, since his plane is arriving shortly. I assume you have no problem with killing him?”
He smiled, slow and contented and full of anticipation. “None at all.”
Thirty-One
THE AIRPORT WAS BUSIER than Nita remembered, and she stuck close to Kovit as they walked through. There was only one direct Bogotá–Toronto flight, so it hadn’t been too hard to figure out Fabricio’s arrival time. It was the same flight Nita had taken. They could have chosen a flight with a layover, but Nita was pretty sure that INHUP would always use direct flights where possible.
Nita and Kovit walked along the passenger pickup and drop-off area, heading to the area where INHUP had waited for her before. Nita had been worried that they would stand out at the airport, her memories of North America tied strongly to her very white Chicago suburb, but this was Toronto, and she hadn’t needed to worry. They blended in easily.
They rounded a bend and saw a section for airport vehicles. A black, nondescript van parked right at the end, one that looked exactly like the one that had picked Nita up, right down to the license plate in the front.
Found you.
They approached, and the same square-jawed driver that had picked her up was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Nita frowned, ducking a bit behind Kovit, so she wasn’t recognized.
Kovit turned to her. “You sure about this?”
“Of course. It’ll be fine.”
He looked doubtful, but he approached the van. Nita circled around behind another vehicle, out of view. Kovit rapped gently on the driver’s window, and when it lowered, he asked, “Excuse me, I’m lost. Can you tell me where terminal three pickup is?”
Nita couldn’t make out the words of the INHUP driver, but she slipped closer to the car, running low while Kovit kept the man occupied so that she was crouched in front of the grille. She ducked her face, keeping it down as she moved. When she did look up it was to check for security cameras.
The last thing she needed was yet more attention.
She couldn’t see any pointing directly at them, though that wasn’t a guarantee. And even if there were, they wouldn’t be reviewed until well after she’d made her escape. Kovit, with his dark hair falling into his eyes and obscuring his features, would be unidentifiable.
Nita was a little more distinctive, since she was already known to INHUP. Which was why she’d tucked her hair under a baseball cap and brought fluid into her nose and cheeks so they swelled up, deforming her features. It was uncomfortable, and she was going to change it the moment they were out of the public eye, but it was good enough for now.
Kovit’s eyes never even flicked to her, though she knew he’d seen her duck in front of the car. He backed up from the vehicle and started pointing. “So, I go that way, then into the building where that orange sign is? Or where the green sign is?”
The INHUP agent hesitated, then got out of the car to point for Kovit.
Perfect.
Nita slipped in behind him, shoved a needle in his neck, and pushed down on the plunger.
The man’s eyes rolled up, but before he could finish falling, Kovit and Nita each grabbed an arm and casually looped them over their shoulders so it looked like the man was still standing. Nita popped the trunk, and they shoved the unconscious body inside.
Nita put the used needle back in the small metal case. The drugs and syringe were courtesy of Adair, items Nita had added to her deal with him. Nita didn’t ask why he had a stash of ketamine in his shop already, or what he used it for. She didn’t want to know.
She looked down at the unconscious man in the trunk and swallowed, her mind slipping back to when she’d been captured by Reyes. The feel of the needle in her shoulder, how fast the drug had covered her glutamine receptors.
She could still remember the sensation of her fingers scraping the floor and the all-encompassing fear, the desperate crawl to the bathroom to stall for time until her mother came. Only Nita hadn’t made it more than a foot. And her mother had never come.
“Nita? You gonna close that?”
Nita blinked and looked to Kovit, eyes squinting in memory. “Hey, I never asked you.”
He tilted his head. “What?”
“Were you there when Reyes drugged and kidnapped me in Lima?”
He shook his head. “I never got to leave the market. If I’d been in Lima, I’d’ve run.”
Nita tried to pull up the memory again. Had it been Fabricio who injected her? She remembered a boy and a smile and Reyes’ shoes. But nothing else.
Or had it just been some random lackey hired by Reyes?
Nita shook her head and closed the trunk. It didn’t matter.
Kovit had taken the jacket and sunglasses from the unconscious man and now put them on and got in the driver’s side of the car. “How do I look?”
Nita considered. “Fine, but definitely not like the guy who was here before.”
“Is it the hair?” Kovit smoothed his tousled hair.
Nita snorted. “It’s the skin. He was white as a Hollywood action star. And you’re—”
“Not.” He grinned. “I’m prettier, though.”
“You are,” Nita agreed, because it was true, especially after he’d eaten pain. Which, given the brittleness of his hair and the bags under his eyes, he should do soon. “But they’re going to notice pretty fast you’re not who you should be.”
He shrugged. “You’ll just have to be fast with the sedative.”
Nita nodded and crawled in the back. After a moment, she reconsidered and got in the trunk with the unconscious man. Better angle.
Not a moment too soon. Because down the parking aisle, two familiar figures approached the car.
Fabricio walked carefully, his eyes nervous and flicking around, his mouth pinched. The angle of the sun cast his face in shadow, darkening the blue-gray of his eyes to a near black, and shot black and gold highlights through his dark brown hair.