Henry sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. Another gesture that Nita had seen echoed in Kovit. “I didn’t come here to fight. This isn’t going at all how I planned.” He sighed again. “I’m sorry about our argument. But one little spat shouldn’t take away a decade together.” Henry put his hand on Kovit’s shoulder in a way that seemed fatherly. “Kovit, Kovit. I promise nothing like what happened before will happen again. If you say no, I won’t push.”
Kovit stared at him with dark eyes. “A bit late for that.”
Henry put his other hand on Kovit’s opposite shoulder and faced him. “It’s never too late. We may be Family, but I really do think of you as family. I raised you, Kovit. You’re like my son. Sure we have spats, but have I ever been anything but supportive of you? Haven’t I fought for you, haven’t I shielded you from the ignorant fools who were afraid of you?”
Guilt coiled in Nita’s stomach. Are you afraid of me? he’d asked her.
She remembered the way his face cracked and the hurt in his eyes when he realized she was.
“Yes.” Kovit’s voice was small.
“Is there anyone in the world who knows you as well as I?”
Kovit looked away, eyes drifting toward Nita before jerking back to Henry.
“Come home, Kovit.” Henry’s voice was gentle. “I’ll sort it out. Life without you has been wretchedly dull.”
Kovit didn’t respond, but his eyes were on the ground. Dried flecks of blood fell from his hair like dandruff and clung to the shoulders of his shirt.
“Your room is still exactly as you left it. I haven’t touched it.” Henry leaned forward.
Kovit’s voice was soft, and he swallowed. “I’m not . . . I came here to ask you to leave me alone. I just . . . I want to be on my own for a while.”
Henry sighed. “You know I can’t do that, Kovit. Gold is here, with me. You know she’ll report all this to her father. I either come back with you or I come back with your body.”
Kovit’s voice was slow and dangerous. “And if Gold weren’t an issue?”
A smile twitched the corner of Henry’s lips. “Much as I would enjoy being free of the watchdog, I suspect it would be a death sentence for me too. And I don’t trust her enough to try bribing her.”
“Ah.” Kovit looked away and was silent for a moment. Then, “Why threaten me with the videos?” He looked down at his hands. “You know if you leak those videos, no zannie will ever come within a hundred miles of working for the Family. No vampire either. You may also lose human contractors, hit men, bruisers. Most people won’t want to work for an organization that leaks its members’ secrets instead of dealing with them in-house. It’s a terrible career move. I can’t imagine the rest of the Family will approve.” Kovit met Henry’s eyes. “So why?”
Henry’s face stilled as he studied Kovit. Finally, a slow smile slunk across his face, and he reached over, as though to cup Kovit’s cheek, but his hand stopped partway, hovering just shy of Kovit’s face. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care about any of them. I care about you.”
Kovit blinked and leaned away from the hand. “What?”
“I don’t want another zannie. I want the one I raised.” Henry paused, his eyes on Kovit’s, before leaning back and shrugging. “And the head of the Family is behind me. You know too much. He’s approved any and all measures I choose to take to deal with the security risk.”
“My information isn’t worth so much that you’ll risk alienating future employees.”
“The head of the Family might be under a different impression.” Henry winked. “But I don’t need new employees. You’re worth ten of them, anyway.”
Kovit looked away. “Is that so?”
“Of course it’s so.” Henry shifted closer. “Kovit, you’re the best of the best. And I don’t mean at torture. I mean at everything. I’ve spoken to other zannies since you left. I even hired one for a time.”
Kovit snorted. “How did that go?”
“Awful.” Henry’s voice was short and cold. “There was nothing remotely resembling humanity in her.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No.” Henry pursed his lips. “It was difficult to interact with her. It’s the impulse control. You know, I thought I wanted someone completely amoral. But the problem was that she didn’t understand or care about the value of life, and so she didn’t understand the consequences of taking it. She didn’t care, so she couldn’t understand why others did.
“You could tell her not to hurt certain people, but it was more like a guideline than a rule. When she was hungry, she wasn’t patient. She wouldn’t wait for me to bring her someone we needed punished. She just picked the first person she saw on the street.”
“I imagine that’s gone well?” Kovit’s smile was thin and sharp.
Henry’s gaze was flat. “She nearly had the entire city on the hunt for us. She kidnapped a fucking three-year-old from a park and . . . Well, afterward she just ditched the body in a construction site. Do you know how angry people get about tortured and mutilated children?”
“No—people don’t like to see children hurt?” Kovit’s voice dripped sarcasm, his mouth twisting into something cruel. “I never would have guessed.”
Henry snorted. “I had to kill her and hand the body over to INHUP. Nothing would have slaked the mob’s thirst short of death.”
Kovit’s eyes were cold. “I see. Another zannie you’ve given to INHUP. Quite friendly with them, aren’t you?”
“Don’t mock.” Henry’s eyes narrowed. “I’m trying to apologize, Kovit.”
Kovit blinked, then frowned. “Oh? That’s not what it sounded like to me.”
Henry pursed his lips. “I was dismissive of your rules. I never understood their purpose. When you refused to torture Matt, I was furious.” He scowled. “But having seen what happens with someone that has no compunctions, I’ve found that I rather appreciated a zannie with some morals, no matter how withered.”
Kovit stared, then bowed his head, hair falling into his eyes.
Henry leaned forward. “I miss you. I miss the fun we had. No one will ever accept you the way I do.” He put his hand on Kovit’s shoulder. “Come home.”
Kovit looked up and met Henry’s eyes.
And Nita knew.
He wasn’t going to give the signal to shoot Henry.
It didn’t matter if Henry didn’t budge or wasn’t going to take back his threat. Even if Kovit couldn’t talk him down, he wasn’t going to let him die. Henry’s hold on him was too strong.
Watching the two of them, the way Kovit stared at Henry, mouth opening and closing, searching for an answer, a new, slick fear coiled in the pit of her stomach.
What if Kovit went back?
The idea of being alone didn’t bother her. Nita could and would handle herself if she needed to. But the thought of losing Kovit, of having him turn away from her because she couldn’t handle him and he wanted someone who could, made her sick.