Fabricio’s body slumped. “You won’t believe me if I say no, will you?”
“Probably not.”
“Look, you can’t break in there.”
Nita crossed her arms. “Why not?”
“It’s . . .” Fabricio struggled for a moment. “It’s just a bad idea. You’ll die.”
“That’s my business.”
“The building is a labyrinth. You’d need me to guide you and key in all the security codes.”
“Then I suppose you’d have to come with us.”
“Then it’s my business too.”
Nita leaned forward. “Fabricio. You have a choice right now. You can do what I want, and live a while longer. Or Kovit here can slowly torture and murder you. Which will you pick?”
Fabricio’s body trembled, and his eyes flicked to Kovit, then quickly away. “Why do you want this information?”
“Because it’s protection.” Adair had given her the idea, with all his talk of using information to bribe himself off the Dangerous Unnaturals List. It made her think of how untouchable Tácunan was, how powerful he was.
Nita had been going about building her reputation all the wrong way. She wanted people to fear her, to not want to risk attacking her for fear of the consequences. But she’d tried to do it with violence—and no one on the market feared violence. They were too accustomed to it, too desensitized to it.
Violence was a tool, an important one. But it wasn’t going to make her feared.
If she really wanted to keep the powerful people away from her and protect herself, she needed something far more frightening. She needed their secrets.
She needed the information contained in Tácunan Law.
Fabricio was staring at the floor, his blood dripping silently onto the beige carpet from his chin. He finally whispered, “Okay. I’ll help you.”
“You mean you’ll play along until you have a chance to escape, and then you’ll run for the hills.” Nita pulled out her phone. “Don’t worry—I prepared for that.”
All her time in Toronto, Nita hadn’t been thinking enough moves ahead. Nita didn’t play chess, but she imagined it was like a chess game—she couldn’t act based on the immediate result. She needed to think of how her opponent would respond, and how she’d respond to that and so on, imagining as far as possible into the game. She needed to be thinking dozens of moves ahead, to try and predict what ripples each of her actions would cause other people to do.
She could never imagine all the ripples, because she didn’t know all her enemies. The whole market was after her, nebulous and unknown, and she wasn’t sure what any group was doing at any given time. But she could guess, and she could plan based on the people she knew were after her.
She was going to start with Fabricio.
“You see,” Nita continued, “I’ve been taking screenshots and compiling information against you.” Nita showed him the folder on her phone, pictures of his conversations with Henry, his demands to kill Nita. “I’ve been recording this conversation too. I’ll blur my own voice, but you’ve confessed to plenty. If you try and run off, I’ll just release all that info.”
“You leak me to INHUP, I leak you.” His voice was cold.
“Oh, I never said I’d leak it to INHUP.” She smiled. “I’ll leak it to the black market. I’m sure a lot of people will be interested in you. And your knowledge.” She winked. “I can’t be the only one thinking how easy it would be to rob Tácunan Law using you.”
He paled. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . Because that was what happened to you! Would you really do that to another person?”
“To you?” Nita leaned forward, her voice lowering into a hiss. “Fabricio, there is no torment in the world I wouldn’t inflict on you.”
He stared at her, eyes wide and frightened, breathing short and sharp.
“So, you’ll help me break into your father’s offices and steal the information. Won’t you?”
He nodded, eyes never leaving her. “Yes.”
Nita clapped her hands together. “Excellent.”
Fabricio swallowed. “Will you let me go now?”
“Oh, no. I still have more questions.”
He slumped.
Nita licked her lips. “Does your family have a vampire on the payroll?”
Fabricio considered. “Not directly, no. But there are vampire clients. I suppose it’s possible my father could ask them to do things for him.”
Nita scratched off a piece of dried blood from her chin as she thought. “Do you know what these vampires look like?”
“No. I’ve never met a vampire.”
It hadn’t been much of a hope. The more she thought about it, the more sure she was that Zebra-stripes wasn’t directly connected to Fabricio’s father. It didn’t make sense. If they were working together, why would Reyes have turned him away at the market?
No. Nita suspected that Zebra-stripes was another faction somewhere in this mess, and something that had happened around the time of Fabricio’s kidnapping—perhaps the reason for Fabricio’s kidnapping?—had led Zebra-stripes to her father.
Nita crossed her arms and asked him the last question, the one Adair had told her she should focus on. “Fabricio?”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you go home after I set you free?”
He froze. “Personal reasons.”
“Tell me.”
“No.” His voice was soft.
Nita raised an eyebrow. “Kovit is still here, ready and eager to torture you.”
He glared at her. “I’ll never help you get to my father’s files if you let that monster hurt me.”
Nita shrugged. “Sure you will. It’s that or death. I’ll ask Kovit not to do anything too permanent.”
Fabricio stared at her, his blue-gray eyes wide. “You’re a monster.”
Nita leaned forward, so she was nose to nose with Fabricio. “I became what I had to become to get out of the market you sold me to.”
Fabricio flinched and looked away.
“So tell me, Fabricio. What are you running from? What’s so bad back home that you felt the need to sell off the person who saved you and go into hiding?”
Fabricio’s eyes squeezed shut and small tears leaked out. He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t and won’t are different things.” Nita shook her head slowly. “And since your mouth seems to work, and your brain seems to work, I think you should be saying ‘I won’t tell you.’”
He bowed his head and began to cry. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t find another way to get the money I needed to run away.”
Nita sighed. “You didn’t need the money. You were going to INHUP.”
“I couldn’t stay there. It wasn’t safe. I knew I only had a short window before I was recognized.”
“By someone in INHUP?”
He nodded tightly. “They’d sell me the way they sold you.”
Nita stilled. “Pardon?”