NITA’S STEPS EVENTUALLY SLOWED as she rejoined the crowds on the street. Police sirens roared in the distance, and Nita knew that the shots in the apartment building had definitely been called in. The distinctive white and red of an ambulance roof was visible in the distance.
Maybe the woman who Gold had shot had survived. Maybe she’d used her cell phone to call for help, and that was why the ambulance was coming.
Nita swallowed, remembering the way she’d fallen, the spatter of blood on the carpet. The small scream and the silence.
She didn’t think the woman had survived.
Nita pushed through the crowd, cringing as other people pressed against her, a crushing wall of humanity. She’d somehow got onto a main thoroughfare, and it was awful.
She kept her head down as she walked, hoping to avoid notice. There was blood in her hair that had dried and streaked it a sticky black. She got a few strange looks, but there was nothing she could do.
The pavement was hard under her feet, and towering gray monoliths gave way to warm brick buildings. Time seemed to lose meaning in the crowd, and she wasn’t certain how long she was crushed in the masses before she escaped.
She cut down a side street, stepping in a shallow puddle that soaked through her shoe. Her breathing was still harsh, and her heart still pounded a frenetic beat as she took the stairs down to the subway. She’d pumped so many stress chemicals through her body, and now she needed to calm them. But she didn’t quite want to yet, just in case the trouble wasn’t over.
She wondered if she could live her whole life hyped up on adrenaline and cortisol. Probably not. She needed to sleep sometime.
The station was packed, and Nita had to walk to the very end of the platform to find somewhere less crowded. She leaned against a pillar and sighed. It had all been going so perfectly. Her trap had been flawless, and yes, it had been a little gorier than anticipated, though not as much as it could have been, if Kovit had been able to play with the cheese grater. But the plan had worked.
Until Gold showed up.
Nita thought of the dead woman. Her huge black eyes, wide and frightened as the bullet took her down. The image of blood soaking through her clothes and spattering the beige carpet slithered through Nita’s thoughts.
Her fists clenched at her sides, and she wished she had her scalpel in hand. She tried to imagine her dissection room, that calm, slow peace of taking a human apart, but she couldn’t seem to focus, and the images shattered before they even fully formed.
She leaned against the car door as the subway sped away from the scene.
What a mess. And this was only the beginning. There were going to be a lot more casualties before this was all over.
A thin line of worry gnawed its way through her heart. What if more people from the black market had showed up at the condo after Nita fled? Had Kovit made it out okay?
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and texted Kovit.
I’m fine. Heading back to Adair’s place now. Did you get out okay?
A small red circle beside the text told her it was undelivered, probably because there was no service underground. She shifted, hoping he was all right.
She transferred at Union to the weird underground streetcar again.
The girl beside her on the train was clearly getting reception, and the news crackled tinnily through her earphones.
“Four are confirmed dead in an apartment building near Yonge and Eglinton. Eyewitnesses at the scene heard gunshots and called the police, who arrived on scene to find several dead. One witness caught a cell phone video of a teenage girl fleeing the scene, pursued by two masked, armed assailants. While police are still refraining from comment, one spokeswoman says that they can’t rule out gang-related violence.”
Cell phone video. Nita rubbed the little spot between the bridge of her nose and the base of her eyebrow that was always sore. She tried to think if she’d done anything incriminating, but all she could think of was that there were going to be more videos of her online.
She got off at Bathurst and trudged back to the pawnshop.
The OPEN sign was on, and Nita stepped in warily. Diana was sitting at the cash register, curled on a chair with her laptop in her lap.
She looked up when Nita came in. “Oh, hi.”
“Hey.”
“You okay?” Diana asked, frowning at the dried blood on Nita.
“Fine.” Nita didn’t want to deal with questions, so she redirected. “Any luck decrypting?”
“Not yet.” She held up an empty tub of mint ice cream. “But I did order more ice cream for the store. We’re out, and I swear Adair eats a pint a day.”
Nita stared at the other girl and her tub of ice cream vacantly for a moment before saying, “Uh. Okay.” Another short pause, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say to that. “I’m going upstairs now.”
Before Diana could respond, Nita was halfway up the stairs. She entered the empty bedroom and let out a breath, taking comfort in the familiar peeling walls and the leaky ceiling.
She flopped onto the bed and closed her eyes.
She tried to tell herself everything was going according to plan. She’d made a show for the black market. So what if Fabricio had hired other people? She’d kill them too. They’d just be more bricks in her reputation.
But she already felt tired, and the thought of making another plan and killing more people wasn’t as appealing as it had been yesterday. It just seemed endless. How many times would she need to do this before it actually had a visible impact?
And next time, the victims probably wouldn’t be smart enough to bite their own tongues off and kill themselves. Nita really didn’t want to see the fallout of Kovit with a cheese grater.
She ran her hands over her face. She was supposed to be this badass the market would fear. How was she supposed to inspire terror if she freaked out every time Kovit picked up a cheese grater?
She sighed and closed her eyes for a few moments, her thoughts spiraling in circles.
The door cracked open, and Kovit came in. Nita sat up quickly, eyes scanning him for injuries. His eyes were tired, and some of the post-torture glow had faded from his skin. It made him look like a boy who hadn’t slept in too long.
But he looked unhurt. Nita’s shoulders loosened, and she let out a little sigh. “You’re okay.”
His eyes were exhausted, but his smile was all relief as he took her in. “I should be asking you that. You were the one chased with guns.”
“I can heal bullet wounds. I’m fine.”
“Were you shot?”
His eyes ran over her body, and she swallowed. “No. I’m fine.”
He smiled, soft and relieved. “I’m glad.”
Her heart flipped, and she looked away.
Kovit sank down on the other side of the bed. She yelped as the balance tipped and she rolled into his side.
“Miss me that much?” He laughed.
She sat up and rolled her eyes, then asked, “Did anything else happen after I left?”
“No.” He frowned, and ran a hand through his hair. “Why? Should it have?”
Nita opened her mouth, then closed it. Where to even start?
“Tell me what you know about Tácunan Law,” Nita said finally. The way Gold had said Fabricio’s family’s company made Nita worried. Like an order from them was as good as done. Like nothing anyone did could change the fate Tácunan Law decided.
“Not much.” Kovit considered. “I just know it makes sure monsters don’t get in trouble with the law. Offshore accounts. Legal shenanigans. Investigation coverups. The occasional witness silencing. But mostly money stuff. Money tells a lot of stories, and powerful people’s money trails can destroy them. Tácunan Law is kind of like Switzerland, you know? No one wants to attack it, because the whole world keeps their money there and you’d make a lot of enemies. And no one wants to piss them off, because they can leak incriminating finances to the authorities.”
They sounded like someone Nita didn’t want to mess with.
Unfortunately, they messed with her first.
Fabricio was using his father’s reputation to shield himself and kill Nita. If Nita could somehow shatter that reputation . . . No. Steal that reputation for herself . . .
Kovit sat down beside her. “Nita.”
“Yes?”
“The woman who chased you.” He folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them.
“What about her?”
“I know her.” He swallowed and met her eyes. “She’s part of the Family I worked for.”