“Are you sure you don’t want to, uh . . .” Nita hesitated and then carefully said, “Relax with Fabricio for a bit? I can go out and get the phone.”

“You mean torture him until I’m so high on pain I can pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist?” Kovit’s smile was bitter. “As appealing as that sounds, I would rather be doing something to fix the problem than pretending it’ll go away on its own. Or that you’ll fix it for me.” He shook his head. “I’ve let other people control my life long enough. It’s past time I started fixing my own problems.”

For the first time she realized that while Kovit had broken something inside him when he killed Henry, he’d also made a choice to take control of his life back. Like pulling a blade from a stab wound, it hurt like hell, but in the end, you needed to do it to heal and survive.

Kovit needed to break the part of him chained to Henry’s control, the part that could let himself be tied down that way. And now that it was gone, he could start healing the damage it had caused and building his life on his own terms.

“You’re staring at me strangely.” He raised an eyebrow as he turned off the faucet.

She shook her head and smiled slightly. “Nothing. I was just worried for you since . . . Well, you know. But now I see that was for nothing.”

He looked away. “No. You were right to worry. I reacted . . . poorly.” He sighed heavily, body shaking a little. “I can’t talk about this now. Later. It’s only been a few hours. I need some time.”

“Of course.” Nita wished she hadn’t brought it up. “Whenever you need.”

He nodded, but didn’t look at her as he dried his hands. “I’ll be back soon.”

A part of her wanted to go with him, but he didn’t look like he wanted company right now. And it wasn’t a wise idea, even if he did.

Kovit wasn’t the only one with a price on his head.

As the door closed behind him, Nita pulled out her phone and scrolled through the Toronto news. Six more missing teenagers, all of whom looked just like her. When she’d checked yesterday, there’d only been three.

Nita scrolled through the faces and clicked on the news link for an article titled Gang War Ensues Over Dead Body? The Black Market Hits Toronto.

According to the article, two rival groups had started a gunfight in Markham, just north of Toronto, over the murdered body of a teenage girl who looked like Nita, both wanting to claim it as their own. Half a dozen bystanders had been wounded before one of the groups managed to steal the body.